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Bruce and Douglas Warren

No. 3 Service Flying Training School, Calgary was operating old Anson aircraft brought over from England. Production was just starting in Canada, and the spares situation was grim, especially so for wheels and tires. To overcome this to some extent, the maintenance crew had serviceable aircraft sitting up on jacks in the hangar but without wheels or tires. When an aircraft went unserviceable, the wheels and tires were taken off and placed on one of the aircraft up on jacks. This aircraft then went onto the flight line at once.

Our ground school covered the expected subjects—technical details of the Anson aircraft, such as engine handling, fuel and electrical systems, and operation of the undercarriage. This last was a subject of some concern, for the wheels had to be wound up and down by hand, and a good number of turns of the crank was required.

On the 20th of September, a "Wings Parade" for the graduating class was held and almost 60 pilots were awarded Wings. A few were retained in Canada as instructors, with the promise that they would be sent overseas in about one year's time. We were looking forward to starting our flying.

Three days later, our flying training started at Calgary. I was airborne with Pilot Officer (P/0) Speed for one hour, of which only 20 minutes was counted as dual. The other 40 minutes was counted as passenger time, for Speed had two other trainees airborne as well. Each student pilot received 20 minutes instruction at the controls, and the remainder of the time one looked over the instructor and student pilot's shoulder to learn a bit about flying the Anson Mkl aircraft. The same applied to my twin, and he received 30 minutes of instruction while airborne for two hours with Sergeant Short.

...Seven of us were notified the next day that we would be sent to No. 34 Service Flying Training School at Medicine Hat, because the shortage of available Anson aircraft forced a reduction in the number of students that could be accommodated at Calgary. We were assured that Medicine Hat had good serviceability, with the Oxford aircraft flown there. On the 25th of September we departed from Calgary, arriving at Medicine Hat just in time to pick up our blankets and go to our quarters.

 ...We joined a course just starting, which was all English trainees, for No. 34 Service Flying Training School was Royal Air Force (RAF) school, manned by RAF personnel, both air and ground. Imagine our consternation when, again, we were told that, because of a shortage of aircraft, we were to take all ground school first before flying. It was suggested that the entire month of October might be needed to finish the resident course before we started flying.

And so it was. All of October we studied the technical details of the Oxford aircraft and other subjects, such as advanced navigation, bomb aiming, wireless operation and Aldis lamp, many aspects of which we had covered before while at Calgary.

The Aldis lamp blinking out messages in Morse code was a difficult subject for many—not to send the message, but to receive it. The procedure was that we students would be assembled some distance from the sender and we had to write down the message being sent. Two rather mature RAF NCOs were in charge of the exam. When our group's turn to receive the message came, and the light starting flashing, the NCO said, "Now why is he asking what was the name of the film last night?" and we wrote down, "what was the name of the film last night?" and we all passed that phase of the test. I must confess, some of us worried about whether this was the right thing to do. However, the NCO must have known something, for I was never required to read the Aldis lamp after that.

Then, a most significant change took place that altered our futures completely. As the course ahead of us was close to finishing the flying portion of their training, an announcement was made stating another type of aircraft would be brought in for our course. So, all our Oxford ground school was for naught, but we were delighted to learn that the replacement aircraft would be the Harvard.

In most instances, students trained on Anson and Oxford aircraft or, later, Cessna Cranes, and then went on to twin or multi-engined aircraft in Bomber Command, night fighters, or Coastal Command. Those trained on the single-engine Harvard generally ended up on operations flying Hurricanes, Spitfires or Tomahawks. It seemed every one wanted to be a fighter pilot, and the whole course was thrilled by the change of aircraft. But, again, we had to start a new series of ground-school lectures designed for the training of single-engine pilots. No one complained.

The Harvard aircraft... was an excellent advanced trainer. A wingspan of 42 feet, length of 29 feet, with a radial air-cooled engine and top speed of 212 mph was a handful at first for most trainees. It was said if you could fly a Harvard, you could fly anything, and certainly the first models had a rather vicious ground loop if the pilot was careless. Also, because of the tip speed of the propeller when changing pitch, a distinctive "wow-wow-wow" resulted, which proclaimed to all, far and wide, that a Harvard was in the circuit...

While our day-to-day flying carried on, we also took ground-school training, for there was some difference between the subjects taught to students on single engine aircraft as opposed to students on twin engine aircraft. One of our subjects was instrument flying in the Link Trainer....Near the end of November, we started night flying. Previously we had several hours "under the hood" flying on instruments. The instructor in the back cockpit would keep a sharp lookout for other aircraft as well as teaching the student instrument flying. Instrument flying was not very popular, but we regarded it as necessary part of our course...

At this time, our first fatal casualty of training occurred. James Pryor, called "Jim" by all of us, crashed while night flying and was killed. Strange, but as we were all in the crew room getting dressed for flight, Jim had said, "I don't know if I will ever get this night flying right, every time I get up there I don't know what the hell I'm doing." No one paid much attention, for Jim, a bit older than the rest of us (26 years old) was always joking and had a great sense of humour. Before joining up, he had worked with a newspaper in Lethbridge. Jim Pryor was buried in the Mountain View Cemetery at Lethbridge. Some students were a part of the funeral party. It was a very sad occasion for all of us.

On the 7th of December 1941, the Japanese struck Pearl Harbour and the United States was brought into the war. We were shaken by the attack, and the devastation wrought by the Japanese carrier fleet. We felt the war was going badly for our side, for, although the Americans had not been at war, we at least felt that they were supporting our efforts. Now that they had a war of their own, would they continue to send equipment and supplies such as had been done under a Lend-Lease agreement?

Of course, the Americans serving with the RCAF (we had none in our group), were torn between staying in Canada or trying to get back to the United States and enter American forces. Many stayed in training in Canada. There were two basic reasons for this, I feel. The first was the fact that many of those who were training as pilots had tried to join the United States Army Air Corp before coming to Canada and were not enlisted, as peace-time standards required a college degree. The other reason was that the men who wanted "to get into action" had a better chance of doing so at an earlier date if they completed their training in Canada.

In addition, not only did the United States declare war on Japan, it also declared war on Germany and its allies. All of North America had a common goal from the 7th of December. It was ON TO VICTORY!!!!

December was a very busy month for Course 29, which was the number of the course we were on. In the first 17 days of the month, I flew 34 times for a total of 45 hours and 50 minutes. Duke flew almost exactly the same—35 flights for a total 45 hours and five minutes. Included in that total, we both flew 11 hours at night. On the 16th of December, after a check ride with the Flight Commander, we were put up for our Wings test with the Chief Flying Instructor. There were several other students waiting their tests, but Flight Lieutenant (F/Lt) Pexton, the CFI said, "Leave the Warrens for me. They look alike and I want to see if they fly the same." When he landed after his flight with Duke (I had flown first), he said in the crew room, "They fly so much alike, I cannot tell them apart by the way they handle the aircraft." We had qualified for our Wings!

On the evening of the 18th, there was a party in the airmen's mess and the course with all the instructors and senior station staff attended ... Our instructor, Flying Officer Cherrington, approached us during the evening and told us we had both received an above average mark on our Wings test. He congratulated us, and then said, "I have a question. Why do you both have the same nickname?" This was a question frequently asked, and it goes back to our school days when a teacher explained to the class that we were duplicates of each other. Rather than the other youngsters calling us "duplicates", they shortened the name to "Dupes". Dupe is not a very flattering name, so we changed it to Duke and it stuck. We always referred to each other as Duke.

The Warrens were subsequently posted overseas, to Northwest Europe. They flew day- and night-fighter operations, first with 165 Squadron, then with 66 Squadron. With 165, they shot down four enemy aircraft between the two of them. Bruce also did some instructing, and Doug conducted night exercises with night bombers. Both received Distinguished Flying Crosses for their skill and courage as fighter pilots.