Posted to Train New Pilots in Cairo

Heroes Remember

Posted to Train New Pilots in Cairo

Transcript

This is actual combat flying, you can’t, if you take your engine up for an engine test or a cannon test or something there, that’s not operational hours. It has to be actual hours on active duty on the battlefield. That’s the, it seemed like a hell of a long time sometimes getting in that two hundred hours. Interviewer: So when you got your two hundred hours in, your operational tour was over. I was finished, yeah. Interviewer: What, what happened then? Then I was sent back to Cairo, and I was sent to an operational training unit down there to train young pilots who were arriving in the Middle East how to fly Kittyhawks, and Tomahawks, and Spitfires, and Hurricanes. I had one session I had to, they’d given the Turks a bunch of Hurricanes and we had to teach the Turkish pilots how to fly Hurricanes. We only had one interpreter and you’d take em up in a Harvard, which has two seats of course, and try to talk to the guy and tell him to do this and do that and do the other thing, and they’re... They were already pilots, although they hadn’t flown any really highly operational aircraft like a Hurricane or a Spitfire or even a Harvard. Their aircraft were way, you know, old, ancient aircraft, and I had a few very very shaky dues because we didn’t, didn’t have, couldn’t, didn’t have an interpreter in the cockpit and these guys would decide to do something I didn’t want them to do. We had some great, that was quite interesting for a while. Interviewer: It might have been safer back at the front. Oh much safer. I, I told the CO one day, I said, “Christ, Neville, why, how about sending me back.” He says... I says, “This, this is more dangerous than it ever was up at the front. At least I knew what the hell was going on up there."

Description

Mr. Chisholm speaks of reaching his required 200 hours of operational flying and returning to Cairo to train new pilots.

William Lawrence (Red) Chisholm

Mr. Chisholm’s father was a station agent in Berwick, Nova Scotia with the Dominion Atlantic Railway. He moved his family to the station in Windsor, Nova Scotia and then later left the railroad and bought a store in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Mr. Chisholm completed his education in the Kentville school system. He worked briefly with his father after graduation from high school then went to work as a brakeman for the Dominion Atlantic Railway. After enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940, he took his initial training in Toronto. He was then one of about 500 sent to the first class at British Air Training Program Training School in Regina for a period of two months. After completing his training he moved to a Flying School in London, Ontario. Mr. Chisholm went on to become an ace pilot and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), with bar.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 02:20
Person Interviewed:: William Lawrence (Red) Chisholm
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Africa
Branch:: Air Force
Units/Ship:: 92nd Operational Squadron
Rank:: Sergeant
Occupation:: Pilot

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Posted to Train New Pilots in Cairo

Heroes Remember