Page 134 - The Wish Stream Year of 2022

together with a new way of saluting and new rank insignia.
Creation of the RAF College
As Chief of the Air Staff, one of Lord Trenchard’s visions for the new service was to build a college for its officers along the same lines as Dartmouth, Woolwich and Sandhurst. It had been gener- ally considered that officers for the RAF would continue to be trained by the Army or Navy, but Trenchard felt very strongly that a college spe- cifically for the RAF would help to strengthen the calibre, quality and spirit of the new Service, and provide tangible evidence that the RAF was to be a permanent feature of Britain’s military landscape. A very practical argument in favour against joint officer training at Dartmouth, Wool- wich or Sandhurst was that RAF officer cadets would not be able to be taught how to fly owing to the lack of airfields and suitable surrounding countryside for the inevitable forced landings by solo students!
RNAS/RAF Cranwell had come close to closing at the end of the War owing to demobilisation and defence cuts, but Trenchard felt it an ideal location for the new college. It already had an airfield and suitable surrounding countryside, and as he later told his biographer: ‘I thought they’d dislike Cranwell to start with, but hoped that eventually they’d appreciate my intentions. Marooned in the wilderness, cut off from pas- times they could not organise for themselves, the cadets would find life cheaper, healthier and more wholesome, and they would have less cause to envy their contemporaries at Sandhurst or Dartmouth’. Cranwell was far from the ‘vice and pleasure areas’’ of London and was a bleak place at first, then with few traditions of its own. But its supreme attraction to the cadets was that it is a marvellous place for flying.
The Treasury gave the green light in September 1919 for the new college of sufficient size to accommodate 200 cadets and 50 officers and airmen, together with associated civilian aca- demic staff. The first course began at Cranwell on 5 February 1920 with an entry of 52 cadets, using the existing accommodation, mainly com- prised of the old corrugated iron naval huts. As with Dartmouth, Woolwich and Sandhurst, par- ents were required to pay annual fees (of around £7000 in today’s money over the two-year course). Entry age for cadets was between 171⁄2 and 19 and selection was by written exams (in English, History, Maths and Geography), inter-
view and full aircrew medical. Four King’s Cadet- ships were awarded by the Treasury on each entry for whom fees and uniform expenses were paid. Other charitable scholarships were also endowed from time to time.
The College initially was intended to train only pilots, with a two-year course in practical and theoretical airmanship, in addition to learning to fly the approved training machine (then the Avro 504 with the DH6 for first solo). The instruction also included drill, physical training, map read- ing, elementary science, wireless, air gunnery, aircraft rigging and basic engine mechanics. On leaving the College, cadets were commissioned as Pilot Officers and then underwent further advanced flying training at Andover.
Building of College Hall
Although the decision to replace the old naval huts by a permanent college building was made in 1922, it was not until 1929 that the founda- tion stone was laid by Lady Maud Hoare, wife of Sir Samuel Hoare, the Secretary of State for Air. At that time, no expenditure for the new build- ing had been authorised by the Treasury and so the stone was laid on its own in the empty proposed field and later, during building, moved into its correct position in the front exterior wall of College Hall. The architect appointed was James Grey West of the government Office of Works. He designed the college building in a neo-classical style incorporating elements of William Barlow’s St Pancras Station and Chris- topher Wren’s Royal Chelsea Hospital. It is built of rustic and moulded brick with features of Portland Stone, and incorporates an impressive 150-foot tower with internal rotunda and was completed in September 1933. The first cadets to occupy it moved in shortly after. But it was not until a year later (in October 1934) that Col- lege Hall was formally opened by HRH Edward, Prince of Wales (later briefly Edward VIII in 1936 until his abdication the same year) once the gar-
132 HISTORICAL