Document Type
Newsletter
Publication/Presentation Date
Fall 2025
Reflection
It is 84 years since BFTS Cadets first came to America from all parts of Great Britain and Ireland and 80 years since those on the last courses went home when WW2 ended and the remaining four British Flying Training Schools (#1, 3, 4 and 5) closed. While in America, all the cadets thought of their families and things that made their homeland special. As we approach Remembrance Sunday (or Armistice/Veterans’ Day), we remember those cadets who forever remain in America, those who lie in a foreign field and those with no known grave. We also remember those cadets who came home but now have ‘handed in their logbooks’. Each one had their own special memories of home as they embarked on the long journey to America and later as pilots, these memories went with them when they left on a mission often without knowing exactly what they would encounter and whether they would return.
I have thought a great deal about the cadets this year. In May, I was at Oak Ridge Cemetery, Arcadia, at the 5BFTS British Memorial Day Service and on November 9, I shall be in Mesa to lay a wreath for the Fallen and remember cadets from 4BFTS who died in Arizona and other BFTS cadets who died elsewhere. Chandler Mock, an ERAU student, is writing biographies for those 5BFTS cadets who lie at Oak Ridge, the ERAU Eagle Heritage Podcast Project is live and the 5BFTS digital archive project is expanding. In September, I went to the UK National Memorial Arboretum to check on the 5BFTS Grove of 5 trees and the three plaques for #1, 4 and 5 BFTS and in October, I went to the RAF Museum at Cosford, took a “journey through the history of RAF Bomber Command” and reacquainted myself with the Mosquito (the Wooden Wonder), my father’s favourite aeroplane.
On Remembrance Sunday, many young people from uniformed and civil organisations will be marching in parades, some will be laying wreathes and others, like my granddaughter, will be playing the Last Post and Reveille. There are so few WW2 veterans left now; it is for us, the generations who follow, to keep their memories alive and importantly, tell our young people why we must remember and never forget.
‘Their efforts to preserve the freedom of the world were not in vain and will never be forgotten.’
Scholarly Commons Citation
Harding, J. A. (2025). 5 BFTS Association Newsletter No.32 - Autumn 2025. , (). Retrieved from https://commons.erau.edu/bfts-clewiston-newsletters/31
