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  • Crossroads: Basic Flying School

    During basic flight training, a cadet received approximately 70 hours in the air during a nine-week period. The basic school made military pilots of those who had learned only the fundamentals of flight in primary school. In addition to operating an airplane of greater weight, horsepower and speed,

  • Into the Sky: Primary Flying School

    When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the U.S. Army Air Forces continued with the type of pilot training program it had originally established in 1939 -- primary flying school operated by civilian companies under contract, and basic and advanced flying schools operated by the

  • Cadet Program

    The flying cadet program to train pilots, navigators and bombardiers was demanding. Following application and appointment as an Aviation Cadet, a man was usually sent to one of three classification and preflight centers established at Nashville, Tenn.; San Antonio, Texas; or Santa Ana, Calif. There

  • AAF Training During WWII

    One of the greatest accomplishments of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II was the training of hundreds of thousands of flying and ground personnel for its air armada. Coming from all walks of life, they were molded into the most formidable Air Force the world had ever seen. Before the war,

  • Two Escapes: Capt. Jack Ilfrey

    Capt. Jack Ilfrey, an ace who ended the war with eight victories, twice escaped capture. In November 1942, on a ferry flight from England to North Africa, Ilfrey diverted to an airfield in neutral Portugal because of a malfunctioning drop tank. The Portuguese seized his P-38 and Ilfrey was to be

  • Escape and Evasion Accounts

    Doolittle Raiders After bombing Japan on April 18, 1942, all but one of the sixteen B-25 Doolittle Raid crews crashed or bailed out in China (The remaining crew landed in the USSR, and they successfully escaped internment in 1943). Thanks to the generous help of the Chinese people, 64 of the 75

  • Tools of the Trade

    USAAF airmen were supplied with many tools to help them evade the enemy if they were downed or to escape from POW camps if they were captured. In addition to these, ingenious POWs made their own from material at hand.Evasion PursesEvasion purses were issued to aircrews before they flew over enemy

  • MIS-X: The U.S. Escape and Evasion Experts

    Modeled on the British escape branch M.I.9, the top secret MIS-X (Military Intelligence Service-X) organization gave U.S. service personnel formal training and special tools for escape and evasion. Their efforts helped those airmen who were evading and those who had become POWs. MIS-X craftsmen

  • A Successful Evasion

    Second Lt. Ralph K. Patton, a B-17 copilot, was one of thousands to evade capture with the help of the citizens and the Allied intelligence network in western Europe. Shot down by enemy fighters and anti-aircraft fire over western France on Jan. 5, 1944, he evaded for three days until picked up by

  • Primary Evasion Lines in Western Europe

    The three major evasion lines in western Europe were the Pat Line (also known as the O'Leary or P.A.O. Line), the Comet Line and the Shelburne Line.Click here to return to Winged Boot: Escape and Evasion in World War II.