Evening star., 1941-08-17

tower at the edge of the field contact is
maintained with planes aloft.
Large comfortable barracks house
rows Of double-decker beds for the en-
listed personnel. The officers quarters
for those below the rank Of squadron
leader consist Of single rooms, while
those of and above this rank are pro-
vided with bedroom, living room and
bath, all simple but comfortable.
The hospital at the post would do
credit to any town of 5000 inhabitants.
Stated by four r. A. F. medical officers
and Is technicians, orderlies and clerks
the hospital contains IS bedrooms,
complete operating room and X-ray
equipment. Just of one corridor is
small room with four beds, their cover
ings folded in peculiar manner. This is
the crash room" where casualties are
brought for immediate treatment. Cas-
ualties, particularly fatalities, are never
mentioned in conversations at the post.
In addition, the station also maintains
a large recreation hall, decorated in the
R. A. F. motif complete with large stage
and projecting room. Motion pictures
are shown twice week and frequently
entertainers visiting Winnipeg make
the 125-mile trek to Carberry to per-
form for the r. A. F. The mess hall at
the post is operated as a huge cafeteria,
open "A hours day. One Of its chief
features is a machine which produces
420 doughnuts an hour.
Bring Families.
Some of the officers have brought their
families to Carberry and have installed
them in nearby farmhouses or in homes
of the townsfolk. For those officers and
enlisted men who still have families in
England the situation seems somewhat
ironical.
Our position seems just the reverse
of what we had expected" said one. "At
first We thought we'd be the ones taking
the risks and that our families would be
safe Now they are the ones who face
the danger"
Sometimes this aspect of life at Car
berry is more than just an occasional
men has to be told that his mother,
brother and sister were all killed in an
air raid at home.
However, from a less personal point
of view, there are very definite military
advantages in bringing part of the
Royal Air Force training program to
Canada.
In the first place the training program
in England Is limited by the size of the
British Isles and the proportionate num-
ber of air fields, the majority of which
are required for operational rather than
for training purposes. Fog in Britain
often restricts the number of flying days
for training purposes and also involves
risk of forced landings by immature
pilots in thickly populated areas. More
over the whereabouts and identity of
every British plane aloft must be known
to the ground command. Thus every
additional training plane in the air over
Britain merely increases the work of
ground commands which are already
adequately occupied keeping track Of
their fighting forces.
Colorful Types.
Carberry is not without its personalities
among the officer staff.
The commanding officer, Group Capt.
Walker, has had long and colorful
career with the R. A. F. and the old
R. &C. A rancher in the Argentine, he
joined the old r. F. G. in 1916, serving on
the Palestine front until 1918. Then he
helped carry out the 2,500-mile survey of
the r. A. F. route from Cairo to Cape
town through Central Africa. This took
two-and-a-half years to complete. From
1920 to 1925 he was assistant air attache
in Paris, later returning to Palestine for
a six-year tour of duty. Then came two
years in the Air Ministry intelligence
division and another two years as wing
commander of bomber squadron. When
the present war broke out he returned
to the Air Ministry for intelligence work
until he was sent to Canada last De-
cember.
Then there is Group Capt Walkers
administrative assistant, 55-year-old
Flight 1t Frank Ballard, who at 13 was
a bugler in his fathers regiment during
the Boer War. Flight 1t. Ballard first
began flying in 1910 in an old Spencer
biplane, his interest in flying having
stemmed from professional automobile
and motorcycle racing. In the first World
War he spent 20 months in France as
fighter pilot and later went to Canada
where he trained American pilots be-
fore they were sent overseas
All Of the officers at Carberry insist
the training work in Canada is every
bit as strenuous as combat service.
1.-THE one advantage is that you can fly
without always keeping one eye out for
jerry" said one, "But the mosquitoes al.
most make up for it."
J. /