Page 6 - Robert Joseph Harding

28 Service Flying Training School, a training unit within 51 Group was the next unit
Robert went to on June 7 1944. This unit was stationed at RAF Wolverhampton
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now renamed RAF Cosford.

3 (Pilot) Advanced Flying Training School was the next unit Robert was posted to on
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July 4 . This unit was part of 23 (Training) Group. Here he would have continued
training pilots. The unit’s location was at RAF South Cerney near
Cirencester, Gloustershire.

Roberts’s time as a flying instructor was now at an end and he was posted back into
Bomber Commands training units in preparation for a posting to an operational
squadron. Robert on August 18 was posted to RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire,
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the unit stationed there was 16 Operational Training Unit (part of 92 Training Group).
It was here he met for the first time his new crew (minus the flight engineer). The
crew’s were assembled into a hangar and told by the Station Officers to form
themselves into crew’s.

This simple but effective method of crew forming, leaving it to the air crew’s to sort
themselves, without interference from higher quarters worked well.

The only crew member who had no say in which crew he went to was the flight
engineer. This airman was still undergoing his training at Flight Engineers School
and would not join the crew until they got to their last training unit,
the Heavy Conversion Unit.

At Upper Heyford the crew converted to the twin engine Vickers Wellington medium
Bomber. This workhorse of the training units was ex squadron and as such was war
weary with strained airframes and worn out engines. It was well known that
propellers and engines would part from the airframe. Bad enough an experienced
tour expired instructor flying in a dodgy aircraft but mix that with an inexperienced
crew and you had the makings of a disaster, as was all too common. 8195 aircrew
under training were lost in training accidents during the war years. Robert would
need all his experience gained from the training units he had been at previously to
complete this hurdle.

RAF Lindholme, on the southern outskirts of Doncaster in South Yorkshire (71 Base)
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was the next unit the crew were sent to on December 8 1944, they were joined
here by their new flight engineer. They would not be at the station long before being
posted to RAF Blyton, some 10 miles south of Scunthorpe.

Lindholme was the base station for three Heavy Conversion Units. The resident
H.C.U at Lindholme was 1656, with sub stations at RAF Sandtoft, 1667 H.C.U (some
10 miles East of Doncaster and RAF Blyton, 1662 H.C.U.

Lindholme was therefore 7 (Training) 1 (Base) (71 Base). Up to November 1944 this
base had been under the control of No.1 Group before being transferred to 7
(Training Group) and known as 1 L.F.S (1 Group Lancaster Finishing School).

The RAF had a base system in being that had a designated airfield as the
administrative and technical centre servicing on average 3 training or operational