In WW II there was a depression. Almost nobody had any college at all.

The same two years of college were required of aviation cadets as late
as 1941, and I think in 1942. I don't know when the requirement was
relaxed, but indeed it was.

Art is quite right that a very small percentage of high-school
graduates had two years of college in the 1930s. I suppose that's one
reason the navy had its "Fighting Chiefs" and the army likewise
experimented with sergeant-pilots early in the war. (Chuck Yeager got
into flying that way. Postwar, he had a devil of a time meeting the
education requirements at Wright Field.)

I don't think it's ever been remarked, but the fact that almost all of
the AVG Flying Tigers had completed two years of college during the
Great Depression (Louis Hoffman had been a navy enlisted pilot) likely
contributed to their unusual record. They had to be a group of
particularly determined men.

(Of course the same was true of the army pilots in the Philippines in
December 1941.)


all the best -- Dan Ford
email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9

see the Warbird's Forum at http://www.danford.net/index.htm
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