British Empire Air Training Scheme

British Empire Air Training Scheme. This was Canada's major air contribution to the Allied war effort. On 26 September 1939, the British government asked Canada to establish a British Empire Air Training Scheme (BEATS) after its formation was suggested by the Australian ( S. M. Bruce) and Canadian ( Vincent Massey) High Commissioners in London. It aimed to produce no fewer than 20,000 pilots and 30,000 personnel. To achieve this, it was estimated that about ninety elementary and advanced flying training schools were needed. Each month the plan was to graduate 520 pilots with elementary training, 544 with service training, 340 observers, and 580 wireless operator/air gunners. It was estimated that the scheme would need 3,540 aircraft—or more than twelve times the pre-war aircraft strength of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)—33,000 officers and men, and 6,000 civilians.

This was a tall order for the tiny RCAF; it was also an expensive one for the Canadian government to swallow. After long and bitter negotiations that lasted until December 1939, the total cost of the BEATS was set at $607 million of which the UK was to pay $185 million, Australia $39.9 million, and New Zealand $28.6 million. Canada was to find $353.4 million over 42 months. In return for this huge outlay, for so it seemed in 1939, Canada bargained hard, insisting that the RCAF had to administer the scheme, that the UK help the other Dominions to find the dollars necessary to pay their share, and that London state that the BEATS would take priority over all other forms that a Canadian contribution to the war might take. The Canadian prime minister, Mackenzie King, believed that air casualties could not possibly be as numerous as army ones, and if the British government accorded priority to the BEATS, then Canada would be spared a manpower crisis. These conditions were eventually accepted in London. But the sharpest struggle came over Ottawa's insistence that Canadian aircrew be identified with Canada to the maximum extent possible once their training was complete. The British hoped to merge RCAF aircrew into Royal Air Force units, fearing that other Dominions would inevitably make the same demand if Canada's was conceded. Essentially, the question of ‘Canadianiza tion’ was left unresolved and later in the war would cause serious ructions.

Despite its rocky beginnings, the BEATS, which was called the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan from June 1942, was a huge success. Extended into 1945, the plan cost $2.2 billion in all, of which, in the end, Canadnada paid $1.6 billion. In all, 168,622 graduated from Canada and other Dominions, more than 75,000 of whom were pilots.

British and Empire aircrew also trained in South Africa, which had its own air training scheme, in Southern Rhodesia, and in Australia and New Zealand (see Table).

British Empire Air Training Scheme: Aircrew trained under the scheme

Type and yearof output	Canada	Australia	New Zealand	South Africa	Southern Rhodesia	Total
Source: Golley J., Aircrew Unlimited (Yeovil, 1993).
1940
Pilots	240	60	318	–	110	728
Navigators	112	39	–	–	–	151
Others	168	54	–	–	–	222
total	520	153	318	–	110	1,101
1941
Pilots	9,637	1,367	1,292	341	1,284	13,921
Navigators	2,884	681	–	629	23	4,217
Others	4,132	1,296	–	–	110	5,538
total	16,653	3,344	1,292	970	1,417	23,676
1942
Pilots	14,135	3,033	943	1,529	1,666	21,306
Navigators	7,404	1,375	–	2,541	237	11,557
Air Bombers	1,742	–	–	170	–	1,912
Others	6,896	2,280	–	–	387	9,563
total	30,177	6,688	943	4,240	2,290	44,338
1943
Pilots	15,894	3,869	836	2,309	2,083	24,991
Navigators	8,144	1,662	–	3,250	239	13,295
Air Bombers	6,445	–	–	918	–	7,363
Others	8,695	3,838	–	–	419	12,952
total	39,178	9,369	836	6,477	2,741	58,601
1944 (to 30 September)
Pilots	8,807	1,684	502	2,025	1,188	14,206
Navigators	7,953	696	–	2,403	180	11,232
Air Bombers	5,131	–	–	742	–	5,873
Others	7,998	1,328	–	–	309	9,635
total	29,889	3,708	502	5,170	1,677	40,946
total	116,417	23,262	3,891	16,857	8,235	168,662
Summary
Pilots	75,152
Navigators	40,452
Air Bombers	15,148
Others	37,910
grand total	168,662 to 30 September 1944

J. L. Granatstein