TRAINER is a mosaic of poems forming the experience of pilot training between 1939-1945 in WWII, during which time Canada became one enormous airfield under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Based on the author's father's logbook as a flight training officer in WWII, TRAINER is both an historical document and a personal odyssey.
TRAINER include an introductory poem by Raymond Souster called "Short Monologue with One Long Dead," addressing the author's father. DELUXE LIMITED EDITION contains a handwritten poem by the author.
Under the BCATP between May 1940 and March 1945, a total of 131,553 aircrew (pilots, navigators, air bombers, wireless operators, air gunners, and flight engineers) were trained in Canada on 120 air training stations, using 7,000 aircraft, and completing more than 13,800,000 flying hours. The BCATP suffered a total of 2,108 fatalities in Canada, or an average of one death for every 6,550 flying hours. Before Dieppe, more than 1,000 airmen had already died in Canada. Of the 72,835 RCAF aircrew who completed their training and flew on operations overseas, a total of 17,101 (23%) were killed or wounded.
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