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Glossary Formal or informal, the language and procedures of the RAF in World War II may not be as familiar to the general reader as might once have been the case. Service terms, the necessary sea of abbreviations and acronyms, the ocean of Forms (various) and the breezy slang of mess and airfield are all represented here. RAF Terms No serviceman myself, I have tried in my own text to conform to this usage, although the distinction between reclassification vs promotion (or perhaps between officer and airman) may be opaque to many modern readers. In reproducing the KR&ACI text, I have chosen to show the original exactly, with its characteristically lavish capitalisation and punctuation. EXPLANATION of TERMS AIR OR OTHER OFFICER COMMANDING.—The officer of air or lower rank who is appointed to command a R.A.F. command or group at home or abroad or who is in command of the command or group during the absence of the officer posted for that duty. AIRMAN, OR AIRMEN.—These words, wherever they occur, will be held to include a warrant officer, a N.C.O., an aircraftman, an apprentice and a boy entrant, unless any rank or class of airman is expressly excluded in the context of the regulations, or unless the context is clearly repugnant to such interpretation. APPOINTMENT.—When used in relation to an airman, applies only to the grant of acting rank, whether paid or unpaid. BAGGAGE.—The personal and household effects of individuals. Articles of a similar nature belonging to a unit or part of a unit are included in the term “SERVICE BAGGAGE.” BRITISH ISLANDS.—For the purpose of these regulations, the term “British Islands” is synonymous with the phrase “at home” and, unless otherwise stated, will be regarded as including Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Eire, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. COMPETENT MEDICAL AUTHORITY.—The Principal Medical Officer (P.M.O.) of a command, or the Senior Medical Outer (S.M.O.) of an independent group or wing, according to the circumstances to which the regulations are being applied. DEFAULTER.—An airman confined to camp. DIRECTOR OF SEA TRANSPORT.—The officer of the Board of Trade charged with the direction of all sea transport duties, including the Indian Trooping Service, carried out on behalf of the government. EMBARKATION OFFICER.—The officer appointed to superintend embarkation and disembarkation of personnel and the loading and unloading of material at a port. ESTABLISHMENT.—The establishment of a unit is the number of officers, airmen, civilians, aircraft, and transport included in its organisation as authorised, and indicates in detail (i) numbers and ranks of officers and the duties on which they are employed; EXTENSION, PROLONGATION AND RE-ENGAGEMENT.—”Extension” is used, in relation to alterations of airmen's engagements, when the altered period of service (i.e. continuous service since last attestation) to be completed does not exceed 12 years, “prolongation” when it exceeds 12 years but is less than 24 years, and “re-engagement” when it is 24 years. FORCED LANDING.—Any obligatory or precautionary landing, on or off a recognised aerodrome or landing ground, not premeditated when the flight commenced. Examples of obligatory landings are those made because the pilot can no longer remain in the air owing to airframe or engine failure or impossible weather conditions; precautionary landings include those made to ascertain location or on account of unfavourable weather conditions. FORMATION.—See UNIT. FREIGHTSHIP.—See PUBLIC VESSEL. FREIGHTSHIP (STORES).—A ship wholly or partially loaded with government stores on terms for the voyage or according to the amount of stores conveyed. “GREAT WAR”.—The words “Great War” wherever they are used in these regulations in reference to a period of time will be held to mean the period 4th August, 1914, to 31st August, 1921, inclusive, unless any other period is specifically stated. INDULGENCE PASSAGE.—A passage granted to a non-entitled passenger in a transport, or in one of H.M. ships. INVALIDED.—When used in relation to an airman, will be held to mean “discharged as medically unfit for further service.” When used in relation to an officer, it will be held to mean “retired or gazetted out of the service as medically unfit for further service.” MEDICAL ATTENDANCE.—Denotes the professional advice and treatment during sickness or injury afforded by a medical officer or by a civilian medical practitioner engaged for attendance on air force personnel. Those entitled to “medical attendance” or allowed it as a privilege may be treated under certain conditions (i) in quarters or at their residences or (ii) as out-patients at service medical establishments. The term includes vaccination and inoculation, lymph, vaccines and sera being supplied for the purpose from service sources; also the supply of medicines and surgical materials prescribed and ordered from the public stock by the medical officer or civilian medical practitioner in charge of the case. It does not include in-patient hospital treatment. MUSTERING.—The term used to denote the rank, group and trade in which an airman is placed on first joining the R.A.F., or (for an apprentice or a boy entrant) on passing out of the training establishment. NON-PUBLIC FUNDS, ACCOUNT FOR.—An account recording the financial activities of any station or unit organisation such as a mess, an institute, a club, a sport, a benevolent association, etc. NOTIFIABLE DISEASES.—All diseases which, under the Manual for Medical and Dental Officers of the R.A.F. (A.P. 1269), must be notified immediately to higher air force authority. ORDINARY PAY.—The term “ordinary pay” of an airman, for the purposes of the application of Sections 44(6), 46(2)(d), 73(1) and 138 (1) and (2), Air Force Act to "forfeitures"of pay, will be held to mean pay of the rank (including progressive pay) and group (but see para. 3470 as to forfeiture of other emoluments in similar circumstances). PACKET PASSAGE.—A passage booked for an individual in a scheduled passenger-carrying vessel. PROLONGATION.—See EXTENSION. PROMOTION.—The term used to denote a rise in substantive rank. It therefore does not apply to an aircraftman, 2nd class, rising to aircraftman, 1st class, or an aircraftman, 1st class, rising to leading aircraftman. (See RECLASSIFICATION.) PUBLIC CLAIM.—See para. 7, clause 2. PUBLIC VESSEL.—A ship engaged under the Regulations for H.M. Sea Transport Service as a transport, i.e. a ship engaged exclusively for government service under time charter, or as a freightship, i.e. a ship not exclusively so engaged but in which accommodation or space is engaged by the government. Exceptionally, H.M. ships may be regarded as public vessels. QUARTERLY, ONCE A QUARTER, EACH QUARTER.—1st January, 1st April, 1st July, 1st October, unless otherwise indicated. RECLASSIFICATION.—The term used to denote any transition, either upwards or downwards, between the three classes (aircraftman, 2nd or 1st class, or leading aircraftman) of aircraftmen. REDUCTION.—The term used to denote the compulsory placing of a substantive or temporary Warrant officer or N.C.O. in a lower substantive rank, or in the ranks, by sentence of court martial or by other competent authority. RE-ENGAGEMENT.—See EXTENSION. REGULATED MEDICAL AUTHORITY—The Director-General of Medical Services or a board of medical officers and qualified civilian practitioners, as may be desirable. REMUSTERING.—The term used to denote a change in the trade of an airman. REVERSION.—The term used to denote (i) the return of a warrant officer or acting warrant officer or N.C.O. or acting N.C.O. to a lower rank, or class in the ranks, either compulsorily, automatically or voluntarily. Reversions may be from substantive, temporary or acting rank. SEA TRANSPORT OFFICER OR SUPERINTENDING SEA TRANSPORT OFFICER.—The officer appointed to take charge of sea transport duties and to act as representative of the Director of Sea Transport at a port. STRENGTH.—The strength of a unit at any particular time is the number of officers, airmen and civilians who are actually borne on its muster roll at the time, exclusive of any attached. Strength is subdivided into— (a) effective strength; The effective strength of a unit at any moment is the number of officers, airmen and civilians on its strength who are actually serving with the unit (including those on ordinary leave) and available for duty at that moment. The non-effective strength at any moment is the number of officers, airmen and civilians on the strength of the unit who are not available for duty for any of the following reasons: (i) In hospital or station sick quarters. Officers and airmen attached to a unit are not part of its establishment nor on its strength. They remain on the establishment and strength of the unit from which they are detached. SUBORDINATE COMMANDER.— (i) An officer commanding a unit who is subordinate to the C.O. of the station for disciplinary purposes (in accordance with para. 1138, clause 6); TRANSPORT.—See PUBLIC VESSEL. UNIT.— 1. Includes— a command headquarters; 2. These units do not cease to be so designated even though they appear in establishments as part of a larger formation or unit, e.g. a squadron or independent flight may be included in the establishment of a station. Detachments from units, e.g. a flight from a squadron, are not units, but a flight for which a separate establishment exists, such as a flight of the Fleet Air Arm, is a unit. A depot is a unit; a section of a depot is not a unit unless it is expressly made so for a particular purpose, e.g. a squadron at No. 1 R.A.F. Depot for disciplinary purposes, but a section for which a separate establishment exists, such as the “Air Ministry Wireless Section,” is a unit. It does not follow that units, as just defined, are in all cases units for accounting purposes. Self-accounting units for equipment and cash accounts are approved as such by the Air Ministry; units not so approved are affiliated to a self-accounting unit for either equipment or cash accounting purposes, or both. 3. Formation.—A formation consists of one or more units grouped under a headquarters unit, e.g. a wing is a formation, and consists of a wing headquarters and one or more squadrons, and may include a park, depot or other units as required. 4. Command or Group.—A command or group is a formation set up for the purpose of decentralising the command of units and lower formations from the Air Ministry. 5. It should be noted that a unit consists of a definite number of officers, airmen, &c., and that its composition is filed and only changes if its authorised establishment is amended. A formation, on the other hand, is a flexible organisation which is liable to alteration according to circumstances: changes in formations merely affect the grouping of units and make no difference in numbers.” Bumf: RAF and Air Ministry Forms AM Form 78 Aircraft Movement Card. Records the service history for each aircraft taken on RAF charge, tracked by its serial number (L8531 for example). Strictly speaking, the serial number seen under the wings of pre-war RAF aircraft (or latterly in small letters on the rear fuselage), was the Air Ministry serial, not an RAF number. Not all cards still exist and for overseas commands few records were returned to the United Kingdom. In wartime, the serials were not issued in continuous sequence but with large, variable “black-out blocks” in the running order, to make production analysis harder for German Intelligence. RAF Form 96A Message Form RAF Abbreviations and slang Abbreviations A1B: KR& ACI par 1434 medical class—fit for full flying duties (A1) and ground duties (B) RAF Slang Balbo, A: A large formation of aircraft. Good lists of Service abbreviations and terms are also to be found on the Royal Air Forces Register of Associations site (http://www.associations.rafinfo.org.uk/). See the page Useful Sources, under the titles A Guide to Acronyms and Code Names & RAF Vocabulary. In print, see E Partridge’s Dictionary of RAF Slang. Money, money, money... Although the golden guinea, the “Jimmy O’Goblin”, ceased issue as long ago as 1816, the term still survives in some circles: in the titles of certain horse races, for example. In commercial pricing, it passed from use with the switch to decimal currency in 1966. The gold sovereign, of one pound sterling face value, is still minted and used in certain areas though not in general circulation. At the outbreak of war, male wages in Australia averaged £4 15s 3d per week ($A9.52 in current coin). In May 2007, average weekly ordinary time earnings, a roughly comparable figure, stood over 100 times higher at $A1059.10. In July 1940, average weekly earnings for British male manual workers (broadly, non-managerial employee wages) stood at £4 9s. Again roughly comparable, in April 2007 median earnings of full-time male employees was £498, almost exactly the same relative increase as that in Australia. Differences in the increase of money values vs wage rates is due to the differing impact of inflation vs rising productivity. Service pay In 1937 the daily rate of pay for a Group V AC2 on entry had been just 2 shillings (14/- a week or £36 8s a year). By 1943, the lowly AC2s rate stood at 3 shillings per day (£1 1s a week or £54 12s a year), including 1/- per day war pay but excluding the accruing post-war credit of 6d per day. The base pay rate for a qualified Sergeant pilot or observer in 1943 was 13/6 per day (£4 14s 6d a week or £245 14s a year). Substantive pay tables (KR&ACI par 3447) show these base daily rates, before "non-substantive" additional amounts (qualification pay, duty pay, hard-lying money and so on), before any family or other allowances, and before Income Tax and any Service deductions (“stoppages”). All these complexities were brought together and resolved in the Pay Ledger, to arrive at the actual cash in hand to be paid to an airman at pay parade. Examples of "stoppages" could include: Regular Occasional Pay parades were normally held weekly on Fridays, although there was provision for fortnightly parades (KR&ACI par 2830). In the field, a period of rapid redeployment, advance or withdrawal might result in a delay of some time before a parade (and the cash needed) could be organised. Prices The Daily Express (12 page broadsheet in 1939) 1d Accommodation (clearly expecting officers on leave etc and inclusive of meals) Fuidge Manor, Devon: from 5gns/week The cost of living index in the UK rose by 33.5 per cent over the course of the war, according to Gardiner, Wartime Britain 1939—1945. Examples of rising prices in late 1939: Butter rose from 1/3d per lb to 1/7d Rationing In 1940, the meat ration was set at 1/10d per person per week but was reduced by almost half to 1 shilling in 1941. It didn't go far, and there were concerns about whether working people were getting enough nutrition. Milk was 4d a pint, tuppence (2d) for pregnant or nursing mothers and children under 5. The milk ration was cut repeatedly and by March 1942 it fallen to 3 pints per person per week. Bacon: the ration rose from 4 oz to 8 oz per person in January 1940 at a time when the price, at 2 shillings per pound, was too expensive for most people (and concern about rising stocks of such a perishable led, incongruously, to the ration rise). Later, a rather simpler points system of rationing was introduced, by way of coupons in ration books. In Australia, rationing regulations were gazetted in May 1942, to begin on 13 June 1942. Ration books were to be used from the start, on issue to “each holder of a civilian registration card” (that is, an identity card). On VP Day in 1945, JB Youngs of Canberra were advertising a half-price sale of clothing items, with singlets at 4/- (3 clothing coupons) and underpants at 4/3 (4 coupons) while at Snows, pyjamas were going for £1. Measurement units
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