Entry Representative: Geof Duggleby

 This Web Page has been raised by the Webmaster.  The Entry List was initially based upon data held in the RAF Cranwell Association Database but then checked against the history of the Entry, "8M3 Then and Now"

The 8M3 (50th) Entry of Cranwell Apprentices are probably the best documented Entry ever, thanks to the work by John Smailes, together with his "collector of photographs" Gordon Homer, and Entry Members who put together a history of the Entry entitled "8M3 Then and Now".   The book has a Foreword by Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Keith Williamson GCB, AFC, FRAeS, himself a member of the 8M3 (50th) Entry.   A copy of the "Foreword" is repeated below.   

Foreword to
"8M3 Then and Now"
by
  Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Keith Williamson GCB, AFC, FRAeS

"Take a bunch of young adolescent boys, put them in uniform and subject them to military discipline while training them in the somewhat esoteric science of radio/radar; get them to commit themselves for service for twelve years after their eighteenth birthday and then make sure that the place where you train them is as far away from civilisation as is possible in these small islands - You now have the perfect recipe for the Aircraft Apprentice Wing at No 1 Radio School at Cranwell in the nineteen forties.

When we arrived at Cranwell in the closing stages of the last war to join the Wing, I think I and my contemporaries on 8M3 Entry were aware that they were momentous times for the Country, but I, for one, had no understanding of just how important our time at Cranwell would be for each one of us personally.   For we were about to start three years of tough, challenging and character-building training at that very sensitive time of our lives as we emerged from boyhood into manhood.   By the time we left Cranwell at the end of those three years, we were more mature and resilient and as a consequence, well able to face the future, wherever it was destined to take us.   For that, we have reason to be grateful to Cranwell and to Lord Trenchard's Aircraft Apprentice Scheme.

Looking back at those events of fifty years or so ago, my main memories are centered, not on the technical training or even on the unfamiliar rigours of Service Life, but on the friendships formed during those three years, many of which have prevailed until this day.   It is the memories of the people with whom we served, and of the comradeship that was part and parcel of life at Cranwell at that time, that John Smailes has evoked in this Scrap-book, and we should be grateful to him for reminding us so graphically of a very important time in our lives."

John Smailes kindly sent me a CD with pictures of all the pages within the book "8M3 Then and Now", and some 500, repeat 500 photographs of the Entry taken during their time at Cranwell and thereafter.   This webpage has drawn heavily on this material.

In February 1945,  61 young hopefuls arrived at RAF Cranwell as the 8M3 (50th) Entry to train as Air or Ground Radio Fitters.   During their training they gained 10 from Senior Entries,  6 ceased training, while 10 of their number were re-classed to later Entries, leaving 55 to pass out in March 1948.

The Entry List below is presented in alphabetical order:

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This page was last updated on 3rd June, 2008