The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP; "The Plan"), known in some countries as the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), was a massive, joint military aircrew training program created by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, during the Second World War. BCATP/EATS remains as one of the single largest aviation training programs in history and was responsible for training nearly half the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators and flight engineers who served with the Royal Air Force (RAF), Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) during the war.
Under a parallel agreement, the Joint Air Training Scheme, South Africa trained 33,347 aircrew for the South African Air Force and other Allied air forces. This number was exceeded only by Canada, which trained 131,500 personnel.
Southern Rhodesia at the time was a British Crown Colony (rather than a Dominion) and was not involved in the negotiation or signing of the BCATP; the Southern Rhodesia Air Force was subsumed by the RAF in 1940. However, Rhodesia provided significant EATS facilities and contributed personnel to British units.
Students from many other countries attended schools under these plans, including Argentina, Belgium, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Fiji, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the United States.
Read more about British Commonwealth Air Training Plan: Background
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