Beginning of the Apprenticeship Scheme

The first group of 53 youths aged 15-17 who had been selected for engineering training under the RAAF’s new apprenticeship scheme entered the Ground Training School at Forest Hill (Allonville) outside Wagga Wagga, NSW. Five days later, a group of 16 youths similarly joined a separate Radio Apprentice School (RAS) established at the former wartime RAAF establishment at ‘Frognall’, in the Melbourne suburb of Canterbury. Recruitment of a second intake of apprentices began almost immediately, leading to another 84 joining at Wagga and 18 at RAS by the end of July. When the apprenticeship scheme ended 45 years later, a total of 6151 tradesmen and technical specialists had graduated into the RAAF.