<P> A relatively large number (given the tiny size and population) of islanders from the British colony of Bermuda (now termed a British Overseas Territory, and as such neither then part of the old Commonwealth of Dominions nor today a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, other than through Britain's membership) served as air and ground crew in the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force during the First World War . Despite the importance of the Royal Naval Dockyard and the use of the colony (located 640 miles off North Carolina) in both World Wars as a forming - up point for trans - Atlantic convoys, attempts to raise a Royal Air Force Reserve in the colony from RAF veterans between the wars did not meet with success . Nonetheless, with the outbreak of the Second World War (the first Bermudian to be killed in the war was Flying Officer Grant Ede, DFC, a fighter pilot lost in the 8 June 1940, sinking of HMS Glorious, during the Battle of Norway), it was decided to create a flying school on Darrell's Island (where a marine air station had been built in the 1930s to enable Imperial Airways and Pan American World Airways to operate flights between the United States and Bermuda, and onward across the Atlantic), which was taken over as an RAF air station for the duration of the war . </P> <P> The purpose of the Bermuda Flying School was to train local pilots for the Air Ministry, which would assign them to the RAF or the Fleet Air Arm . The school was in operation by the summer of 1940 . It operated a pair of Luscombe sea planes, paid for by an American resident of Bermuda, Mr Bertram Work, and a Canadian, Mr Duncan MacMartin . Its location in the heart of an RAF Air Station used by RAF Transport Command and Ferry Command afforded considerable opportunity to gain experience on the Consolidated Catalina and other flying boats at the station . Staff and trainees were also frequently used by nearby Royal Naval Air Station on Boaz Island to fly Supermarine Walrus anti-submarine air patrols . The school was placed under the command of Major Cecil Montgomery - Moore, DFC, the Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Volunteer Engineers (BVE), who had transferred from the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC) to become a Royal Flying Corps fighter pilot during the First World War . The chief flying instructor was an American, Captain Ed Stafford . </P> <P> The first class, of eighteen students, was in training by May 1940 . The BFS only accepted applicants who were already serving in one of the part - time army units of the Bermuda Garrison (only whites were accepted, barring most of the potential applicants from the Bermuda Militia Artillery and the Bermuda Militia Infantry, which recruited from the coloured population, although a number of coloured Bermudians from these units were to become aircrew after the RAF's bar on coloured recruitment was lifted in 1943), which had been mobilised for the duration of the war to protect the Royal Naval Dockyard and other sites important to the war effort . Successful students were released from their units and allowed to proceed overseas, usually as members of the crews delivering flying boats from Bermuda to Greenock, Scotland . </P> <P> Although the school was originally run as a purely local effort, under the colonial Government of Bermuda, it was quickly incorporated into the Commonwealth Air Training Plan . While most of the pilots it trained continued to come from the local population, eight citizens of the United States of America who volunteered to serve with the Royal Air Force were sent to Bermuda to train at the Bermuda Flying School . These Americans were required to enlist into the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps, from which they were discharged upon the successful completion of their flight training . </P>

Bcatp announced to take place in canada date