Dublin Core
Title
No. 2 R.A.F. Cadet Wing. Mid Term Examination. Nos. 1 & 5 Squadrons.
Subject
Education: Military
Description
At the top of the document, a header indicates that the paper is a midterm examination for the 1st through the 5th Squadrons of the Royal Air Force (RAF). The document is undated, but because the test is authorized by the RAF, instead of the Royal Flying Corps (Great Britain's predecessor to the Royal Air Force), the document was likely created shortly before, or possibly after, the end of the Great War.
The examination focuses largely on map reading and orientation. The cadets from Squadrons 1-5 of the Royal Air Force were pioneers in the area of aerial reconnaissance, a discipline that “soon became the primary information source behind most battlefield decisions on the Western Front” (Finnegan 3). The advent of modern warfare revealed an unprecedented need for increased reconnaissance; the information recovered, in correspondence with modern photography, “became an integral part of the cartographic process in support of daily operations and offensive planning” (Finnegan 155). Before the Great War, nations had used disparate cartographic standards, based on Napoleonic-era maps. This astonishingly primitive system proved “unreliable for supporting accurate artillery fire,” and thus necessitated a complete overhaul of cartographic intelligence (Finnegan 153). Educating airmen to collect and analyze such data therefore became strategically imperative.
The examination focuses largely on map reading and orientation. The cadets from Squadrons 1-5 of the Royal Air Force were pioneers in the area of aerial reconnaissance, a discipline that “soon became the primary information source behind most battlefield decisions on the Western Front” (Finnegan 3). The advent of modern warfare revealed an unprecedented need for increased reconnaissance; the information recovered, in correspondence with modern photography, “became an integral part of the cartographic process in support of daily operations and offensive planning” (Finnegan 155). Before the Great War, nations had used disparate cartographic standards, based on Napoleonic-era maps. This astonishingly primitive system proved “unreliable for supporting accurate artillery fire,” and thus necessitated a complete overhaul of cartographic intelligence (Finnegan 153). Educating airmen to collect and analyze such data therefore became strategically imperative.
Creator
Royal Air Force
Source
McFarlin Library, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa. 2933 E. 6th St. Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104-3123
Date
Undated
Language
English
Identifier
1992.004.1.6
Coverage
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0"><Folder><name>OpenLayers export</name><description>Exported on Mon Apr 1 21:24:02 CDT 2013</description></Folder></kml>||||osm
Great Britain
Great Britain