RAAF trainees study aircraft recognition drawings at an EATS flying school in Southern Rhodesia (present day Zimbabwe), c. 1941. More than 670 Australians received their flying training in Rhodesia, the first contingent being sent there in late 1940. Like Australia, it was a hot, dry, and often dusty environment and, with unsealed runways, sand got through air filters and often made engines unserviceable. RAAF Warrant Officer Vincent Winter, who trained in Rhodesia, recalled a particular peril in that country: One other feature of the country's wildlife was the plentiful supply of bedbugs … which in the Rhodesian air stations lived behind the walls of the sleeping quarters and if the light was turned on quickly, could be seen scuttling back to their shelter, only to remerge as soon as the light went out, to feast on the unhappy sleepers. [Vincent A Winter, Noble six hundred, Yeates and Sons, Bairnsdale, 1982, p. 21; AWM SUK14939]
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