Australia's Few. 6 August 1940

At Aston Down, Ken Holland was very excited on 6 August 1940. Things were looking up in his training program. ‘SPITFIRES!! Rushed to flights and was sent off on a Spitfire and did two hours this day getting the feel thereof.’ After two hours of acrobatics and dog fighting practice on the 7th, he was allocated a Harvard for a session of blind flying on the 8th, during which he ‘was lousy as usual’. Formation flying was on the agenda the next day but things didn’t go as planned as his companion managed to get them lost. He landed to work out how to get home again while Ken circled above. Ken was enjoying his training but he did not like night flying in fact, it was ‘always something to avoid’. Even so, he was able to put up with it because ‘I like these Spitfires’.