Sadly the "Dilbert Dunker" a trainer designed to teach you how to get out of a ditched aircraft, including an inverted one, was not online until about halfway through 1944 OTL. Doing is this is quite an experience, but a valuable training experience you never forget (I did it in 1970 and still remember the drill).
Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2
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Perhaps this universe equivalent of the SAS/SBS?
*Or just individuals with unique talents for mayhem....
What a big difference from OTL the New Guinea and Solomon Islands area is. Rabaul is not the Gilbraltar of the Pacific in this world. And Lae, a name that meant big trouble to Allied pilots in 1942 and most of 1943 New Guinea is now just a backwater Allied posting in TTL. What were those American made medium bombers the Australian pilots flying. B-25s? B-26s? And escorted by Beaufighters, sitting ducks for well flown Navy Zeros but faster than Army Nates or clapped out Oscars.
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I did the RN version in the '80s. It's actually better if the helo inverts, as you don't smash into the blades on the way up.
You do it without the air cylinder on the 5580, as you do various drills one after the other, and you'd have to keep replacing it. Since I can't swim a stroke, they had to use a diver to rescue me from drowning after every escape.
The water was so heavily chlorinated - I couldn't get it out of my nostrils and throat for days.
Ages ago - in the '70s or early '80s - the British public school Ampleforth sent a sample of it's swimming pool water for analysis. Apparently the report came back: "Your horse has diabetes".
Cool. Dunkers wear standard flight suits, not survival suits, but it's OK.
Important advice. You always try to pop the windows before you hit, because you don't want to try to force them out against water pressure. There's then a temptation to brace yourself by grabbing the frame with your fingers in the holes. NEVER do this, as they will break like carrots, and you won't be able to withdraw them.
In AOCS in Pensacola we did our one mile swim in flight suits and sneakers, when we did our practice parachute drops in to water off a tower on the back of a landing craft and were towed behind - both prone and supine (2 runs) to teach us how to get out of a chute catching the wind and dragging us along the water. This was done in full flight gear including helmet and boots, you popped your life vest when out of the harness and got hoisted by a helo. This was waaay before I went to med school, air intel types wen thru the same training as pilots and NFOs. Another one of the cadets in my class had been a competitive swimmer like I had been, and we raced/paced each other for the miles and finished a huge amount of time before anybody else, totally blowing the mind of the DI who was supervising the swim as well as the water safety staff. The water survival, ejection seat training, and high altitude chamber were the only "fun" parts of AOCS. 
That sounds like something learned by the survivors
I saw the simulator at Yeovilton once (as a civvie Aircraft Engineering Student back in 92) - obviously we didnt get to 'have a go' but the staff did show us how it all worked at which point I was quite glad to have not 'had a go'. Especially as they plunged the whole thing and it goes upside down. And they can do it in total darkness.
Train Hard.
Fight Easy.
But seriously. Fuck that!
On an unrelated note, what happened to the Supermarine Type 317 in this timeline. Was the factory the prototypes were being built at still bombed by the Luftwaffe? If it wasn't bombed, how did it stack up against the Short Stirling in terms of performance?
In Navy boot camp we had a total of, at most, several hours of abandon ship and water survival training..about the same amount of time allotted to knot tying. We learned to use our pants as water wings and our "Dixie Cup" hat as a flotation device..and then practiced abandoning ship by jumping off a tower (about 20 feet, I'm guessing). The instructors stood along side with poles that had boxing gloves on the end. When you hit the water you had to inflate your pants by tying off the legs and whipping them over your head while holding the waistband..smack them into the water and then use them as water wings. It wasn't hard for us swimmers, but it could be quite arduous for a non-swimmer. If they panicked and began to flail about an instructor would scream.."INFLATE YOUR PANTS" and punch them in the head with the boxing glove. It didn't take more than 3 punches to get the most panicky to do what he was told. When we were all back in the bleachers for Q&A one of the non-swimmers asked if they would be given swimming lessons. The instructor said, "No, you can learn on your own. Barring that, if your ship sinks, I suggest sinking to the bottom and running like hell". We swimmers laughed.
I can't help thinking that If I were planning on joining the navy, I'd take swimming lessons if I couldn't already swim. Seems pretty fundamental to me and doesn't require a lot of initiative.
Agreed. Even basic swimming lessons are pretty easy to come by.
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IIRC, both the Marine Corps and the Navy now require you to be able to swim to pass Boot Camp/Basic Training
Before my very very short career in the Royal Navy (not short through choice I would add - its a sad story - full of woe) I was fully aware of how long I was expected to be able to tread water for (5 mins?) and that I would be wearing an oversized boiler suit without a bouancy aid while doing it.
So during the months leading up to the start of my training at Raileigh I made sure that I could happily tread water for 30 minutes.
I am a bloody good swimmer so it was easy for me and I had no doubts regarding passing that test.
I was also aware that if you fail at anything in the first weeks - and by fail this could everything from swimming to brushing your teeth properly - you had to have 'Remedial lessons' in said shortfall which could only take place during what little free time you had - so I was determined not to fail as I knew that that time was necessary for the important task of polishing boots.
Come the actual test, with boiler suit, confident in my abilities I swam out with the others to the deep end and turned around as instructed to face the shallow end.
It is here where the term "The Best plans of mice and men" come to mind.
The boiler suit being several sizes to large for my then svelt figure, the back of the 'collar' acted, as I quickly turned around, as a scoup, 'filling' the back of the suit and plunged me down under the water so quickly and unexpectidly, that I breathed in water and it took a great deal of effort to get back up, chocking and spluttering, to the surface at which point one of the 'Staff' (PT Instructors) was trying to haul me out with a ring pole thingy. I eventually managed to convince him that I wasn't dying and fortunately passed that particular test.
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When I was looking at joining the USN in 2002/03 the swimming test wasn't what kept me away - it was the running test. IIRC I needed to swim 100 yards in 4 or so minutes and run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes (this is all from memory so apologies if I get the specific details wrong).
Swimming wasn't (and isn't) an issue but running aggravates my asthma something fierce. I can do an hour on the elliptical with no problems but running is the one thing my asthma won't let me do.
Story 2030
The Rhone River, May 12, 1943
Jacques d’Orlong held his breath. He pressed his ear against the ground. He could hear a rumble. A heavy train was coming from the north. This was unanticipated. The source in the regional rail office said that there was supposed to be a four hour gap with which the maquis could blow the bridge.
He waited a few more breaths as he thought about his choices. The bridge was scheduled to be blown in the next fifteen minutes. Charges were set and fuses laid. It would take five more minutes for the men to get off the girders and then another five minutes for them to find cover.
Taking the bridge down on schedule could mean sending a train into the river. Sending a train into the river could mean hundreds of drowned French civilians or even worse drowning a battalion or a regiment of German reinforcements. He had no problem killing Germans, but the reprisals were severe and immediate. Maintaining local support was critical; inviting a German retaliation would squeeze a lot of informers until they squealed to save their childrens’ lives.
He made his decision. The half dozen men still on the bridge were told to hold on tight and wait. The charges would be blown after the train passed. Quick conversations followed; the spiders would stay in their webs and double check the wires and their spliced connections one last time after the train. Soon everyone scrambled under cover. Thirteen minutes after the first rumble, an eighty car train lumbered over the crossing at twenty five kilometers an hour. Most of the train was freight but at least eight troop cars were full of soldiers. Jacques breathed deeply, and then he waited.
One of the spiders hung on, his fingers clamped to the steel column, his knees squeezing tight. Every second, the entire bridge shook. The vibrations rattled his brain and weakened his grip. Finally, the train was through. He could not breath as he extended himself to a position where he could scramble back up. He checked the first splice, and then a second and then a third. All were good. Seventeen minutes after the train had passed, he was behind cover. Eight minutes after that, the center segment of the bridge crumpled. The left hand span collapsed into the river while the rightmost third stayed upright as two of the three charges failed.
Five minutes after the loud explosion over the river, a pair of much smaller explosions were heard. Tracks were blown out on each bank to stop any trains from plummeting into the dark water. Derailment was far safer than drowning.
Jacques allowed himself a brief smile even as his forty men rapidly covered ground. Anti-partisan patrols were likely to be hitting the bush by mid-morning and by then, his men would be at least fifteen miles from the bridge. It was a risk to move this fast, but it was the best choice he had.
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Back in 77 when I went through basic (USCG) we HAD to pass the swim tests. If not, you stayed in Basic. That alone (our Basic back then was a quite unpleasant experience, very nearly all the DI's being combat veterans from Vietnam, think shades of Full Metal Jacket here) was enough incentive for those who couldn't pass to head to the pool in the small amount of free time they had. TBH I don't recall all the stuff we did, I do know it was pretty rigorous and we did things people wouldn't have thought the CG would be doing.
Story 2031
Thermopylae, Greece May 12, 1943
They were fighting in the shadows. A large olive tree gave the five Sacred Band commandos a bit of cover from both the sun and the German infantrymen who had been chasing over two hundred partisans. The partisans had cut the raillines in half a dozen places while also blowing three bridges over the past twelve hours. Now the pursuit was starting to heat up. The five men had a machine gun, a sniper rifle and enough ammunition to make any German pursuit cautious and slow while the rest of the band could move for an hour or two unmolested.
A few heads popped up from cover. Four seconds later, the sharpshooter fired his first shot, and then a second two breaths later. The rush stopped as the German squad found cover again. Minutes later, mortar rounds started to drop near the olive tree. The Greeks hugged the ground and waited out the terror of an unopposed bombardment. They would hold and not allow the Germans to pass as their compatriots needed the time that only they could buy.
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