the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan

The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, or Empire Air Training Scheme often referred to as simply "The Plan", was a massive, joint military aircrew training program created by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, during the Second World War.

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although conflicts reflecting the ideological clash between what would become the Allied and Axis blocs began earlier.

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe.

Royal Air Force - World War II [HD Colour] by Blitzkrieg

BCATP remains as one of the single largest aviation training programs in history and was responsible for training nearly half the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators and flight engineers who served with the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force during the war.

An air gunner also known as aerial gunner is a member of an air force aircrew who operates flexible-mount or turret-mounted machine guns or autocannons in an aircraft.

A flight engineer, also sometimes called an air engineer, is the member of an aircraft's flight crew who monitors and operates its complex aircraft systems.

A bombardier or bomb aimer is the crew member of a bomber aircraft responsible for the targeting of aerial bombs.

Under a parallel agreement, the Joint Air Training Scheme, South Africa trained 33,347 aircrew for the South African Air Force and other Allied air forces.

This number was exceeded only by Canada, which trained 131,500 personnel.

Students from many other countries attended schools under these plans, including Argentina, Belgium, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Fiji, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the United States, where the similar Civilian Pilot Training Program was already underway by the end of 1938.

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe that existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until its peaceful dissolution into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on 1 January 1993.

The Civilian Pilot Training Program was a flight training program sponsored by the United States government with the stated purpose of increasing the number of civilian pilots, though having a clear impact on military preparedness.

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea.