Harry H. Crosby's Navigation School Certificate

In early 1941, the Army Air Corps had only 44 trained navigators, mostly from a civilian contract school. By war’s end, the Army Air Forces had graduated over 50,000 navigators from its own schools. The penalty for this rapid growth during the first years of war was a lack of competent instructors, and new navigators deployed with questionable skills.

"I didn’t want to worry [my wife], but I confessed my lack of confidence about my competence as a navigator. I worried most about getting lost over water. “I hope we go to the ETO [European Theater of Operations],” I said. “Flying the Atlantic would be bad enough, but the Pacific would be worse.”