 Inspired by some Chingford friends who had joined , Johnson applied again to join the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve ( RAFVR ) . The RAFVR was a means to enter the RAF for young men with ordinary backgrounds . All volunteer aircrew were made Sergeants on with the possibility of a commission . He was rejected on the grounds that there were too many applicants for vacancies and his injury made him unsuitable for flight operations . He then joined the Leicestershire Yeomanry , where the injury was not a bar to recruitment . He joined the Territorial Army unit because , though he was in a reserved occupation , if war came , he had " no intention of seeing out the duration building air raid shelters or supervising decontamination squads " . Johnson was content in the Yeomanry . One day while riding through Burleigh , Berkshire on annual camp Johnson took a detour to RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire . Upon seeing a line of Hawker Hurricane fighters Johnson remarked " If I 've got to fight Hitler I 'd sooner fight him in one of those than on a bloody great horse ! " . 
