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RAAF at War in the Pacific
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After the Japanese launched their first attacks on 7 December 1941, the Australian Cabinet approved a plan (March 1942)
to expand the RAAF to seventy-two squadrons.
Under the original "Z" plan of 1939, the RAAF expansion target had been set as thirty-two squadrons, but the entry of Japan into the war; and the emphasis this now placed on the Pacific area made
further expansion necessary.
The lack of aircraft from overseas was becoming acute, even though it was hoped that Australian
Squadrons forming in 1943 would have Australian-made Beauforts and Boomerangs, and to those could be added the delivery from 1944 onwards of Beaufighters and Mosquitoes.
Australia had four squadrons operating in Malaya in 1941, equipped with Hudson and Buffalo aircraft, and they were immediately engaged in an all out battle.
The Hudsons of No. 1 Squadron attacked Japanese transports off Kota Bahru and
succeeded in sinking the first Japanese merchant ship sunk in the 1939-45 War - a troopship of 9,700 tons. |
| Loaded with mines, a RAAF Catalina takes off from Darwin harbour on another vital mission to impede the Japanese forces. The 'Black Cats' achieved quite a measure of fame, ranging as far afield as the Philippines and Hong Kong to mine harbour channels. |
| But the Japanese were not to be denied. They quickly captured a huge area of South and South-East Asia and pushed on strongly towards
Australia. The Japanese entry into the war entirely changed the character of the war for Australia.
With only 177 first line aircraft (mostly Hudsons, Catalina flying-boats and Wirraways), Australia was no longer merely a contributor to Britain's armed
forces in distant campaigns, but a nation that might well have to fight for its very survival on Australian territory.
Singapore fell quickly, Rabaul was seized after a devastating carrier-borne air attack during which a handful of RAAF Wirraway crews covered themselves with glory when they challenged the invaders in a hopelessly unequal air battle. Then Darwin (in February 1942) and Broome (in March 1942) were heavily bombed and suffered severely, and RAAF units were withdrawn to Australia. |
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| Australia's oldest squadron, No. 1 Bomber-Reconnaissance Squadron, played an important role in the early days of the war when its Hudson bombers helped delay the Japanese advance south. This group photograph was taken at Kota Bahru, North-East Malaya, in 1941 shortly before the Squadron was withdrawn to Singapore for the final desperate defence of the Malayan peninsula. |
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| Pilots of No. 453 Squadron, in their Brewster Buffalo aircraft, line up at South-East Asian airfield in the
early stages of the war. The Squadon fought in Singapore, Malaya and Sumatra before being
withdrawn to Australia when the Japanese captured these areas. The Squadron was later reformed in the
United Kingdom and saw out the war in that theatre of operations flying Spitfires. |
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| Flying high over the Australian countryside, two Beaufighters, newly introduced into service with the RAAF, carry out a war-time training exercise. Beaufighters eventually became operational with nine RAAF squadrons in the Pacific and the United Kingdom. |
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| The only man to shoot down a Japanese Zero in a much lower rated aircraft, the Australian-built Wirraway, Pilot Officer John Archer, from North Balwyn, Victoria, receives congratulations from the Commanding General Allied Air Force in New Guinea. At this parade Pilot Officer Archer was decorated with the Silver Star for his
gallantry. |
On 17 March 1942, General Douglas MacArthur arrived from the Philippines to take over as Supreme Commander,
South West Pacific Area, with General George Brett as Commanding General, Allied Air Forces, and Air Vice-Marshal W. D. Bostock as his Chief of Staff. On 5 May, Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Burnett relinquished his post as Chief of the Air Staff, RAAF, and Air Vice-Marshal George Jones was appointed to succeed him. General Brett was succeeded in August 1942 by General George C. Kenney, who controlled most of the American squadrons in the command through the 5th U.S. Air Force and the RAAF squadrons operationally through RAAF Command under Air Vice-Marshal Bostock.
Part of the rapid build up of RAAF strength to stem the Japanese drive southwards was the formation of three squadrons equipped with Kittyhawk fighter aircraft. These were
Nos. 75, 76 and 77 squadrons. No. 75, formed at Townsville on 4 March 1942, flew its aircraft to Port Moresby on the 21st, and on the 22nd attacked Lae aerodrome where they destroyed twelve Japanese aircraft and damaged another five.
The Squadron, fighting courageously, was continuously engaged from the time of its arrival until it was relieved by American Airacobra squadrons on 4 April, by which time only three Kittyhawks remained serviceable. |
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| The 'Old Man' (above) has an attentive audience of young Spitfire pilots when it comes to discussing tactics before take-off on an operational mission from the Halmaheras. The 'Old Man' is Australia's top-scoring fighter ace Group Captain Clive 'Killer' Caldwell who finished the war with a confirmed tally
of 282 enemy aircraft destroyed. Additionally he had 14 probables and 13 damaged to his credit to give him the amazing total of 551 successes or partial successes. |
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| Pictorially an idyllic scene, but to the RAAF men who served there, Hollandia was a hot and sticky place where fitters and riggers carried out their vital servicing tasks under conditions which were far from ideal. These Kittyhawks are being serviced after returning from a strafing sortie over Biak. |
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Flight Lieutenant W. E. Newton,
V.C., of No. 22 Squadron, RAAF, flew Bostons in New Guinea. He completed fifty-two operations, and often landed with his aircraft badly damaged.
He won the Victoria Cross for a daring and brave exploit on 16 March 1943.
Two days later his Boston was set ablaze during an attack, and Newton ditched the bomber to allow his crew to escape. He swam ashore, but was captured and executed by the Japanese. He
swam ashore but was captured and executed by the Japanese.
He was posthumously awarded the VC on 19 October 1943.
It was the first VC won by a RAAF Squadron. |
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| The evidence of success. Flames and smoke billow from a Japanese storage area in Brunei, British North Borneo, after a successful attack by rocket-firing RAAF
Beaufighters. This aerial study was taken from a RAAF Liberator which flew over the township a few minutes after the attack. |
RAAF aircraft and crews took part in the crucial Coral Sea Battle of May 1942, and in August 1942
Nos. 75 and 76 Kittyhawk squadrons joined with the Australian Army to defeat a Japanese attempt to seize the Milne Bay area of New Guinea, the first enemy defeat on land in the Pacific war.
In the months that followed, the RAAF No. 9 Operational Group, which included squadrons of Kittyhawk, Hudson, Wirraway, Beaufighter and Beaufort aircraft, as well as a variety of transport aircraft, were engaged in the Kokoda Trail,
Buna Sanananda and Wau-Mubo operations, and in the Bismarck Sea Battle in which an enemy attempt to reinforce their New Guinea positions by sea suffered a major strategic reverse.
The Japanese lost twelve vessels, including four destroyers sunk and
2,890 men drowned or killed. In the meantime, a wing of Spitfire aircraft from Britain
(Nos. 452, 457 and the RAF's No. 54 Squadron) arrived in the Darwin area for the defence of the North-Western Area. By April 1943 there were also in the area two squadrons of RAAF Hudson aircraft (Nos 2 and 13), a squadron of
Beaufighters (No. 31), an American Liberator squadron and a Dutch Mitchell squadron.
The Hudson, Liberator, Beaufighter and Mitchell aircraft had sufficient range to strike north from Darwin in offensive operations in indirect
support of the 'Elkton' offensive in the New Guinea area which involved seizure of the Lae-Salamaua and Markham Valley areas, Bougainville in the Solomons, and Western New Britain. In these operations the RAAF Beauforts repeatedly attacked Rabaul and other targets in New Britain, providing support for the amphibious landings by Allied troops.
To keep up with the offensive operations, which were to take the Allied forces into the Admiralty Islands in March 1944 and
along the North New Guinea coast to Aitape,
Hollandia, Noemfoor, Morotai (in the Netherlands East Indies) and thence into the Philippines, the RAAF formed a mobile force designated No.
10 Operational Group (later known as 1st Tactical Air Force). This was commanded by Group
Captain F. R. W. Scherger, later to reach the highest rank in the RAAF -
Air Chief Marshal - and fill the appointments of Chief of the Air Staff (1957-61) and Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee
(1961-66).
By November 1944, 1st Tactical Air Force, with H.Q. at Morotai, consisted of two fighter wings (Nos
78 and 81) an attack wing (No. 77) and two airfield construction wings. To these were later added Spitfire and Liberator squadrons of the RAAF and a new attack wing (No. 86). By March 1945, 1st T.A.F. had grown to 13,287 men. It was increased again during
April to 18,894 men and took part in the air assault in the Borneo operations against Tarakan (May 1945) , Labuan (June 1945), and Balikpapan (July 1945).
Some twenty RAAF squadrons of 1st T.A.F. were in action in the operations, in addition to other squadrons based at Darwin and in Western
Australia. When the war ended in August 1945, the RAAF was engaged in support of Australian infantry fighting the Japanese
armies in Borneo, New Britain, Bougainville and on the mainland of New Guinea.
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| As the war in the Pacific drew to an end, the RAAF Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshal George Jones (later to become Air Marshal) flew to Manila to ,confer with the Commanding General of Far East A.r Forces, General G. C. Kenney. Air Vice-Marshal Jones, whose decorations included the C.B., C.B.E. and
DFC was Chief of Air Staff from 1942 to 1952. |
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| Taking it easy in the sunshine on the wing of a squadron Thunderbolt, these members of No. 134 Squadron (RAF) provided the hard core of Australian pilots flying alongside their English counterparts against Japanese positions in Burma. The Squadron was operating out of
Ratnapalong, Arakan. Pictured are, left to right: Warrant Officer Neil Godfrey (Coogee, Sydney) , Warrant Officer R. H. Cuthbertson (Rockdale, Sydney), Warrant Officer F. Gould (Hamilton, Brisbane) , Flight Lieutenant J. E. Franks
(Kogarah, Sydney) and Squadron Leader D. K. McDonald, D.F.C. (Randwick, Sydney) |
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| An artist's impression of Kittyhawks operating out of the Milne Bay airstrip in
August-September 1942. The original of this painting by the famous Australian artist William Dargie (now Sir William) is hanging in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. |
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