United States Army Air Forces in Australia - Major Aircraft Operated

Major Aircraft Operated

• A-20 Havoc. A-20s first arrived in Australia by way of the air echelon of the 3rd Bombardment Group (Light) and the first operational unit to fly the A-20 in actual battle was the 89th Bombardment Squadron of the 3rd Bombardment Group. Many A-20s were reassigned to the RAAF, being known as Bostons by the RAAF and had varied origins, some being ex-USAAF machines, some being acquired from the Netherlands Marine Luchtvaartdenst, and others being diverted from British contracts. These planes served with just one RAAF squadron, No. 22 Squadron which saw a lot of action in the Dutch East Indies.

• A-24 Dauntless. The first operational A-24 unit was the 27th Bombardment Group (Light). Three of the four squadrons of the 27th BG were equipped with the A-24, plus one squadron of the 3rd Bombardment Group. The remaining squadrons of these groups were equipped with A-20A twin-engined level bombers. The 27th BG was in-transit to the Philippines when the war in the Pacific broke out. The crews were in the Philippines, but their aircraft were on their way via ship from Hawaii. The shipment was diverted to Brisbane, where they arrived on 22 December. Some of the 27th BG pilots were evacuated from the Philippines to join their aircraft in Australia. From Brisbane, eleven A-24s flew up to Java in February 1942, but this battle was already lost. The remainder began operations from Port Moresby, New Guinea with the 8th Bombardment Squadron on 1 April 1942. These units suffered heavy losses in the face of the Japanese advance. After five of seven A-24s were lost on their last mission, the A-24s were withdrawn from action as being too slow, too short-ranged, and too poorly armed. However, in all fairness to the A-24, their pilots had not been trained in dive-bombing operations and they often had to operate without adequate fighter escort. Following the New Guinea debacle, the A-24s were withdrawn from combat and the 27th was returned to the United States, where after being re-equipped with A-20s was sent to North Africa as part of Twelfth Air Force.

• B-17 Flying Fortress. By 14 December 1941, out of the original 35 B-17s assigned to the Philippines on 8 December, only 14 remained. They were all stationed at Del Monte Field on Mindanao, hopefully out of range of Japanese aircraft. Beginning on 17 December, the surviving B-17s based there began to be evacuated to Batchelor Airfield near Darwin. The first B-17s which arrived in Australia were the shark-tailed C and D models, and the first mission out of Australia took place on 22 December, with 9 B-17s taking part. It was an attack on Japanese shipping at Davao. They landed at Del Monte, which was still in American hands. However, the small force of B-17s could do very little to stem the tide of the Japanese advance, launching valiant but futile attacks against the masses of Japanese shipping. The newer large-tailed B-17Es began to join the depleted force of earlier-model B-17s in the Pacific in mid-1942, with the tail gunner of the B-17E being unpleasant surprise for the Japanese, who had become accustomed to attacking the Fortress from the rear. The crews of pre-B-17E Fortresses often adopted the expediency of rigging sticks in the rear of their planes, hoping to convince the Japanese attackers that tail guns were actually fitted to these planes as well. However, by mid-1943, most Fortresses had been withdrawn from the Pacific in favor of the longer-ranged B-24 Liberator. The B-24 was better suited for operations in the Pacific, having a higher speed and a larger bombload at medium altitudes. In addition, the losses of Eighth Air Force in Europe were reaching such magnitudes that the entire B-17 production was urgently needed for replacements and training in that theatre. Shortly after the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, it was decided that no more B-17s would be sent to Australia.

• B-24 Liberator. Fifteen USAAF LB-30 (B-24A) bombers were deployed in Java in early 1942 to reinforce the B-17-equipped 19th Bombardment Group in a vain attempt to stem the Japanese advance. The Java-based LB-30s would be the first US-flown Liberators to see action and participated in numerous attacks against Japanese targets in the Sulawesi, in Sumatra, and against shipping during the Japanese invasion of Bali. By late February, the position of Allied forces in Java had become untenable, and the surviving LB-30s were evacuated to Australia. The early LB-30s were replaced by the first B-24Ds to reach the Pacific in late 1942. By 1943, the Liberator had almost entirely replaced the B-17 Fortress as the primary long-range heavy bomber in the theatre. The B-24 became the most numerous USAAF heavy bomber based in Australia and New Guinea in the most desperate phase of the Pacific war, and it was the first four-engine heavy bomber to serve with the Royal Australian Air Force home squadrons. It reigned supreme in the Pacific until the arrival of the B-29 Superfortress in mid-1944.

• B-26 Marauder/B-25 Mitchell. In February 1942, the 22d Bombardment Group was ordered to Australia, being assigned to bases around Townsville. The B-26 first entered combat on 5 April 1942, when the 22nd Group took off from their bases in Queensland, refuelled at Port Moresby, and then attacked Japanese facilities at Rabaul. Each B-26 had a 250-gallon bomb bay and carried a 2000– pound bombload. The Marauder was the only medium bomber available in the Pacific, and generally, no fighter escort was available leaving the Marauders were on their own if they encountered enemy fighters. There were two groups equipped with B-26s, the 22nd and 38th, with two squadrons of the 38th Bombardment Group (69th and 70th) equipped with B-26s. In this series of attacks on Japanese-held facilities in the Dutch East Indies, the B-26s gained a reputation for speed and ruggedness against strong opposition from Japanese Zero fighters. Attacks on Rabaul ended on 24 May, after 80 sorties had flown. A series of unescorted raids were made on Japanese installations in the Lae area. These raids were vigorously opposed by Zero fighters. In the 84 sorties flown against Lae between 24 April and 4 July 1942, three Marauders were lost. As the Allies pushed northward in the South Pacific, temporary airfields had to be cut out of the jungle and these runways were generally fairly short. The North American B-25 Mitchell had a shorter takeoff run than the B-26, and it began to take over the medium bomber duties. Although it was admitted that the B-26 could take greater punishment, was defensively superior, and could fly faster with a heavier bomb load, the B-25 had better short-field characteristics, good sortie rate, and minimal maintenance requirements. In addition, the B-25 was considerably easier to manufacture and had suffered from fewer developmental problems. At this time, there were more B-25s available for South Pacific duty because it had been decided to send the B-26 Marauder to the Mediterranean theatre. Consequently, it was decided to adopt the B-25 as the standard medium bomber for the entire Pacific theatre, and to use the B-26 exclusively to Twelfth Air Force in the Mediterranean with some later being used by Ninth Air Force in the European theatres.

• P-38 Lightning. The first P-38s to reach Australia during 1942 were P-38Fs assigned to the 39th Fighter Squadron of the 35th Fighter Group. This unit traded in its Bell P-39 Airacobras for the Lightnings at RAAF Base Amberley in Queensland before returning to combat operations at Port Moresby in New Guinea. Its first success took place on 27 December 1942 when its pilots claimed eleven kills for the loss of only one P-38F. Two of these kills were claimed by Richard I. Bong, who was to go on to claim a total of 40 kills, all of them while flying the Lightning. The Lightning was ideally suited for the Pacific theatre. It possessed a performance markedly superior to that of its Japanese opponents. It possessed a range significantly better than that of the P-39s, P-40s and P-47s available in 1942 in the Southwest Pacific, and its twin engines offered an additional safety factory when operating over long stretches of water and jungle. However, the limited number of Lightnings available during late 1942 and early 1943 had to be used to make up attrition in the 39th Fighter Squadron and to equip only a single squadron in each of the 8th and 49th Fighter Groups.

• P-39 Airacobra. At the time of Pearl Harbor, the P-39 (along with the P-40 and a few P-38s) was virtually the only modern fighter available to the USAAF. Those P-39s already in service with the USAAF at the time of Pearl Harbor were deployed at home bases, but were quickly moved forward to overseas bases in the Pacific to try and stem the Japanese advance. They carried much of the load in the initial Allied efforts in 1942. However, many Allied pilots lacked adequate training, and equipment and maintenance of the planes were below average. The Airacobras operating from Australia were sometimes called upon to serve as interceptors, a role for which they were totally unsuited. They proved to be no match for the Japanese Zero in air-to-air combat and were withdrawn from combat by the end of 1942.

• Curtiss P-40. During 1941, a substantial number of P-40Bs and Cs were shipped to USAAF bases overseas, including the 20th Pursuit Squadron of the 24th Pursuit Group at Clark Field in the Philippines. Almost all were destroyed in the Battle of the Philippines (1941–42), and only a few reached Australia, although the RAAF operated a large number of P-40E-1 export models (Kittyhawk IA) and P-40Ks (Kittyhawk III) from the United States.

• P-47 Thunderbolt. The first P-47Ds to arrive in the Pacific theatre entered service with the 348th Fighter Group in June 1943. They were initially operated out of Queensland and were used on long-range missions to strike at Japanese targets in New Guinea. The 348th was followed by the 35th Group and at the beginning of 1944 by the 58th Group as well as the 35th Squadron of the 8th Group and the 9th FS of the 49th Group. However the Thunderbolt was used primarily by Seventh and Thirteenth Air Forces in the Central Pacific, with the long-range P-47N arriving in June 1944.