I am a big fan of the Curtiss P40 Kittyhawk. For me it is the epitome of American design, engineering and manufacture of that time, but also up until the modern day. The Kittyhawk wasn't the greatest, but it was rugged, sufficiently fast, decently maneuverable, kicked a punch, was flexible and was in numbers when it was really needed.

It was fortunate for the Allied air forces that America had such a good aircraft available in the quantity it did with the P40. Russia, Britain, Australia and others used the P40 in large numbers in areas where they could not supply their own aircraft. In Australian terms, there was a time during the battle of Port Moresby where one fighter squadron stood between the Japanese advance and Australia. It was 75 Squadron RAAF and they were flying Kittyhawks.

The photo above is of a 75 Squadron RAAF Kittyhawk at Milne Bay in September 1942. Milne Bay was a very important battle for Australia, and the allies. The sequence of events to this stage had been that the Japanese had advanced through Thailand, Indonesia and New Guinea to the point where if Port Moresby or the Solomons fell; then Japan would have cut Australia off from the US. It probably would not have changed the outcome of the war, but it would have been very unpleasant for Australia, and would have put the American military machine back a couple of years.

The sequence of events that led to Milne Bay being pivotal was the large carrier battle off the North East coast of Australia known as the Battle of the Coral Sea. The Japanese carrier force was protecting an invasion flotilla of Japanese ships that were heading for Port Moresby.

The American carrier force inflicted sufficient damage on the Japanese carriers that the invasion force was turned back. The Japanese decided to try another route, in order to isolate Australia and cut the lines of communication between Australia and America the Japanese sent an invasion force by sea to Milne Bay on the underside of New Guinea where it was intended the Japanese Army would capture the air base there and then continue on to Port Moresby.

Defending Milne Bay was an Australian Army garrison of approximately 9,000 and supported by 75 and 76 Squadrons RAAF flying Kittyhawks. The terrain was typical New Guinea jungle, but the strip of land between where the Japanese landed and the airbase was pinned between the ocean and the mountains with only a couple of yard between the two. Fighting was compact, hand to hand, confused and bloody.

After a month of fighting, the Australian Army pushed the Japanese back into the sea. This was the first time in World War II that a Japanese invasion force had been turned back. It should have been a massive political win for Australia in a theatre where they were going to be over taken by American arms. This advantage was squandered by Blamey and Chifley and ignored by the self absorbed MacArthur.

Interestingly the Australian flyers had worked out that having a red circle on their aircraft in mimickry of the British roundal was a liability as American pilots, and ground gunners of all persuasions, on seeing a red circle, would open fire. By the time 75 and 76 were fighting at Milne Bay they had removed the red circle from the upper roundels and replaced it with a large white circle bordered by blue.

In early 1943 this became standard on all Australian aircraft for all the roundals and the flash on the tail fin. Interestingly, by late 1943 the USAF's fifth air force was having similar issues and ordered that all fighter aircraft paint their tail fins white. Australian aircraft from that point on painted their tail fins white and usually painted the front of their wings white as well. It was more dangerous friend on friend by that time. Air superiority had been achieved.

Another interesting thing from the top photo of the 75 Squadron Kittyhawk is that in late 1942 the RAAF hadn't handed out squadron codes. For instance later in the war No.75 Squadron was given the squadron code GA. But in 1942 No.75 and No.76 shared the same aerodrome and only had aircraft codes; A,B,C, etc on their aircraft. To avoid confusion, No.75 put a large white line, that looks like a sans-serif I in front of the aircraft code to distinguish their aircraft from No.76's.

Just finished reading Peter Dornan's book on Nicky Barr. It was a good read of an incredible man who fought through WWII. It is written pretty lightly, but as about as deep as you can get for a biography where the author is looking into a private world.

Nicky Barr was an Australian ace in the Western Desert in World War II. The Africa campaign was pretty fluid in the early days with the Italians driving the allies back to Cairo, then the allies pushing them back along Africa until Rommel's Afrika Corps then drove everyone back to Cairo before the offensive was broken at El Alamein and Africa was finally won for the allies.

Barr was typical of an ace. He was in a target rich environment, he had the discipline to get in close before shooting and he was aggressive in pursuing aircraft. He racked up his confirmed destroyed in very quick time as well.

3 Squadron RAAF was the leading squadron in the Western Desert. They were in the thick of things during all the back and forth of the ground war, losses were heavy, but they ended up being the top scoring squadron of the campaign. Several aces came out of the squadron including Bobby Gibbes and Barr.

Like most of the Western Desert pilots Barr was shot down several times but because of the fluid front lines and vastness of the desert was able to evade capture and get back to friendly lines. The non-fixed nature of the war and the flat desert environment also meant they would land and pick up downed pilots, or do things like land with a clapped out engine, fix it, then take off again.

Eventually Barr was shot down and badly wounded by a German ace. He was captured and moved to Italy where he escaped several times. Eventually when he escaped he ended up contributing to a guerrilla campaign in Italy. His group also helped down pilots escape back across the mountain ranges to allied lines. Dangerous work.

As Italy was slowly being taken by the Allies Barr made his way to allied lines and was repatriated to Australia where he recovered fully and commanded squadrons again. Quite a remarkable man.

Just finished reading Bruce Gamble's Fortress Rabaul which covers the air war over Rabaul and its surrounds through 1942 and 1943. Rabaul was initially defended by an Australian Army garrison (Lark Force) and No.24 Squadron RAAF which was armed with Wirraways and Hudsons. The experienced Japanese forces went through them quickly.

After that was the period when Port Moresby was undefended until No.75 Squadron RAAF got their hands on some Kittyhawks from the Americans and for a time were the only fighter squadron in New Guinea. They fought the Japanese toe to toe, but suffered loss of experienced pilots and aircraft until they were down to one serviceable aircraft. Fortunately aircraft were starting to arrive from the US and they were replaced with an American P39 squadron, which unfortunately went through the same experience of increasing losses and dwindling aircraft.

Fortunately for the Allies, the Japanese suffered the same. With each aircraft lost, so too did Japanese lose an experienced airmen, or aircrew which could not be replaced. Additionally, aircraft were slow coming to the South Pacific and Japan was not able to gear up their factories like the United States did, so the losses hurt them as much as they did the RAAF and USAAF in early 1942 and 1943.

It is obvious that the only professional allied air arm in the Pacific in the early parts of World War II was the US Navy. It showed in the results they achieved against the Japanese by stinging Japan during the Battle of Coral Sea and then handing out a defeat at Midway. The USN pilots were disciplined and experienced, and the USN had their logistics and training in place. It made a difference.

The RAAF and USAAF would not solve those problems until 1943. The RAAF cheated by bringing back experienced pilots from the African desert war, such as Les Jackson. However, like the Japanese, experienced pilots are not immune to be shot down and the loss of battle veterans meant untrained pilots were often defending New Guinea.

Until the allies were able to establish air superiority the air war against Rabaul was undertaken by the USAAF heavy bombers and the RAAF Catalinas. The B17s, B24s and Catalinas were about the only ones with sufficient range to reach Rabaul from Port Moresby, though the US bombers would fly from Australia, stage overnight in Port Moresby and then continue on.

Like the allied fighter squadrons, the bombers suffered the same issues. Lack of parts, lack of amenities, no rotation of aircrew so battle fatigue was an issue, constant losses to enemy fire, lack of serviceable aircraft and super long missions with little rest. Often the pace was so demanding that as few as three bombers would get to Rabaul to actually drop bombs.

Until skip bombing as introduced in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea the heavy bombers were largely ineffectual as they didn't have the numbers to carpet bomb and the mobile targets like ships were easily able to avoid the dropped bombs. Sadly, other than a couple of effective raids, the heavy bomber campaign against Rabaul was largely inneffectual.

It was not until airbases on northern New Guinea and islands closer to Rabaul were established by the allies that air power was wrested from Rabaul for good. Until then it was a central thorn in the allied side that was able to provide Japanese projection of air power through New Guinea, the Solomons and across the seas that separated them. It was a hard fought air war.

When war broke out in the Pacific, Australia had no modern aircraft of any kind to defend Australia with. Australia's most experienced pilots were in North Africa fighting against Rommel and the front line aircraft that were left in Australia were CAC Wirraways and Lockheed Hudson's.

The Wirraway was a locally built licensed version of the North American Texan. It was a trainer aircraft that was not intended for combat uses. Because the RAAF had nothing else, the Wirraway was pressed into the role of being a fighter aircraft in the South Pacific. Where it was used that way, it was totally outclassed by the Zero and the Wirraways were shot down quickly.

One of the squadron which had Wirraways and faced the oncoming invasion of Japanese forces was No.24 Squadron RAAF in Rabaul. They provided air cover for the Australian Army's Lark Force. As the Japanese decided to invade Rabaul No.24 faced more and more Japanese aircraft raids including from Japanese carriers.

On the 20th of January the Wirraways were wiped out by Zeros. Two Wirraways were patrolling when word came of a Japanese air strike coming in. Three more took off from one airfield and two more from another. The slow Wirrways climbed as quickly as they could but were no match for the Zeros. Bruce Gamble writes;

Seven under powered fighters - nothing more than glorified trainers - would face 109 of the Imperial Navy's best.

Only two of the Wirraway's survived and this was after constantly being attacked and diving in and out of clouds. None of the Zeros sustained any damage. Gamble continues;

That the defenders took off against such an over whelming force should be considered one of the great sacrifices of the Pacific War - but not a single medal was awarded by the RAAF. Responding to an official inquiry in 1946, the defence ministry stated that no citations could be issued because no enemy planes had been shot down.

As Gamble notes, by this logic, no medals should be given for the self sacrifice such as jumping on a live grenade. The fact of the matter was the Australia did not have the weaponry to challenge the Japanese and even when they did, it was because of American largesse in supplying competitive arms to the RAAF.