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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 1, 2011 22:11:58 GMT 12
I am curious about the P-40E Kittyhawks that were taken over by No. 15 (F) Squadron when they arrived in Tonga.
I note that some of them did not receive RNZAF serial numbers, and these include (as listed on ADF Serials):
ET424 - in which Sqn Ldr Allan Crichton was killed in in Fiji 25 March 1943
ET427 - Which Don Chrystall was killed in on 7 Nov 1942
ET461
42-45958 - (a P-40K)
Chrichton's crash comes five months after they arrived in Tonga, and after they had left there and were on their way to Santo. So why was it not given an RNZAF serial number by then? Had none of them been given NZ numbers till they got to Santo?
If that's the case is there possibly more aircraft that were used by the squadron in Tonga that never got the serial number and have been forgotten? I ask this because I have a copy of the diary of George "Pat" Patterson who was a fire crew member on No. 15 Squadron at the time. He mentions two other crashes there at Tonga other than Chrystall's fatal one. He writes that Guy Young "made a forced landing in a P-40" and that Flt Lt Duncan "crashed behind the 'Drome."
OK, so maybe Young's aircraft was repairable which is why his name does not appear, and therefore maybe it was 41-25102 which there's an accident report for in the National Archive where it seems the aircraft collided with US aircraft 41-25126.
41-25102 became NZ3101 and later crashed at Ohakea in 1944. So maybe that explains Guy Young's forced landing? However 41-25126 became NZ3106 and also escaped this bump in the air only to crash at Santo. Maybe that was Young's plane?
But the words for Sholto Duncan "crashed beind the 'Drome" sounds more permanent than repairable. Yet there's no crash at that time attributed to Duncan writing off an aircraft on adf.serials. There is an accident report in the Archive for P-40K 42-45958 which suffered an accident when it ran short on fuel - could this be Duncan's aircrfat that crashed? Or was he in another aircraft altogether perhaps?
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Post by curtiss on Jun 1, 2011 22:32:55 GMT 12
RNZAF aircraft register has four aircraft listed ex Tonga:
41-45958
41-25103
41-25100
and 41-25137 (ET 461) listed as missing on operations from Santo , 14 Sqn 5.7.43.
No disposal listed for the other aircraft.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 1, 2011 22:41:31 GMT 12
I just looked at John Arkwright's logbook, which i have photos of. He switched from No. 17 Squadron at Seagrove to No. 15 Squadron at Santo just after Crichton was killed, and he went up to become the new Flight Commander after there was a change in the ranks to fill Crichton's place. A quick look at the P-40's he was flying in April 1943 don't match the Tongan ones at all, they were all P-40M's. So what did the squadron do with their E model aircraft when they took them to Santo in March 43?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 1, 2011 23:08:03 GMT 12
Looking more closely the aircraft that No. 15 Squadron was flying in April 1943 were of course the aircrfat that No. 14 Squadron had taken north from NZ, in the NZ307x range and thereabouts, including NZ3072 'Wairarapa Wildcat'. So I wonder why they flew their P-40E's to Fiji and onto Tonga and what happened to them, were they flown home by No. 14 Squadron to NZ? They obviously got back to NZ.
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Post by errolmartyn on Jun 1, 2011 23:26:12 GMT 12
Youngs (not Young's) belly landed 41-25136/NZ3105 on 'Bleacher' on 8 Nov 42.
Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 2, 2011 0:17:37 GMT 12
Thanks Errol. Looking again at the diary I see it is probably Youngs he wrote, though the 's' looks just like a wee flourish on the end of the 'g'. Thanks for sorting that out.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 2, 2011 0:21:11 GMT 12
I have been reading the diary tonight, it's really quite interesting looking ino the life of a Sgt Fireman on a fighter squadron. Pat died last year, and he has no family at all, so the diary and his photos and other historical bits and pieces passed into the hands of his longtime friend who's now their custodian. I am thinking af asking her if she would allow me to transcribe the diary here on the forum for others interested in RNZAF history to read. I already have permission to use whatever I want in my book project so I hope she'll be ok with it.
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Post by Tony on Jun 2, 2011 1:59:50 GMT 12
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Post by pjw4118 on Jun 2, 2011 15:31:09 GMT 12
Are there any photos of the Tonga/ Fiji period ?
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 2, 2011 16:00:37 GMT 12
That's a good point, none in the collection I have here from Pat Paterson sadly. I don't recall seeing anything from Tonga (maybe one or two of the Tonga aircraft but I don't think they were taken in Tonga) though they were based there for six months!
No. 15 Squadron was not the only squadron to use Tonga either, many squadrons either visited there during the war or had short stays. But I don't recall ever seeing a photo of the aerodrome or any of NZ's military installations there.
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Post by Tony on Jun 2, 2011 21:03:35 GMT 12
Are there any photos of the Tonga/ Fiji period ?
From memory there are some around including a couple showing the P-40's dug in in preparation for an incoming cyclone.
Also an old AHSNZ journal carried an article, not too sure which one. I have it but there are in so many boxes to check... |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Jun 2, 2011 21:10:00 GMT 12
Actually now that I rethink I'm sure there were a couple of photos in an article that Ralph Court DFC wrote on the squadron for NZ Wings magazine.
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Post by alanw on Nov 12, 2016 16:57:03 GMT 12
Hi all, Thought I's ressurect this old thread. During my very inquesitive research into our RNZAF P40E-1's, the question came up about the camouflage of the RNZAF 15 Sqn P 40E-1's that were taken over from the USAAF 68th PS in Tonga. When I asked this question of our RNZAF Museum, the answer came back that when they arrived back in New Zealand, they were in RAF TLS (albeit faded) Temperate Land Scheme, the same as our P 40E-1's received in NZ 1942. (I have to acknowledge Nathan and DavidD at the Museum on this) For those who don't know about the RAF TLS on US manufactured aircraft, it was Dark Earth/Dark Green/Duck Egg Blue aka Sky Type S. For our P 40E's this was in DuPont paints applied at the Curtiss factory and looked like this drive.google.com/file/d/0B3Yff6LKWML1VS00MVFaR04ycjg/view?usp=sharingWhere am I going with this you may ask? While hunting through the P 40 Pile, I came across this photo which I belive is a RNZAF 15 Sqn (Tonga)P 40E-1( not sure its taken in Toga though) s292.photobucket.com/user/oldcrowfilms/media/img219.jpg.htmlNow The RNZAF (to my knowledge) had only the P40E-1 and P40K in camouflage overseas (SWP). The aircraft does not appear to be a K (exhausts for one) so has to be a E-1 Be intereseted in your comments Regards Alan |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2016 17:17:25 GMT 12
 The photo is very famous, and I think someone will probably be able to both name the pilot and date the picture. It appears on the front of Leo White's book "Fighters" and was likely taken by him. As he was with the New Zealand Fighter Wing at Guadalcanal which is what the book is about, I'd guess it was taken there. |
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Post by isc on Nov 12, 2016 19:41:24 GMT 12
The Pilot is Flight Lieutenant J.R. Day, a flight commander 16 squadron, an RNZAF photo. Info from "RNZAF A Short History" by Geoffrey Bentley. Sorry no date. isc
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 12, 2016 20:09:49 GMT 12
That would therefore make the photo Espiritu Santo or Guadalcanal I guess.
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Post by harvard1041 on Nov 13, 2016 3:19:15 GMT 12
Here is a photo of one of the P-40Es up in the Islands...it's NZ3094 which was Col Pays original machine....obviously a staged photo but very cool all the same.  adf Serials says : NZ3094 P-40E-1 19620 41-25109 ET433 Taken over from the 68th PG, USAAF by No.15 Squadron at Fuamotu, Tonga on 27 October 1942. Sold to J. Larsen from Rukuhia on 02 March 1948. One of the last 4 Kittyhawks scheduled to be melted down, this aircraft was still extant at Rukuhia in March 1967. Remains to John Chambers and Mike Subritzky. Sold to C. Pay, Scone, New South Wales in 1994 and since restored First post restoration flight at Scone Airport, Australia on 06 December 2005. |
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Post by davidd on Nov 13, 2016 17:58:23 GMT 12
The photo of Jack Day and the one of 3094 both taken at Espiritu Santo approx. July 1943, when a large number of shots were taken by an RBZAF photographer at both Santo and Guadalcanal. The photo of Jack Day was the one which appeared on the cover of "Fighters" by Leo White, and Jack was thereafter known to his 16 Squadron friends as "Picture" Day! All the surviving P-40Es and the one surviving P-40K-1 were given RNZAF numbers at Espiritu Santo about the same time that 14 Squadron arrived there with the P-40Ks and Ms from NZ, so 14 Squadron took over the older aircraft while 15 Sqdn took the new ones to Kukum strip (Fighter 2) at Guadalcanal and commenced operations from there on 26th April 1943. Thus the ones without NZ serials were all destroyed in accidents, etc. Incidentally the name of the CO of 15 Squadron was Alan Crighton (NOT Chrichton, as per the RNZAF Official History, J M S Ross). Don't know how this error crept it, but ALan Crighton was a well known airline pilot prewar (Cook Strait Airways) and all his RNZAF records have his name spelt correctly.
David D
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Post by davidd on Nov 15, 2016 10:56:32 GMT 12
Just noticed that the adf Serials (quoted by Harvard1041) state that NZ3094 was taken over from the 68th PG, USAAF ..... This should read the 68th FS (FIGHTER SQUADRON), not PG (Pursuit Group). In fact it was redesignated as a Fighter Squadron from the 11th October 1942, in line with the decision to so-name all existing Pursuit squadrons and Groups. Its parent Group when originally formed was the 58th PG (Interceptor), but it was reconstituted as a part of the 347th Fighter Group from 3rd November 1942. Two of the three original squadrons of the 58th PG were allocated to separate islands in the South Pacific in the early months of 1942 - 67th to New Caledonia (P-400s), 68th to Australia (P-40Es), then to Tonga in May 42. The third squadron of this group (69th Pursuit) was left behind in the USA as a training squadron, although it eventually tuned up with the 347th FG in the Pacific campaigns. One of the three squadrons of the 35th Pursuit Group (70th PS, P-39Ds), although allocated to the Philippines where it was intended that it join its sisters, was also diverted to Australia after Pearl Harbor, and was then shipped to Fiji. These widely separated squadrons did not gather as a complete Group until the end of 42/early 1943, at Guadalcanal.
David D
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