Crossover question

[ams888]

Was there ever much of a crossover of equipment on the front lines in the pacific for the RNZAF? For example did the RNZAF operate P40M's and P40N's at the front at the same time? Or did they ever operate P40's and Corsairs at the same time in the pacific? Every photo I've seen only seems to show one type there at a time

[Dave Homewood]

They operated P-40E's and P-40K's together at Tonga and Espiritu Santo in the early days, and they had P-40K's and P-40M's on strength together at Guadalcanal initially in 1943. When sufficient numbers of P-40N's arrived they took over the front line duties.

P-40's were withdrawn from Operations in June 1944, the last squadron operating them being No. 19 Squadron. The first squadron to operate the Corsair was No. 20 Squadron, who converted to the type at Santo in May 1944 and moved to Guadalcanal that same month with No. 1 SU servicing the aircraft. So it is possible that as P-40's were being withdrawn from Bougainville and passed through Santo they were side by side with the Corsairs. I am not sure if any Corsair squadrons arrived up at the likes of Torokina or New Georgia and operated with the RNZAF P-40's side by side for a short time though.

[davidd]

There was usually a cross-over period with most aircraft types, with exception of flying boats (Singapore IIIs were no longer airworthy when our first PBY-5 Catalinas arrived). And of course our Avengers and SBD Dauntless dive bombers were never replaced, as it had been decided that RNZAF participation with these types was no longer requited in the South Pacific theatre. However the RNZAF did retain Hudsons on operations from Fiji long after the other squadrons had converted to PV-1s until about October 1944. As to "upgrades" with later versions of the same type, P-40Es were never committed to the front line at Guadalcanal, but numbers were retained at Espiritu Santo (and later at Guadalcanal) as a matter of expediency for local defence, and a few actually took part in some attempted interceptions of Japanese "bogeys" without result. This was at a time when the RNZAF could only retain two, then three P-40 squadrons at Espiritu Santo and Guadalcanal by employing the obsolete models at the rear base. Most of the final "Es" were withdrawn to NZ in late Dec 1943. At Guadalcanal, a mixture of Ks and Ms served as the equipment of 1 SU through till early October 1943, at which point there was a complete changeover of SU personnel, with 1 SU moving back to Espiritu Santo and 2 SU manning the aircraft at Guadalcanal, at about the same time that 4 SU arrived at Guadalcanal from NZ to constitute the servicing part of what was now titled the RNZAF Fighter Wing. The third SU (1 SU), now at Espiritu Santo, was also considered part of the Wing for administrative purposes, and by now was equipped with a mixture of the surviving Es and Ks. The last reinforcement P-40Ms arrived at Guadalcanal during July 1943 in three flights of six each, and the first 21 P-40Ns arrived at Guadalcanal in early to mid-September 1943, all being allocated to 4 SU. No. 2 SU retained the mix of Ks and Ms, but most of these were replaced by another 18 Ns which arrived at Guadalcanal between mid-Sept and early Oct 1943, whereupon the remaining Ks and some of the Ms were ferried south to Espiritu Santo to bolster the Es and Ks with 1 SU. The forward base of the NZ Fighter Wing changed to Ondonga (New Georgia) in late October 1943, then to Torokina (Bougainville) in January 1944, at roughly the same time that 1 SU moved north from Espiritu Santo to Guadalcanal. The last P-40Ms with 2 SU were returned to Guadalcanal in late December 1943, and from now on successive sub-types of P-40Ns equipped the two forward SUs till their replacement by F4U-1 Corsairs in late April and early June 1944, after which all surviving P-40s were retuned to NZ. Attrition of P-40s was quite heavy, which required successive groups of replacement aircraft to be ferried north from NZ, with subsequent to the ones already detailed included 8 aircraft in November 1943, another 8 in early December, 12 in mid/late December, another 23 in early/mid Jan 44, 9 in late January, 8 in mid-February, and final reinforcements of 12 aircraft in early/mid March 1944.

[davidd]

Dave,
The final RNZAF P-40 squadron on operations in the forward area (Bougainville at this time) was 17 Sqdn at Torokina, equipped with various sub-types of the P-40N. As the first Corsairs (20 Sqdn, as you correctly pointed out), had been operating at the same strip for about two weeks. Also by this time there were no P-40s based at Kukum strip (Guadalcanal) because they had already been replaced by the
Corsairs at this location. I have seen some photographs of both RNZAF P-40s and F4Us (Corsairs) at Torokina taken during this brief period.

Most of the US Navy models of F4U-1s and FG-1s supplied to the RNZAF were very similar, although the Goodyear-built FG-1s had different radio equipment, and were factory fitted with rocket firing equipment (the later F4U-1Ds were also factory wired for these installations), and the main differences were the increase in the capability to carry additional bombs, fuel tanks, etc, and deletion of the (troublesome) leading edge fuel tanks. Most SUs were equipped with either F4U-1s, or -1Ds, the latter being considered more of a fighter bomber, and the former more of a pure fighter simply by the better range of bomb carriers factory-fitted on the later -1Ds. However the availability of rocket-firing equipment was about to have a big impact on the employment of the RNZAF's Corsairs had the war continued. It was noticeable that at the end of the war, that the RNZAF Corsair units in the operational areas were either equipped predominantly with -1s, plus a couple of -1Ds, or the reverse, with the new FG-1Ds only equipping one unit when the war ended.

There was a very brief cross-over period at Henderson Field (Guadalcanal) in mid/late October 1943 when the first PV-1s (1 Squadron) arrived from NZ while the Hudsons of 3 Squadron were still in residence, and a slightly longer cross over period at Espiritu Santo when the second PV-1 squadron (No. 2) arrived from NZ in mid/late November 1943. In this case the "rump" of 3 Squadron (about six Hudson aircraft and crews) were still in residence here, and they helped maintain anti-submarine coverage, etc, till early January 1944. It has to be mentioned that "early" PV-1s were considered a bit of a liability by mid-1944, partly through some equipment deficiencies, but mostly through rising airframe hours, a "redesigned" fuel system and supposedly superior equipment in some cases, which saw all the aircraft prior to about NZ4545 being returned to NZ by late May 1944. Unfortunately many of these machines were shortly afterwards, without any upgrading or major inspection, despatched to the unfortunate 4 Sqdn at Nausori (Fiji) to replace the final Hudsons in operational service with the RNZAF - they were not very happy about this re-equipment plan.

Catalinas serving in the Pacific with the RNZAF were, as is well known, of two types - the original Consolidated-built PBY-5s and the Boeing (Canada) built PB2B-1s, which were ostensibly interoperable, and mostly with similar equipment, apart from about the last six or eight Boeing boats which had an entirely new type of microwave radar (AN/APS-3), as well as different radio equipment. All the original aircraft were used by 6 Squadron, and operated from Laucala Bay, Tonga, Segond Channel and Halavo Bay (and later also on detachment to Los Negros, Green Island, Jacquinot Bay and Emirau), but from September 1943 a proportion (about six) of the earliest aircraft were used by an operational training unit at Laucala Bay for pure training services. When the PB2B-1s began to arrive in early May 1944, the first six were allocated to what was by now called No. 3 OTU, with the subsequent aircraft up to about NZ4046 allocated to the new No. 5 Squadron at Laucala Bay, and later to Segond Channel, plus a Flight attached to 6 Squadron; the remainder were held in stored reserve until called upon as replacements. As normal attrition slowly reduced the numbers of Catalinas in service, the stored reserve aircraft started to turn up in the forward area with 6 Squadron, and there was a policy to rotate all the newer aircraft into the forward area to enable the oldest PBY-5s to be returned to NZ for storage. The normal establishment for a wartime RNZAF Catalina squadron was sixteen aircraft, and by war's end 6 Squadron was about 50% PBY-5s and the balance were the Boeing-built models.

With the transport squadrons, the original 40 Squadron operated C-47s and C-60s from the start, and also introduced the Hudson conversions known as C-63s (or "Hudson troop carriers") from about December 1943 onwards. The C-60s and C-63s were transferred to 41 Squadron when that unit formed at Whenuapai in August 1944, but it was planned to re-equip this squadron entirely with C-47s as deliveries continued into 1945, as well as forming two additional C-47 units later in the year to set up services to Hawaii and the USA as well as further services through Australia and to Borneo, etc. The C-63s were removed from normal service with 41 Sqdn about April 1945, some being sent to serve with the Utility Flight at Guadalcanal, although the C-60s were retained in service a little longer for VIP services.

I hope this quick survey provides a useful primer to understanding the employment of succeeding variants of the same aircraft, or completely different types, in various classes of units during the period of the Pacific war, plus some of the reasons why things worked out the way they did. The RNZAF really had very little, if any, influence on the aircraft types they were supplied with, and for the latter half of the war the South Pacific was reduced to a rather low level of priority for new combat aircraft, so had to make do with what they were allocated by the American authorities in Washington.

[Dave Homewood]

David will correct me if I am wrong but didn't No. 25 Squadron operate both SBD-4's and SBD-5's simultaneously for a period at Santo too?

[davidd]

Well, yes, you are correct to a point, but basically the near-new SBD-5s were issued on loan to RNZAF to replace the old SBD-4s originally issued, the latter probably contained veterans of the Guadalcanal campaign and the battles through the Central Solomons. None of these aircraft were supplied under Lend-Lease, this was a "local temporary loan" arranged by the sympathetic local American commander. Main problem was that the official lend-lease Dauntless dive bombers were USAAF A-24 Banshees, which were supposed to be shipped to NZ from about July or August 1943 onwards to a total of 120 (from memory, with more to follow from January 1944 onwards), to have formed total of FOUR dive bomber squadrons under original plans. I think the American commander realized that this spectacularly long delivery failure was not of the RNZAF's doing (seems to have been a change in priority of delivery schedule for the A-24s, which the USAAF had lost interest in), and he wished to have the one and only remaining SBD squadron (the other three had been cancelled by this time) deployed to Espiritu Santo and "worked up" to operational pitch for its tour located at the Piva complex on Bougainville. Once the new SBD-5s were issued to 25 Squadron at Santo, the SBD-4s were handed back to their rightful owners. For similar reasons, the RNZAF's SBD-5s were handed back to the US Navy at the Russell Islands on approx. 20/5/44, following completion of their tour.
David D