RB-34 Venturas in RNZAF service

[Dave Homewood]

The RNZAF received 23 second-hand RB-34, or B-34 Lexingtons, known as Venturas in RNZAF service.

None were used by combat units in the Pacific and all stayed in New Zealand.

I'm curious as to what they all did. According to Ivan's adfserials page on the Ventura, several of them wore OP- code letters. What unit was this?

Interestingly all of them survived service, in terms of none crashed. This almost tells me, since they were used for training, that perhaps they were seldom flown?

The Ventura at Motat is one of them, and its service career in WWII was an an instructional airframe at the Technical Training School, RNZAF Station Nelson, as far as I can tell.

But what did the others do? Were they all groundbound instructional tools? Did some or all fly with No. 1 (B) OTU at Ohakea? Were any used by the School of Navigation and General Reconnaissane perhaps? Or for gunnery training?

Had any of our RNZAF B-34's seen combat in the Pacific when serving with the USAAF?

And I'm particularly interested in finding a fuller career history of NZ4600 at Motat, including it's postwar life between the RNZAF and going to Motat. It wears an olive drab scheme, operational roundels, a nose-art that had been previously seen on an RNZAF Lodestar, and the words COASTAL PATROL on it. Is anything actually genuine about it's scheme or is it bogus?

[Bruce]

The scheme appears to be correct other than the artwork. Coastal Patrol Lexingtons were based out of Darton field Gisborne wearing that scheme. some GR squadron I think, not sure which though. OP sounds like some form of OTU.

[corsair67]

Wasn't there some differences between the internal fitout (radios, etc) of the Lexingtons and Venturas, which was the reason for the Lexingtons not serving outside of NZ while in RNZAF service?

[Dave Homewood]

I've been delving a bit deeper and remembered that among other sources I have Malcolm Laird's excellent 'Pacific Twins'book which gives a little of the history of the RB-34's.

Actually, some RB-34's did get sent to Nausori, Fiji, in 1943 to take over from No. 4 (BR) Squadron's Hudsons. However, despite these six aircraft having been refurbished in NZ before being sent, when they arrived they proved unsuitable for operational use due to their navigational equipment being sub-standard. They were returned to NZ and the Hudsons carried on with 4BR well into 1944 till sufficient PV-1's were available for them.

Some of the RNZAF RB-34's had previously served with the USAAF in Alaska and the Aluetians as patrol bombers apparently. Others had been trainers at home in the USA. They'd been built for the RAF but none had served with that air force, despite some rumours that some had been in North Africa - this apparently being false.

Now, I've established that the OP- codes were the letters of No. 11 Servicing Unit. This seems to have formed at Ohakea, then moved to Gisborne, and later to Whenuapai. As far as I can establish, no General Reconnaissance or Bomber Reconnaissance squadrons were directly linked with No. 11 SU. I can only assume that the Venturas at Gisborne were being used by the Gunnery Training School there, who had also used Harvards and Hudsons. I think the school was established there because it developed out of a unit with No. 30 (TB) Squadron, but I have to check this. I know they ran gunnery courses for air gunners before the GTS opened.

As for coastal patrols from Gisborne, I still have never found any evidence of this being connected with a Bomber Reconnaissance squadron. If anyone can put my right on this I'd appreciate it. Perhaps the GTS also did reconnaissance work, quite possible as most of the other flying schools did in their own regions.