78sqn nl 101 nl 101.pdf · 2020. 4. 21. · cover for one or all three raaf vultee vengeance 6 the...

78 Squadron Association Newsletter

DebriefingThis issue of the newsletter sees some changes. I’m still experimenting with an acceptable format, along with having some minor and subtle changes from the previous one issue.

One of the obvious changes is that the newsletter now has a name, rather than just being 78 Sqn Newsletter, which was a bit ordinary. The background for this name is that some years ago on an ANZAC Day march that I attended in Sydney, I purchased a peaked cap from the son of another 78 Squadron member. He had made an attempt to give the squadron an emblem or badge, which was a great idea considering we don’t have one. In fact, all of the other four RAAF fighter squadrons numbered in the seventies have one.

At the bottom of any squadron badge was a motto, which is usually in English. The only exception I know of, for a fighter squadron, is 3 Squadron’s ‘Operta Aperta’ and for those whose latin is a little rusty, roughly translates to ‘Secret Things Revealed’. For the four seventies fighter squadrons; 75’s motto was ‘Seek and Strike’, 76 was ‘Attack’, 77 was ‘Swift To Destroy’ and lastly 79 Squadron was ‘Born For Action’.

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Contact:

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PO Box 3063, St Pauls 2031, NSW

Always FightIssue 101 / December 2018

75 Years

We continue our look back at some milestones for the squadron three-quarters of a century ago. Picking up from when the squadron had just arrived in the SWPA and flew its first operation.

Come In Suckers

Don’t you just love the name of this Kittyhawk from the squadron? This issue we take a quick look at this interesting aircraft.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Anyway the suggested squadron motto on the cap was ‘Fight’, which was very appropriate. However, I thought some immediacy was needed, a constant readiness to undertake that fight which was the spirit constantly displayed by the Squadron. An excellent example of which is the ‘Big Do’ of 3rd June 1944 when 15 Kittyhawks from the Squadron took on nearly three times that number of enemy aircraft. To that end I prefixed ‘Fight’ with ‘Always’, hence the newsletter’s name.

Being a bit of a plane-spotter from way back, it readily leads to a fascination of all things to do with flight and I’m guessing you gentle reader are in a similar frame of mind. This of course leads to watching any movie or documentary that has an aircraft in it or has anything to do with flight. So from Sully to Flight to the recent Dunkirk, I’ve watched them all. Well, nearly all.

It was a fait accompli then when I saw that there was a documentary by David Attenborough on Flying Monsters that I would watch it. The monsters were the class of flying dinosaurs called Pterosaurs, of which there were around 228 different types! The earliest of these magnificent flying beasts date back 200 million years! Something I find utterly astounding. Today’s birds are direct descendants from these fliers. No wonder humans have wanted to fly since the earliest of times. I think it is innate.

So this documentary was a treasure trove of information and definitely worth a watch if it comes back on air. Now I knew of these flying monsters, but the information from that program that floored me was they weren’t the earliest. In fact, these Pterosaurs were beaten to flight by nearly another 200 million years. Yes you read that correctly. Who resoundingly beat them? Why a simple insect called a Dragonfly, with its quad-wings, that is still around today. Back then they were considerably bigger, with a wing span of around 750mm. Consider their longevity, next time you see one in your garden.

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First Humans to Fly

Well that is easy it was de Rozier and d’Arlandes. If that rings a very distant bell, it is because they were mentioned in the last issue of the newsletter. Here there is a good deal more information.


75 YearsLast month we left the squadron flying top cover for American B-24 Liberators, along with their fellow Kittyhawk squadrons, towards the end of November. Before we close out that month we must unite the unit as a whole, when on 27th November the advance echelon arrived at Kiriwina Island from Woodlark Island.

That small band under F/L Rex Bennett had been languishing there for about 41 days. They had set up a base camp for their squadron that was never used due to a change of orders. Also there has been confusion about where the advance echelon went, because the squadron banner has it marked as Goodenough Island when in fact it was Woodlark Island.

By the end of November the unit strength was listed as 311 personnel.

On the 1st December four Sergeant pilots, Max Hall, Ron Chambers, Don Smyth and George Sheppard, were promoted to temporary Flight Sergeants, effective from 13th November.

Some five days later Squadron Leader James ‘Jim’ Davidson arrived for supernumerary duties. Jim had joined the RAAF the day after World War 2 was declared

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78 Squadron by the Numbers

1717 days in existence

323+ ground crew during its existence

1st squadron to receive P-40N model

141+ pilots during its existence

1 indigenous pilot

7th Kittyhawk Squadron formed

2 dogfights

11 Japanese aircraft destroyed in combats


in Europe, just four days after his 19th birthday. He had previously served with 3 Squadron in the desert where he flew Lysanders then Tomahawks, the predecessor of the Kittyhawks. Such operational experience would be invaluable in the unit that had very little and was probably the primary reason for his posting. He would help Wing Commander Walker lead the squadron over the next few months.

Each of the RAAF squadrons in the SWPA allocated themselves a call sign. The 6th December was the first time that a call sign was recorded in 78 Squadron’s Operations Record Book (ORB). They were Bombo and Frontless, but both would only last about six weeks before being replaced with the permanent Smuttee.

Operations up to this time were regular and intensive. It appears the first time an operation was aborted due to weather was on Saturday 11th and this would be a regular feature during the next 20 months on active duty. It is a sad aspect of the war in the SWPA that the RAAF lost more aircrew to the weather than to enemy operations.

The first possibility of aerial combat eventuated on 21st December while escorting Bostons from 22 Squadron. During that mission some Val dive bombers and Zeros were sighted and an attempt by some 78 Squadron

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78 Squadron by the Numbers

101 Kittyhawks served in squadron

15 Mustangs served in squadron

6 wartime Commanding Officers

Bill ‘Happy’ Harnden with some of the young locals from Kiriwina Island in either December 1943 or January 1944.


Kittyhawks to engage the Vals had them turn and run. The Zeros kept their distance.

Following that tempting engagement of the 21st, on Christmas Day, again over Cape Hoskins airstrip, a combat happened. A Hap (Allied code word for a Zero) was chased by F/Sgt Max Jensen who fired at it but no strikes were observed, before the Zero disappeared into a cloud.

The cooks made a determined effort that day to provide a Christmas meal to remind themselves of what was happening at home.

On Boxing Day and the following day, around 300 enemy aircraft attempted to disrupt the landings at Cape Gloucester and Arawe. 78 Squadron was on patrol for an hour and 35 minutes over the landing on 28th, but sighted no enemy aircraft.

New Years Day saw 20 Kittyhawks from 76 and 78 Squadrons scrambled to intercept enemy aircraft returning to Rabaul. After more than an hour and a half searching the end result was nil sightings. This is later recorded in the ORB as the ‘Hope Scramble’. It was indeed.

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Some of the armourers at Kiriwina Island. This photo gives a good indication of the barrenness of the island, due to it being mostly coral. The airstrip there was hard, glary, and just about bomb proof.


Also on New Years day A H ‘Curly Brydon’ became the second supernumerary in the squadron. Another pilot with considerable operational experience, he had flown Hudson bombers with 1 Squadron RAAF in the Malayan campaign, that has been described as a bloody shambles. Curly was to have a long association with 78, so we will meet him again.

Operations on 24th January from their base at Nadzab saw 11 of the units Kittyhawks providing top cover for Mitchell B-25 bombers to Gragat Island. It was to be a standard day at the office except for one thing. This mission saw the first use of the new squadron call sign - Smuttee.

Numerous promotions came through during February that included among the pilots Norm Wigglesworth, Colin Heard and Cliff Grey. While amongst the ground crew it was Henry Skelton, Bert Ellis, Lyndsay Drady, Herbert Wiltshire and George Wotton and seven other individuals who were promoted from Aircraftman to Leading Aircraftman but weren’t named.

Many of the operations for February were providing top cover for one or all three RAAF Vultee Vengeance

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The Markham river near the Nadzab airstrip complex from which 78 Squadron operated. Note the numerous tents in the upper left. Not sure if it is 78 Squadron’s area.


squadrons (24, 23 and 21). As a side show to this dive bombing, it gave the squadron pilots an opportunity to strafe the enemy for good measure after the Vultees had done their bombing.

Towards the end of the month Eugene Weber had his ground crew scrub the paint from his Kittyhawk to bring it back to a bare metal finish. The rationale was to obtain more speed from the aircraft. However, it possibly led to his demise a few days after the camouflage was removed. On Wednesday 2 March while strafing Japanese gun positions, his gleaming Kittyhawk was given extra attention by the gunners and shot down. The squadron’s first loss in operations.

A new pilot, Pilot Officer John Reed (419833), who was just 19 at the time, arrived in late March but was only with the squadron for a short time. He was later killed in June 1945 just before his 21st birthday in a Wirraway, while instructing at 5 SFTS. Along with Reed fellow pilot Robert Cook (442489) was also killed in the accident. Interestingly both had the same birthday, 27 August.

(to be continued.)

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Eugene Weber in A29-537 at Kiriwina Island before the camouflage paint was removed. Note the white wasn’t painted over the lower fuselage below the fin, though the serial number isn’t visible.


Come In Suckers

What’s not to like about this very imaginative phrase on the cowl of A29-414! The name certainly ‘sucks’ one in,

though no Japanese pilot would have flown close enough to appreciate the irony.

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I don’t have any photos of A29-537 after the paint was removed, but this impressive model gives an good representation of what art was like. The only item of contention is the black serial number, which probably would have been removed too.

A nice closeup of HU-Z A29-414 giving good detail of the cowl art. Note the propellor boss isn’t painted with the flight colour code, so this photo is probably from late January or early February 1944.


This Kittyhawk was one of the very early ones to be delivered to the squadron. Some six aircraft turned up on 2nd August 75 years ago and these were the first P-40Ns accepted by the unit. The next day another five turned up, one of which was the future Come In Suckers. As coincidence would have it, the person responsible for naming the aircraft, Jim Harvey, would fly it on the very day it turned up in the squadron.

A29-414 was a model P-40N-1, which meant it was the first of the new model Ns and outwardly very similar to the previous model Ms. Early in August 1943 it was coded HU-Z over its olive drab camouflage. Numerous pilots flew the Kittyhawk during the work up period at Camden NSW, but it was Harvey who took it to war. On 3rd November he flew HU-Z from Camden and headed for Archerfield on the southern outskirts of Brisbane. Over the next few days he flew it up the coast of Queensland, then across the southern coast of New Guinea and on to its new base on Kiriwina Island, in the Trobriand Group. Both arrived there on 13th November in sound condition which can’t be said for all the Kittyhawks. Eugene Weber wrote off A29-411 at Horn Island, Queensland.

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Another great view of HU-Z this time with its ground crew and pilot. Jim Harvey is in the middle of the five, with his foot on the wheel.


HU-Z’s first strike was on 6th December with Harvey at the controls and consisted of strafing a pontoon bridge, village huts used by the Japanese and other targets as they saw fit. The Kittyhawk faithfully served Harvey and other pilots through a variety of missions, from strafing, to top cover for bombers and Vengeance dive bombers operating from Kiriwina Island and Nazab during December 1943 and January 1944. Both Harvey and Come In Suckers were involved in the ‘Hope Scramble’ on New Year’s day.

While at Nadzab with the crew and aircraft now settled in, the pilots looked at personalising their mounts. Obviously receiving no objections from the CO Grant Walker, who also participated, cowl art and names began to appear around late January and early February. The squadron artist was Bruce Laird, who painted most of the Kittyhawks in the squadron and from the lusty young men deprived of female company, many requests were for a naked lady to adorn their aircraft.

With the move of the squadron to Cape Gloucester at the western tip of New Britain, Come In Suckers and Harvey flew several escort missions a day for the transport aircraft. The last operation that Harvey flew in Come In Suckers from Cape Gloucester was on 30 March. A few days later it went for a replacement engine due to the original one having 240 hours up on it. About a week later it returned to the squadron ready for more action, but its days were numbered.

Yet another move saw Harvey flying his mount to Tadji airstrip from Cape Gloucester on ANZAC Day 1944. Recent rain had made the airstrip a quagmire. Some Kittyhawks from 78 landed okay, but two didn’t. Harry Kerr in A29-565 was first to flip his aircraft, some more Kittyhawks landed without event, but not so for Come In Suckers. It too hit a bog patch on the strip, flipped and careered along in the mud, just like Harry Kerr’s aircraft. It was unceremoniously bulldozed off the strip so that other Kittyhawks could land. Both men spent some time in a medical station and returned to the squadron around the middle of May.

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As a postscript. The serial number was cut from the fuselage and presented to Jim Harvey. In the 1970s Charles Darby and company retrieved several Kittyhawks from Aitape, one of which was A29-414 Come In Suckers. A few weeks after Harvey returned to the squadron he was involved in the ‘Big Do’, but was flying A29-458 HU-L another P-40N-1.

First Humans to Fly

As I sit and write this on Wednesday 21st November, I’m acutely aware of the significance of this day, it being the 235th anniversary of the first flight by humans. Francois Pilatre de Rozier, the pilot, and the Marquis Francois Laurent d’Arlandes, they have the distinction of being the first to fulfil humanity’s longest dream.

After a tear that had been sustained earlier in the morning was repaired, one of the Montgolfier brothers, Etienne, inspected the balloon. He declared all was ready. The fire under the wooden stand was stoked again with more old shoes, decomposing meat and wet straw. While the smell kept many people at a distance, which was a good thing, the Montgolfier brothers thought it was the smoke that did the lifting, not the heat. This putrid concoction did produce some great smoke. Within 10 to 15 minutes over the smoky fire the “Montgolfier” (as hot-air balloons have

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All that remains today of Come In Suckers. Note the fading of the number itself. Originally it was a white.


became known) was standing seven stories high in all its blue and gold splendour. The outer cotton cloth had a blue background with elaborate gold faces, ribbons and other motifs painted on it. Under the cotton was a paper lining that provided much of the strength, as well as flexibility of the envelope.

At 1:54pm Etienne gave the order for the eight ground crew fighting to stabilise the balloon, to let go. The gusty wind had abated. The majestic balloon slowly rose into the air with de Rozier and d’Arlandes on opposite sides of the circular platform waving their hats at the crowd. Can you image how exciting it was for these two aeronauts as they looked down at the receding crowd? Slowly they floated higher to have a view of the surrounding area that no one had ever seen before. No one else, in humanity’s tens of thousands of years of existence, had travelled as they were now. It must have been incredibly exciting for them. If you have been up in a balloon you’ll know there is no wind, no sensation of movement, unless you look down. It must have been an otherworldly experience for them as they floated along on a gentle north-westerly breeze. Everything they were doing was for the first time. In fact, d’Arlandes was so engrossed in watching the vast city beneath that he forgot his duties. de Rozier had to remind him to stoke the fire because “the balloon is scarcely rising a fathom”.

The balloon crossed over the park, then the city, It climbed to an estimated altitude of 1,000 metres (nearly 3,000 feet) where it was seen ‘by all of Paris’. Some time into the flight d’Arlandes became alarmed that embers from the fire were burning holes in the fabric of the balloon. In fact some chords that connected the gallery to the balloon had been burnt through causing d’Arlandes concern. He immediately grabbed a bucket of water and a sponge, that had been supplied for such an emergency, and proceeded to put out the spot fires. Due to this crisis the two aeronauts allowed the lift fire to burn out, allowing the balloon to settle back to earth about 8 km

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from their lift-off point. It was 2:19 pm and the dream had been fulfilled.

They weren’t the only ones entranced. The crowd, that had become impatient and noisy waiting about two hours for the balloon fabric to be repaired and inspected, had now fallen silent and were frozen in place as the Montgolfier rose. This reaction had stunned the two aeronauts. It was probably similar to the millions of people who sat transfixed in front of their TV sets on 21st July 1969 when Neil Armstrong took his one small step. I was there. I remember not saying a word, eyes glued to the black and white screen just enthralled at what I was witnessing. That can never be taken away from me. Just like the Parisians in 1783. The only thing better would have been being in that balloon, or, stepping onto the Moon’s surface.

Who exactly were these two first aeronauts? de Rozier (1754-1785) was a chemist and physicist who had assisted with an earlier Montgolfier balloon flight on 19 September earlier that year. The passengers of that test flight were a sheep, a cock and a duck, because King Louis XVI wanted the Montgolfiers to proceed with care. When the brothers suggested to the King that the next step was to put humans into the balloon, he replied they should be a couple of criminals, who he would pardon if it was a successful flight. de Rozier became incensed when he heard that. Through his friend d’Arlandes (1742-1809), who was an officer in the French Royal Guard and had connections in the palace through a lady-in-waiting to Marie-Antoinette, he was able to change the King’s mind.

So de Rozier became one crew member. For d’Arlandes’ part in the decision reversal he became the second member. I haven’t been able to find out much more about d’Arlandes subsequent flying activities, though in the following year he proposed a flight across the English Channel. It came to nothing.

We know a good deal more about de Rozier. His second flight in a balloon was nearly two months later on 19

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January. On this flight there were five other passengers besides de Rozier, one of whom was the recluse Montgolfier brother, Joseph. It appears it was Joseph’s only flight. This new balloon, named ‘Le Flesselles’ was ten times as large as the previous one. On 23 June 1784, in a modified Montgolfier balloon called ‘La Marie-Antoinette’, de Rozier travelled 52 km in 45 minutes setting speed, altitude and distance records for the time! Then on 15 June 1785 he and Pierre Romain set off to fly the English channel from France to England. They had already been beaten on this undertaking in January of that year, but they were undeterred. Things didn’t go well for them. As they approached the channel they were blown back over land and at a height of 450 metres the balloon deflated and plunged to earth killing both men. de Rozier has the distinction of being the first to fly, as well as the first casualty, along with Romain, of this new form of transportation.

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78sqn nl 101 nl 101.pdf · 2020. 4. 21. · cover for one or all three raaf vultee vengeance 6 the...

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