B-25 Mitchell gunship aerial victories

[knusel]

Good afternoon Geoff,

the PBJ flew 7% of the missions of the Marines and dropped 17% of the bombs that the Marines dropped in WW2. I have the OSPREY volumes about it but haven't read it yet.
The B-25 gunship claims of the USAAF were not processed like the claims of fighter pilots, were they ?

Best greetings from Switzerland,

Michael

[bearoutwest]

One of the few mentions of air-to-air claims by B-25 strafer-gunships, from the bookazine "Forty of the Fifth" by Michael Claringbould.
B-25D-25 Mitchell "Mitch the Witch", #42-87293, 17th Recce Sqn/71st TRG

25-Feb-1944, during a regular reconnaissance shipping patrol of the Bismarck Sea, this B-25 encountered a Ki-21 armed transport. The B-25 pilot made a firing pass with his 6x fixed 50-cal machine guns, while the observer used his nose-mounted flexible 50-cal. As the pilot flew over the low flying Ki-21, he banked to allow the turret and waist gunners to fire. After multiple passes, the Ki-21 crashed with both engines on fire.

The B-25 crew: 1Lt B.A. Sill (pilot), S/Sgt R.F. Burns (turret), 2Lt W.J. Petersen (co-pilot), T/Sgt E.F. Duffy (waist), 2Lt J.H. Gunn (nose), S/Sgt G. Dixon (waist).


...geoff

[BruceMk11]

Coningham, whilst born in Australia, was raised in New Zealand and identified as a Kiwi. I read that in one of Dennis Newton's books.

[knusel]

Yes, and he served with New Zealand forces in Africa first.
Do the passports/personal files of these days distinguish the different nations of the British Empire or were all British subjects indicated as British?

[bearoutwest]

Australian Passports circa 1935 & 1955
I have scans of some passports for Aussie flyers of that period of time, and they are quite subtly different.


1935 has on the cover:
PASSPORT
Commonwealth of Australia

1955 has on the cover:
BRITISH
PASSPORT
Commonwealth of Australia

Internally, both designate the document as Australian, not British.

[knusel]

Good morning,

according to my ADAC Nations Lexicon Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907) and Canada (1867) became independent before WW1 and South Africa (1934) between the World Wars. Were persons from these countries pronounced British before that?

Have a pleasant Sunday,

Michael

[Boomerang]

Hi Michael:

The concept of 'Australian citizenship' was only introduced in 1949. Before then anyone born or naturalised in Australia was a British subject:

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-mome...sh%20passports.

The information in the above link also indicates that legislation to introduce local citizenship (as opposed to British citizenship) was also introduced after WW2 in Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.

You refer to Australia pre-1901. Before 1901, Australia consisted of six separate colonies that were subject to the British Parliament. Australia only became a single nation state when the colonies were federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901:

https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-mome...0and%20tariffs.

Hope that helps

Don W