Australian Beaufighters

[Alex Smart]

hi,

The Beaufighter in Australian use.
From the Air Britain files and other books I find that the first Beaufighters were sent to Australia and entered service with 30 Sqdn in June 1942 and 31 Sqdn in August 1942.
Yet some of those early aircraft did not enter service until mid 1943.
Can anyone offer an explanation as to why there seems to be a delay in their entering squadron service ?
Early Batch's were -
February 1942.....T4920 to T4931 which became A19-1 to A19-12
February 1942.....T4943 to T4947 which became A19-13 to A19-17
March 1942........T4970 to T4978 which became A19-18 to A19-26
March 1942.........T4991 to T5004 which became A19-27 to A19-40
March 1942........T5047 to T5055 which became A19-41 to A19-49
April 1942...........T5070 to T5074 which became A19-50 to A19-54
How were they delivered, all by sea I expect and if so which route and when did they arrive in Australia ?
Thanks

Alex

[Graham Boak]

Two ideas:

Some aircraft will have been held as attrition spares.

One or two will have been used to train the ground crews.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

This page is listing all RAAF Beaufighter with a detailed history: http://www.adf-serials.com/2a19.shtml

Some of the Beau in your range have a date of delivery in 43-44 but they are obviously a typo error, as following dates in the AC's story are in 1942. I will say that all of these Beaus were received by RAAF between April and June 1942 by 2 units, 1 and 2 AD (Air Depot?) and later transfered to other units (30 & 31 Sqn, 5 OTU) before the end of 1942, except A19-41 (T5047) that was received by 2 AD in April 1942 and transfered to 5 OTU one year later

[terry mac]

Delays occur because of the need to build up sufficient stocks of a/c
and also for the reasons stated by other posters An operational squadron may see 40/50 a/c possibly a lot more depend on operational stautus in the couse of a year
Although genreally good Air Britain books are not without their faults as I have found out during my reasearch into Kittyhawks and Mustangs