Australian Spitfires

[Adam]

Hope these help.

The back of two of the pics says, "Our kites over Borneo. 1945"

Adam

[JeffK]

Thanks Jim, beat me to the draw.....

Having a look few a few other articles, and in a table at the end of the book, the Spits had a horrendous loss record due to "Operational " reasons. They were crashing everywhere!

[Jim Oxley]

Yeah Jeff, the table at the back of the book details the loss of almost 160 Spitfires, all but 21 due to 'operational causes' eg, fuel starvation, crash landing, engine failures, crashes on take-off, collisions whilst taxing etc.

And a study of No.80 Fighter Wings' maintenance records on Morotai Island tells a similar story. Frightful wastage of aircraft due to 'operational causes'.

Although arguably that the Spitfire was perhaps the greatest dogfighter aircraft of WWII, it's performance in the Pacific Theatre - Darwin, Morotai and Burma - leaves a lot to be desired. It just was not suited to such a demanding environment.

[JeffK]

Add to the problems the Spits had, it appears that RAAF HQ thought the correct action was to issue the new aircraft to the OTU's and then pass on the clapped out fighters on to the operational Squadrons.

Also the missions were often longer and flown at around 25-32,000ft, putting extra strain on an airframe and engine that was designed for the more civilised skies of Europe.

[Juha]

Hello
in Osprey's Spitfire V aces by A. Price there is an analyze on the Darvin battles, claims and the the losses as the participated AFs (RAAF, IJNAF and IJAAF) recorded them. That's only for the major raids IIRC. Being at work cannot give details but Aussies seemed to have overclaimed rather heavily.
For F4F please refer the excellent The First Team and The First Team at Guadalcanal by Lundstrom. Claims checked against Japanese records, in appendices info on Japanese formations and tactics, on USN tactics etc. Really excellent books. Only small complain I can made is that in the First Team there might be some underestimanation on the effects of USN AA.

Juha

[Troy White]

G'day y'all--

I recently had an RAAF veteran tell me that 457 Squadron Spitfires did not have white leading edges to their wings prior to shark mouths being painted on them and that only squadron leaders had red spinners painted on their Mk VIIIs. He had no photographic proof of this only his recollection.

I love getting together with veterans and hearing their stories (they are what inspire my paintings) but over the years I have found that more often than not are not correct when they say things like this. I have seen plenty of photos of 457 squadron Mk Vs and VIIIs with white leading edges and what appear to be red spinners but I just wanted to throw this out there to see if anyone had any real data especially on spinner color.

Blue Skies
Troy

[sjmacke]

I can throw a bit of light on these points.

a) White wing leading edges - the initial Spitfire Mk.Vs did not have them but after the RAAF issued the order requiring their use, they probably had them painted on in late 1943/ early 1944.

Unfortunately photos of the Mk.Vcs from this era are pretty scarce.

The early Spitfire Mk.VIIIs in the A58-300 to 550 range initially used by 457 Sqn were mostly painted in the Temperate scheme of Dark Green/ Dark Earth uppersurfaces ( or the RAAF similar colours - Foliage Green / Earth Brown if repainting had been required ) complete with White wing leading edges.

After the unit received Spitfire HF.Mk.VIIIs in the A58-600 range, they were operated in the Dark Green/ Ocean Grey schemes that they were delivered in with initially White wing leading edges. Late in the war however the White leading edges were not always painted onto replacement airframes as there was no longer an official requirement for them.

Also on some machines which had previously had them, they became very worn and faded and often hard to pick up in photos.

b) As for only squadron leaders having Red spinners painted on their Mk VIIIs, he is clearly mistaken with his memory on this one.

Initially ALL the Mk.VIIIs had Red spinners, no matter who was flying them. Sometime in 1945, these were changed to White for 457 Sqn.

I have ample photos to illustrate this point. For instance of the 3 airframes flown by Fred Inger (who certainly did not have the rank of Sqn Leader), the first two had Red spinners, the last one White.

A58-419 ZP-Y 'Blondie' - Temperate scheme, no sharkmouth, Red spinner
A58-615 ZP-Y - Dark Green/ Ocean Grey scheme, initially small sharkmouth, later changed to the larger version, Red spinner with White backplate.
A58-672 ZP-Y - Dark Green/ Ocean Grey scheme, large sharkmouth, White spinner.

HTH

Steve Mackenzie
Co-author Ventura Classic Warbirds #2 - 'Spitfire - the Anzac Story'

[rldunn]

Troy and others,

I won't add too much to this except to say few people know the Japanese were not flying the latest model Zero against the Spitfires over Darwin. The 202 Kokutai had no model 22 Zeros during most of the the period it contested the Spitfires. It had few model 32s. Almost all the Zeros flown against the Spitfire were the model 21, essentially the initial 1940 version of the Zero. Several of the posts in this thread contain errors. The last Zero - Spitfire action over Darwin occured in Sept 43 not August as one post says. In the raid on 2 May 43 mentioned in one post, the Japanese actually suffered no aircraft shot down.

Much has been published on this subject yet much misinformation persists. Also regarding the comment that Spitfires were there to contest the bombers. This fails to consider that several of the Japanese missions were essentially fighters sweeps and that on other occasions certain Spitfire Squadrons were assigned to confront the fighters not the bombers.

RLD

[JeffK]

rldunn

the Info about the Zekes is interesting, looks like the Timor Squadrons were at the end of the food chain.


Comment re the Spits being there to shoot down Bombers. That was their role, the effect of a Zeke Fighter Sweeps would have been minimal. The Bombers were the main target of the defenders. Of course in a planned defence certain units would be tasked with attacking the Fighter cover and others the Bombers. The tactic worked well in the Battle of Britain.

Of course this is pure disinformation.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by JeffK

After the arrival of Spitfires in Darwin.

Tactics changed and experience grew, 9 kills for nil losses in one day in July, 4 for no loss on one day in August.

Your sources need to be reviewed, only 2 Japanese Fighter losses in the period (what period??)

Since your post, I see others posting perhaps more familiar with the actual Japanese losses than I (judging by other threads on other fora), but the main point is you seem to be quoting Spit claims, not the actual Japanese losses. I didn't say 2 but rather 3 A6M's; what Hata/Izawa "Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units in WWII" p.129 gives as 202 Kokutai losses for March through September 1943. That was AFAIK the only A6M unit involved. The JAAF lost a Ki-43 (see earlier post). There was as I mentioned at one time an Aussie website with the breakdown day by day, claims and real losses for each side, perhaps from one of the other books mentioned in the thread. ISTR it had fewer than 3 A6M's actually downed by Spits over Darwin per J records.

Joe