I have great respect for you Flyboy but to me this just proves my point. If your prop doesn't work in the dust and dirt, if your guns don't work in the dust and dirt, if you have to add a filter that cuts your top speed by 30 mph then maybe you don't have a very good plane for this environment. Example: would you rather drive a Ferrari or a diesel Toyota Land Cruiser on a dirt road across Australia? On pavement the Ferrari will obviously win, but on a 1000 mile long dirt road the Land cruiser is the better machine.
I'd like to point out that the US didn't have anything in theater to do better than the Spitfire. The Japanese just flew over the top of the P40's and waved at them because the P40's couldn't play at that altitude. They needed P38's but apparently none were available
I previously posted this before in this thread
here, but somehow whenever this debate comes up, with all the ink spilled about the Spitfire's defense of Darwin, the earlier defense by the P-40s of 49th FG seems to be utterly forgotten. It turns out that no, the Japanese did not just fly over the P-40s. Bombing from 27,000 ft was not as effective, but they did it anyway, and still got intercepted and suffered losses. Apparently they too were close to their altitude limitations, though obviously not suffering so badly as P-40s.
The summary is that in spite of operating well above their performance ceiling, in addition to suffering from all of the same disadvantages of training, preparation, and (to a large extent, maintenance) the P-40Es of the 49th FG did pretty well, and arguably a bit better than the Spitfires. They lost 19 aircraft and 4 pilots, and (according to postwar Japanese records) they shot down 19 Japanese planes, including 7 x A6M, 1 x Ki-46, and (most tellingly) 12 x G4M bombers, which was the reason the bombing raids stopped for a while.
The article in The Strategist, an Australian military think tank, which breaks down a high level overview of the action is good but rather clinical. I have looked a bit more into this episode. I found some useful detailed information
on this website. The following is a summary.
Prior to their arrival, another unit of 10 x P-40s from the 33rd Pursuit squadron was massacred in
a single day in February, (
more detail here) losing 9 out of 10 aircraft in a single massive raid. They were on their way to reinforce Java and arrived in Darwin just as the raid was happening. Some of the survivors of that unit later joined the 49th.
The level of training suitable to prepare for modern fighters was appalling. Most of the pilots had never flown aircraft with retractable landing gear. The US sent ~ 330 P-40s to Australia during Spring of 1942, of which 170 were destroyed in accidents within weeks, before reaching the combat area. Many others were lost at sea such as those on the Langley. The initial attempt by the 49th FG to send fighters to the combat area near Darwin resulted in near catastrophe. Of 25 fighters sent from from Brisbane, 13 made it to Darwin on 18 March 1942.
Logistical support was also incredibly lacking. Prior to one combat sortie from Horn Island, pilots were given spark plugs and ammunition and instructions by mechanics and armorers on how to prep their aircraft for combat. The guns were not bore-sighted and the aircraft had no oxygen. They had no proper charts and were trying to use road maps and maritime charts to navigate. The aircraft were brand new, many of them literally the first batch of P-40Es, which had a wide range of teething issues that sill needed to be worked out (chief among them, problems with guns jamming). The aircraft flight manuals at that time stated that they could not be operated at more than 45" Hg (vs. the later default settings of 51" for military and 57" for WEP) making them extremely under-powered.
Though they were being taught correct tactics by their experienced commander Paul Wurtsmith, combat was chaotic and disorganized especially for the first couple of months. Two examples;
On
14 March 1942, 9 x Kittyhawks intercepted a formation of 8 x G4M and 12 x A6M2 of the 4th Kokotai. Two P-40s were damaged by A6Ms with their pilots wounded, a third P-40 was damaged when he deliberately rammed an A6M after his guns jammed (losing 3' of wing). Another P-40 was damaged and fled the battle area, the pilot then becoming lost, he flew 400 miles West and finally bailed out. He was saved by aboriginal people but was evacuated back to the US. In all the US lost 1 x P-40 destroyed (the one which got lost) and 3 x badly damaged but landed safely. They claimed 1 x bomber and 4 x A6M, actual losses were one bomber damaged and 4th Kokotai lost 2 x A6M, one of which was later discovered largely intact at the bottom of the Torres Strait in 1997.
On
16 June 1942 another raid came in with 27 x Japanese bombers (apparently mostly G4M) and 27 x A6M. 8th and 9th FS of 49th FG (with apparently two flights of 4 planes each) engaged the enemy. 1 P-40 from 8th FS piloted by Chester Namola was shot down (possibly went into a spin after being hit). Another P-40 burned out it's engine in a frantic dive to get away from Zeros, the pilot ditched in the water and was rescued by the Royal Navy the next day. A third P-40 piloted by Bruce Harris also dove away, but recovered, went into a zoom climb, caught up with the Japanese formation and attacked, firing until his guns jammed, but ran out of fuel heading back to base. He crash landed and his aircraft caught on fire and burned. He too was later rescued by an RAAF Wiwrraway after a harrowing ordeal. 9th FS did better and claimed 3 x A6M and 2 x G4M, while one P-40 was hit by return fire from a G4M and landed dead-stick. His aircraft was recovered the next day. Another made a belly landing on an artillery range. From the context it sounds like 9th FS was already at altitude when the raid came in, while 8th FS was climbing up. The site didn't indicate what Japanese losses actually were, but the US lost 3 planes, plus 2 badly damaged, with 1 pilot killed and one evacuated back home, claiming 3 fighters and 2 bombers.
My takeaway from all this is that the 49th FG was in a similar situation to the Spitfire pilots. 95 out of 102 pilots in the FG had never flown P-40s before they flew them to the combat area (resulting in as much as 50% losses en-route). This is similar to the Spitfire pilots and also Australian Kittyhawk pilots of 75 FS who fought at Milne Bay. Maintenance and logistics situation was extremely precarious to say the least, only gradually improving, and the mechanics were as inexperienced as the pilots were. Aircraft were brand new and still had many teething issues. Like with the Spitfire unit, the 49th FG were hampered by low throttle settings. The Spitfires had a couple of added / extra problems in the form of the wing heaters, 20mm ammunition, and a couple of other things - which were severe. Plus the Vokes filters. Range was also a major limitation.
Also, while postwar analysis tells us that any Allied fighter could dive away from a Zero in a pinch, every time I read about them actually doing so in these early battles in Darwin and New Guinea, it seems a hell of a lot more desperate and close-run. Sometimes they dove away and still got shot down. Sometimes they burned out their engine. Quite often it was extremely harrowing. I remember one Aussie pilot from the 75th FS mentioned he got away in a mad dive from three Zeros and then smoked a whole pack of cigarettes once he landed. Technique for the 'escape maneuver' improved as pilots gradually learned the specific limitations of the zero (rolling at high speed) but I think the Japanese fighters and their pilots continue to be underestimated. The incredibly steep learning curve and logistical nightmares faced by the Allied pilots is also rarely given due acknowledgement. In New Guinea on top of all the problems suffered at Darwin far more of the pilots also had Disentary and Malaria, and were living unprotected in clouds of mosquitoes.
I found one other interesting tidbit somewhere else related to the Spitfire which I'll post in a minute.
