Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
It's a hard question to answer. I see no upside. They captured Rabaul without a fight, but the Australians and USN made them pay for every inch of ground thereafter. The 4th AG was nearly wiped out attacking Lexington in February. The landings at Lea and Salamaua should have been unopposed, but here again, USN airpower turned up to spoil the party. This delayed things long enough that Port Moresby was reinforced and the invasion fleet was turned back at Coral Sea. Japanese airpower failed to neutralize Port Moresby, failed to support the landing at Milne Bay, and failed to prevent the US landings at Guadalcanal.
Reinforcement of Port Moresby had occurred in Jan 1942 when 30th Australian Infantry Brigade and supporting arms arrived. The next Australian Brigade arrived in July.It's a hard question to answer. I see no upside. They captured Rabaul without a fight, but the Australians and USN made them pay for every inch of ground thereafter. The 4th AG was nearly wiped out attacking Lexington in February. The landings at Lea and Salamaua should have been unopposed, but here again, USN airpower turned up to spoil the party. This delayed things long enough that Port Moresby was reinforced and the invasion fleet was turned back at Coral Sea. Japanese airpower failed to neutralize Port Moresby, failed to support the landing at Milne Bay, and failed to prevent the US landings at Guadalcanal.
It's interesting to compare losses (to me anyway). According to South Pacific Air War Vol. 2, the Japanese lost 35 aircraft in the March-April 42 timeframe. These are confirmed losses, including aircraft shot down by AA, destroyed on the ground, etc. For the Allies in the same time period, they lost 50 aircraft. As for fighters, the Japanese lost 26 Zeros (14 destroyed on the ground) for 19 P-40s, the vast majority being RAAF.
the Aussies lost about 2/3 of their P-40s just flying them across Australia to get to the battle area.
Always best to ask questions about this sort of claim, for example would the USAAF have let the RAAF keep any scarce and precious P-40 with that sort of attrition rate? Two thirds of what total? Which Battle Area? Port Moresby New Guinea (first attacked 3 February 1942), Darwin Northern Territory (first attacked 19 February 1942), Broome Western Australia (3 March), Horn island Queensland (14 March), Derby Western Australia (20 March), Katherine Northern Territory (22 March), Wyndham Western Australia (23 March). Why would the RAAF form its new fighter squadrons a continent away from the combat zone?
Early P-40 arrivals in Australia, the initial P-40E for the USAAF and P-40E-1 the RAAF (and 18 P-40E-1 officially for the Dutch/Netherlands East Indies) were treated as a common pool, with aircraft assigned to the RAAF and USAAF regardless of who they officially arrived for. The RAAF reports USAAF units erected 39 of its order aircraft while by early September 1942 RAAF units had erected and flight tested 268 P-40 for the USAAF. The RAAF initially "borrowed" 75 USAAF aircraft to be "repaid" from the order of 173 allocated to it, the allocation was cut to 143, but 14 were lost at sea, so 129 were delivered, of these 63 were permanently transferred to the USAAF. (there were various effectively temporary transfers both ways, sometimes more than once, some possibly only paper entries). In the period weeks ending 6 March to 2 April 1942 the USAAF handed over 75 P-40E to the RAAF, plus 4 attrition replacements, while 10 of the RAAF order P-40E-1 had arrived, by end April RAAF order arrivals were 50 but at least 20 had been transferred to the USAAF. When the paperwork was sorted out as of September 1942 the RAAF had received 162 P-40, including 33 officially from the US forces in Australia (162-129 = 33), part "repayment" was made in August 1944, with 20 P-40N transferred from the RAAF to the USAAF. The aircraft intended to become A29-145 crashed on its delivery flight from the USAAF, hence why the initial batch of RAAF P-40 serials are A29-1 to A29-163.
The first cumulative RAAF P-40 loss figure in the reports is 10 by week ending 16 April 1942 (plus 1 awaiting formal write off), it was 20 by week ending 30 April (plus 6 awaiting formal write off). Just before the RAAF received its next shipment of P-40 in the second half of January 1943 it had lost 59 (plus 1 awaiting formal write off) of the original 162 received.
Early RAAF P-40 Kittyhawk squadrons,
75 squadron formed Townsville Queensland 4 March 1942, to Port Moresby New Guinea 21 March 1942 (Air Force Confidential Order A.36/44 "End date for in Australia for tax purposes 1 July 1941 to 1 June 1944", war does bring a lot of death and taxes) back to Townsville on 11 May, with 22 May declared "Begin date for in Australia for tax purposes 1 July 1941 to 1 June 1944", various bases in Queensland, back to New Guinea 25 July, to Horn Island Queensland 25 September. Partly as the RAAF still had the red circle as part of its markings 75 Squadron were initially shot at by the ground defences at Port Moresby, causing one to be written off and 2 damaged. This was the only aircraft lost during the three day transfer in March, one had turned back with fuel problems.
76 squadron formed Archerfield Queensland 14 March 1942, to Townsville 16 April, to New Guinea 18 July, to Northern Territory Australia 30 September.
77 Squadron formed Pearce Western Australia 16 March 1942, from the shipment of 19 P-40 that had arrived there. Stayed in the area until moved to Batchelor Northern Territory in August 1942.
Townsville to Port Moresby distance around 680 miles. Brisbane Queensland to Port Moresby is around 1,300 miles. Hobart Tasmania to Port Moresby is around 2,300 miles. Perth Western Australia to Darwin Northern Territory is around 1,650 miles. Perth to Sydney New South Wales around 2,050 miles. Of the P-40 moved to Port Moresby from Townsville in March 1942, all (eventually) arrived but one was written off due to friendly fire, by mid April 1942 RAAF P-40 losses by all units to all causes were 11, by January 1943 losses were out of 162. Which becomes "the Aussies lost about 2/3 of their P-40s just flying them across Australia to get to the battle area".
In answer to the above 4 statements, No, No, No, No. For example 76 squadron reference, the aircraft flew to New Guinea, but I note the new definition of lost used below.Checking carefully it looks like around 40% of two sqns lost in accidents in Australia overall, 75 Sqn lost about 1/3 and 77 sqn lost about 1/2 of their planes in accidents in Australia. 76 sqn was taken to Milne Bay by ship and had at least some experienced pilots, so no accidents in Australia.
In answer to the above 2 statements, No, No. 1 AD (Aircraft Depot) was in Melbourne, 2 AD in Sydney 3 AD in Brisbane, the online listings do mention some but not all of the initial AD. A29-1 to 3 were transferred from the USAAF in Sydney. 77 Squadron drew its aircraft directly from the ship that had arrived in Western Australia as 4 AD did not form there until mid May 1942.By 'battle area' I mean northern Australia, coming from where the aircraft were assembled to where they were deployed (Canberra or the vicinity of Sydney for 75 Sqn, or for 77 Sqn apparently via Melbourne)
By counting aircraft from other units, by counting aircraft that did not take any damage and those repaired by the unit or depot, as lost you can end up with the above total. Also A29-33 had a further accident, so it alone suffered 300% losses using this new definition of loss. Not long before we get to "lost about 2/3 of their P-40s" using this accounting method.So that brings it up to 13 out of 25 lost in accidents.
Nonsense, you have incidents from April 1943 for 76 squadron, a whole 14 month RAAF P-40 work up period. So we have March 1942 to April 1943 to find any and all reported incidents with P-40 having to make anything from unscheduled landings to crashing, even if no damage was taken every incident is classified as a loss. Given as of January 1943 the RAAF does note the total loss of 60 out of the initial 162, the new accounting measure should have no problems in finding well above 2/3 P-40 losses by April 1943, in fact the total could be more like A29-33 alone, 300% losses. The RAAF, able to take losses that would cripple any other air force and keep fighting, no wonder the USAAF let them keep the P-40s (or they could not get them back as they had all been lost).There are about ten more incidents in Oct through Dec that but this is beyond the work up phase.