This is the story of a navigator who flew with 30 Squadron RAAF as a Navigator Air Gunner.

Both Australian and British built aircraft served with 30 Squadron in the South West Pacific theatre of war.

This account covers part of the Battle of Bismark Sea where an invasion force some 6,800 Japanese was reduced to just 600 survivors in a battle known as a turning point in the Pacific War.

Battle of Bismark Sea

I suppose if you’re talking about my time in 30 squadron, probably the most significant thing we ever did, which we believe and so did McArthur. It was a turning point in the war was the battle of the Bismarck Sea, when 12 Beaufighters took the brunt of attacking those 18 altogether, there were 12 transports and 6 destroyers and only two destroyers came out of it, but of course we had Liberators and Fortresses upstairs dropping bombs while we’re strafing, it was a bit dicey I tell you, you’d be strafing a transport or even a destroyer and a big shoot would go beside you and a bomb would be dropped by a Liberator.  The B25’s had also learnt the art of skip bombing and they followed us behind us and dropped skip bombs and on one particular run we were making, I looked over the starboard side and believe it or not, at the same height as us and traveling at the same speed as us was a 500 pound bomb heading for the same target.  Things like that you never forget. 

Dicing with Zeros

We could get away from the Zeros providing we could get away towards the sea.  The top speed of a Beaufighter was about 330 miles an hour, which was about the top speed of a Zero down there, but once we got in the air we were very vulnerable. The higher we went the less manoeuvrable and less power we had.  Our maximum boost was at sea level and that’s the way we were rated, but when we did get jumped by Zeros they could normally only get one pass maybe two at the most because if they come from diving down and you’re going…they would only get one dive at you, up the other side and another dive, by that time we’ve gone further. I’ve seen Zeros formating on us about 50 yards on either side just looking at us, they can’t go any faster, we can’t go any faster and if they turn towards you they can’t get a shot in.

I can remember one time when we were coming back from Rabaul, which was probably one of the most heavily defended aerodromes in the Southwest Pacific, because it was the headquarters for the Japanese, it was of course the destination of those ships that we got rid of in the Bismarck Sea battle and that’s when we got jumped. 

In the Beaufighter you had a steel door between you and the pilot, some people used to close them, but we never did, because we liked to see each other and anyhow, there’s these two Zeros zooming up around  the back of us and I said: “For Pete’s sake get this bloody thing going!” and he said: “What do you think I’m trying to do?” And he had his foot up, the throttle’s on the left and he had his foot up like this and he said: “I’m bending the bloody throttle, I can’t go any faster” Of course there was no armour at the back, but I used to carry a bag full of coloured paper, lolly paper, magazines, I’d rip them up and I’d throw them down the chute for the flares, as it might take their attention away from us, or I used to put the red cover on the Aldis lamp and I’d flick it at them.  Whether it had any effect I don’t know, but it gave me something to do as a navigator sitting up there in the middle of the fuselage. You know you’re like a shooting gallery, you thought you were for show, and we did get shot at quite a lot and later on we carried two 500 pound bombs, one on each wing, we used to drop those, but mainly four canons and 6 machine guns which was a hell of a lot of bloody fire power and when you’d shot up a barge or lugger it would just disintegrate. 

You know there were some great times in Beaufighters and some tragic times.  The first bloke I ever flew with got killed on his first operation and took my course mate with him.  Life is luck, absolute luck.  As a navigator I was asked to fly with a fellah because his own navigator was ill, but we always carried a spare one or somebody… when this other bloke said he’d fly, they didn’t come back, so its just luck. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under Characters, Close calls, Ripping yarns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.