United States Army Air Force
UNITS REPRESENTED

5th Air Force

5th Air Force 5th
3rd Attack Group
This unit was one of the first to arrive in Australia to counter the Japanese threat and commenced operations using A-24 dive-bombers on April Fool's Day 1942. The original Group originally amalgamated the remnants of the 27th BG which had evacuated the Philippines, including these cumbersome A?24 divebombers which they collected at Archerfield, near Brisbane. The unit's four suquadrons at different times, converted to A-20As and B-25s in mid-1942, and A-20Gs at the end of 1943.

 BS  89th Bombardment Squadron
On 25th February 1942, after twenty-five days at sea, the Army Air Corps 89th Bombardment Squadron, 3rd Bombardment Group arrived in Brisbane, and immediately established camp at Ascot near Brisbane's racecourse. The first three Douglas A?2OAs with which the squadron would be equipped arrived less than a month later by sea. These were followed in the months ahead by thirty-nine more, as part of a shipment which had been earmarked for the Netherlands Air force to serve in the Dutch East Indies in late 1941. The unit went on to fly A-20Gs for the war's remainder and te Squadron's Commanding Officer, Ed Suor, adorned the aircraft with Damon Runyon cartoon characters to caricature the pilots assigned to each.

A-20G-20-DO
Serial 42-86717

13th Bombardment Squadron
When the Fifth Air Force decided to move to low?level strafing it was decided to use a shipwreck of Port Moresby's Ela Beach for practice target runs. The 13th and 90th Squadrons were the first Fifth Air Force units to use the wreck to hone the art of low?level attack. They commenced practice runs against the old British cargo vessel in early February 1943, S.S Pruth. The unit converted A-20Gs in early 1944 and used this type for the war's remainder.

  312th Bombardment Group
This unit arrived in Australia in October 1943 originally equipped with P-40Ns. They converted to A-20Gs at Port Moresby and Nadzab in late 1943/ ealy 1944.
388th Bombardment Squadron
The unit's four squadrons used the following insignias underneath their tailplanes - Clubs for the 386th, Diamonds for the 387th, Hearts for the 388th, and Spades for the 389th.
   

A-20G-40-DO
Serial 43-21638

360th Service Group
This unit was designated the Combat Replacement Training Center (CRTC) and was established at Port Moresby in late 1943. It moved the bulk of its operations to Nadzab in 1944, its founding ideaology was to provide combat training to fresh crews from the US.

   

 

 8th Fighter Group
The unit commenced its operations in April 1942 using P-39Fs and P-400s, and for war's remainder used nearly every type of fighter flown in the Fifth Air Force, including the P-47, P-38 and P-40.
 
P-38H-5-LO "Japanese Sandman II" 		35th Fighter Squdron
Like the 8th Fighter Group, the unit commenced its operations in April 1942 using P-39Fs and P-400s, and for war's remainder used nearly every type of fighter flown in the Fifth Air Force, including the P-47, P-38 and P-40.

 
P-400 AP 347		 36th Fighter Squadron
The unit commenced its operations in April 1942 using P-39Fs and P-400s, and for war's remainder transferred to the P-38.
   38th Bombardment Group
This unit was the first medium bomber unit to be deployed to the SWPA. The Group departed Hamilton Field in the US for New Guinea on 7th August 1942. As the aircrews blearily gathered a mess-hall breakfast at four o'clock in the morning, they heard the news that US marines had just captured a place with an unusual name called Tulagi, near Guadalcanal. The Squadron took off in foggy dawn, which covered all of San Francisco that morning.
   
13th Air Force 13th Air Force
 Undoubtedly the least-known of all US Air Forces in WW2, this Air Force flew from the Solomons to Tokyo and covered vast distances in its operations. It flew, among other types, P-38s, P-39s, P-40s, B-25s, B-24s, B-17s and C-47s.


B-25H 100th BS

42nd Bombardment Group
This unit flew B-25s in from the Solomons and helped in the campaign against Rabaul. It moved to Mono Island in the Stirling Group and continued towards the Philippines later in the war.

 
 

13th AF P-40F Warhawk
(Unit Unknown)

 

P-39 Airacobra 		13th AF P-39 Airacobra
(Unit Unknown)

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