"The Flying Underdogs — How Australia’s Rookie 75..." Topic
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Tango01  | 30 Sep 2025 4:26 p.m. PST |
… Squadron Saved Port Moresby from the Japanese
"THE Australian machine gunners squinted at the four strange aircraft arcing down toward 7-Mile Drome, Port Moresby's main airfield. These seemed different than the other Japanese fighters—Mitsubishi A6M Zeros—that had so regularly shot up the airfield during the previous several weeks.
Regardless of their appearance, the Australians were anxious to fight. The Japanese had been bombing them at their leisure, and from altitudes that made them almost impossible to hit. It was only when the Zeros descended to make strafing runs that the defenders had a chance at retribution. So then, this was a rare opportunity. The gunners eagerly fingered the triggers of their weapons as the enemy fliers descended directly toward them. Peter Jeffrey let the nose of his P-40 ease down toward the airfield. He and the other three pilots in his flight were the vanguard of the Royal Australian Air Force's, or RAAF's, 75 Squadron. The squadron was being sent to defend Port Moresby—on the southeast coast of New Guinea—against Japanese bomber raids which had been growing in size and frequency. The port, the town and the surrounding airfields were the Allied center-of-gravity in New Guinea in early 1942. If it remained undefended, the Japanese would bomb it into uselessness before taking it for themselves…" link
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Armand
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 Dal Gavan | 30 Sep 2025 8:55 p.m. PST |
Written from an extremely pro-RAAF point of view, Armand. What saved Pt Moresby were: 1. The USN (with a couple of RAN ships) won the Battle of the Coral Sea, stopping the Japanese invasion fleet from attempting a landing near the town. 2. The overland approach from the NE coast of PNG was met and finally beaten by the Australian army (Militia and 2nd AIF forces- no US ground forces, despite what MacArthur put into the media) on the Kokoda Track. They weresupported by the USAAF and RAAF "biscuit bombers" who kept then supplied and sometimes gave some close air support- which was even useful occasionally. 3. Defeat of the Japanese landing at Milne Bay by Australian army troops, with assistance from the RAAF and US army airfield engineers. If 75SQN had been sent to Herd Island (to give air support to the tariff-dodging penguins) then it wouldn't have made much difference to holding Moresby, only to the air battles (skirmishes?) over the port. |
| Tango01 | 02 Oct 2025 4:26 p.m. PST |
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| HMS Exeter | 02 Oct 2025 8:42 p.m. PST |
The worst possible outcome would have been a successful Operation MO. Had the Japanese managed to take Port Moresby, they'd have been stranded well beyond the Japanese capacity to resupply. Allied subs would have slaughtered cargo ships trying to skirt the eastern tip of New Guinea, and bombers from Australia would have rained misery. |
| Dal Gavan | 03 Oct 2025 1:31 a.m. PST |
Good points Exeter, but the problem was that Moresby was probably the 2nd largest supply dump complex in the SWPA at that time. The only things the Japanese wouldn't find there is ammo' and spares for their weapons. Food, fuel, radio parts, transport vehicles and spares, medical supplies, etc, were all sitting in the various dumps and were protected by less than a brigade of militia. Hori had already started his push over the Kokoda as well, and with Moresby out of play as a concentration and departure point, reinforcing the two battalions facing him on the Kokoda would have been difficult. It's not a certainty that the Japanese would be able to take Moresby, or hold it when taken, but the odds were not against them doing just that. In any case, even super-human efforts by 75SQN wouldn't have affected the outcome much. They did a sterling job fighting the IJAF and IJNAF raids, but they aren't the "Saviours of Moresby" as claimed by the article. |
| Tango01 | 03 Oct 2025 4:57 p.m. PST |
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