Information Technology

The purpose of this report is to compile historical information regarding the loss of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Curtiss P-40N Kittyhawk A29-423.  The aircraft crashed in the Murray River, west of Mildura, on 1 April 1945 while conducting training exercises.  The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Warwick James Turner, was killed.

The purpose of this report is to compile historical information regarding World War II aircraft losses in the Lake Victoria region of New South Wales.  Lake Victoria was utilised as a training area for No. 2 Operational Training Unit (OTU) of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) which was based at Mildura, Victoria.  Five aircraft are known to have crashed in the immediate vicinity, resulting in the deaths of six servicemen.

In 2015 plans were made for the development of a new online database to both store and present information about Australia’s World War II aviation history and heritage. It was envisaged that the database would include transcriptions of historical documents, personnel profiles, scanned photographs, details of historic sites (including site plans and reference to heritage listings), and a catalogue of artefacts held in museum collections. These entries would be interconnected to each other, linking components of Australia’s aviation history, heritage, and archaeology, in one publicly accessible (and free) online system. More than two years after planning and initial development, the database continues to grow at a rapid pace and now includes over 130,000 distinct entries. This poster will present the basic design of the current system along with some of the successes and challenges faced during its development.  (This poster was displayed at the 2017 National Archaeology Student Conference).

The Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) was established in 1940 as a means of training aircrew in the countries of the British Commonwealth away from the threat of being attacked by the German Luftwaffe.  As part of this scheme the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) formed at least thirty-one schools to train such aircrew throughout World War II.  One of these, No. 7 Service Flying Training School (SFTS) was established in 1941 at the small town of Deniliquin located in southern New South Wales.  Operating the Australian-built single-engine Wirraway trainer, students conducted intermediate and advanced flying training with the hope of eventually piloting front-line fighter aircraft. Between January 1942 and July 1944 forty-six personnel lost their lives while serving with No. 7 SFTS, the majority in training accidents. Of these, twenty-four are buried at the Deniliquin War Cemetery which is now administered by the Office of Australian War Graves on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC). Working with the CWGC’s restraints regarding permissible iconography and personal messaging on uniform headstones, families of deceased RAAF service personnel still found ways to remember their dead and identify them as individuals.  (This poster was displayed at the 2018 Modern Conference Research Symposium).

The purpose of this report is to compile evidence to ensure accurate descriptions of World War II photographs in the Australian War Memorial collection.  On 3 March 1942, Japanese aircraft attacked Broome, Western Australia, destroying a number of flying boats in the harbour and terrestrial aircraft located at the Broome airfield.  At least six photographs in the Australian War Memorial collection show wrecks of aircraft destroyed at the airfield, some of which include probable or questionable identities of the aircraft in question

The Empire Air Training Scheme was one of the largest defence training initiatives of World War II, taking place in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and South Africa.  Over 37,000 members of the Royal Australian Air Force were trained as part of the scheme.

Servicemen to be trained as pilots experienced their first taste of flying at Elementary Flying Training Schools before continuing their career on more advanced aircraft at Service Flying Training Schools.  In Australia, such schools were established across all six states, often in fields which could easily be mistaken for farming paddocks.

A recent project investigated the archaeology at such sites around the world to determine what level of coordination existed between the Commonwealth air forces in regards to airfield design.  Despite training being conducted under the joint identity of ‘Empire’ and employing standardised equipment, results of this project suggest that each nation approached airfield design differently.

(Presented by Daniel J. Leahy at the 2018 Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology / Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology Joint Conference).

The term ‘aviation archaeology’ can be defined as the study of humanity’s interaction with flight through the investigation of surviving material remains. Such archaeological studies can add to what has already been learnt from analysis of the historical record and, despite popular belief, not all archaeological investigation involves the excavation or salvage of aircraft artefacts. This presentation will provide a brief overview of some recent projects where members of the archaeological community have expanded our knowledge of aviation sites around the world through the use of modern technologies. It will also present the results of a recent Australian‐based archaeology project that investigated the design, layout and construction of airfields utilised by the schools of the Empire Air Training Scheme during World War II.

(Presented by Daniel J. Leahy at the Aviation Cultures Mk. IV Conference).

(Honours thesis).

Soon after the outbreak of World War II, member nations of the British Commonwealth came to an agreement to train military aircrew in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in an effort to distribute aircrew training around the globe. What became known as the Empire Air Training Scheme was one of the largest defence manpower initiatives of World War II and saw over 37,000 members of the Royal Australian Air Force trained as part of the scheme.

To ensure that each airman experienced the same training regardless of the country in which they enlisted, standardised aircraft and processes were employed among the nations of the Commonwealth. With the sudden influx of servicemen enlisting as aircrew came the need for the establishment of a large number of airfields at which to train them. This dissertation investigates 152 World War II airfields to determine what similarities existed in relation to the design and evolution of such airfields and, in particular, whether the standardised approach extended to the sites themselves.

Despite training being conducted under the joint identity of ‘Empire’ and employing standardised equipment, results of this project suggest that the nations involved in the scheme approached airfield design differently.

On 1 July 1942 a small military aircraft crashed into the fog shrouded slopes of Mount Stanley, Victoria, during a flight between Laverton, west of Melbourne, and Wagga Wagga, in New South Wales.  The American pilot, Second Lieutenant Henry Orous Null, Jr, was killed in the crash and his remains have since been repatriated to the United States.  The aircraft, a Brewster Buffalo single-engine fighter, was originally ordered by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force for use in their fight against the invading Japanese in what is now Indonesia but was subsequently delivered to the United States Army Air Forces in Australia.  Only twenty examples of this model of Buffalo aircraft are known to have been built and this was the only one to have crashed while being operated by the American military, the remains of which can still be found at the site.  These events all occurred during the very early stages of World War II in the South West Pacific, a time for which the historical record is often incomplete or contradictory.  Despite pieces of the aircraft having been salvaged over the years, this wreck site – essentially in our own backyard – could offer much to be learnt regarding aviation technology used in the early aerial battles of the Pacific war that took place thousands of kilometres away.

(Presented by Daniel J. Leahy at the Victorian Archaeology Colloquium 2019).

Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, the Northern Territory was considered just another “far-flung outpost of the [British] Empire”. Yet within a few short years, the Territory was literally Australia’s front-line against the military might of the Empire of Japan. From early 1942, personnel from the air forces of Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Netherlands worked to defend this country from aerial bombardment and a perceived threat of invasion.

This paper discusses the history and the material remains of air power used in the Northern Territory during the Second World War. In particular it will look at the changes that can be seen with the ‘friendly invasion’ of American and Dutch forces and their equipment after Japan entered the war in December 1941.

On 1 July 1942, a small military aircraft crashed into the cloud-shrouded slopes of Mount Stanley, in northeastern Victoria, during a flight between Laverton, west of Melbourne, and Wagga Wagga, in New South Wales. The American pilot, Second Lieutenant Henry Orous Null, Jr, was killed in the crash and his remains have since been repatriated to the United States. The aircraft, a Brewster Buffalo single-engine fighter, was originally ordered by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force for use in their fight against the invading Japanese in what is now Indonesia, but was delivered subsequently to the United States Army Air Forces in Australia. Only 20 examples of this model of Buffalo aircraft are known to have been built, and this was the only one to have crashed in Victoria while being operated by the American military, the remains of which can still be found at the site. These events all occurred during the very early stages of World War II in the South West Pacific, a time for which the historical record is often incomplete or contradictory. Despite artefacts having being salvaged over the years, this wreck site—essentially in our own backyard—offers much to be learnt regarding aircraft use in the early aerial battles of the Pacific War that took place thousands of kilometres away. This paper presents the preliminary historical research for this project and the results of a 2015 reconnaissance survey that located the wreck of this Brewster Buffalo. It also poses questions for future study relating to the aircraft’s identity, its paint markings, and the exact cause of its demise.

In 2005, diver and filmmaker Ben Cropp visited an underwater aircraft wreck off the eastern coast of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula. It has been claimed that the wreck is that of an American four-engine B-17 bomber that went missing in 1943 with an air force General on board. A desk-based study of Cropp’s video footage of the wreck by aviation enthusiasts has confirmed that it is not such an aircraft. Additional historical research and further analysis of the wreck footage has unearthed information that may suggest that the wreck is, in fact, an Australian transport aircraft that was ditched in the vicinity with no loss of life.

The term 'aviation archaeology' has been broadly defined as 'the investigation of material remains associated with the act of flying'. Some have suggested that such archaeological investigation is not necessary as all has been recorded within the written historical record. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. While the historical record is of course invaluable, an aircraft wreck's value as an historic artefact from which information about the aircraft itself and the circumstances of its loss cannot be understated. This paper will discuss a multi-disciplinary approach of analysing both the historical record and surviving physical artefacts to gain a more complete understanding about the 1942 loss of Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Boston A28-20 and the larger ground battle in which it was engaged.