For the moment lets’s take a step back from sweeping generalisations about early 1940s Australian and American politics. Let’s try to answer TanukiHugh’s original questions about Australian aircraft and airpower in WW2’s economic, logistical and operational contexts.
Firstly, it isn’t glib to say that Lend-Lease is the strongest possible demonstration that the Americans were not parsimonious in supporting the Allied cause in WW2. From the Wikipedia article:
Quote:
A total of $50.1 billion, equivalent to $697 billion today (emphasis added), worth of supplies was shipped, or 17% of the total war expenditures of the U.S. In all, $31.4 billion went to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France, $1.6 billion to China, and the remaining $2.6 billion to the other Allies.
Secondly, none of the Allies were fully prepared to repulse and defeat attack when WW2 started, albeit most were scrambling to meet the perceived threats. They had to fight initially with what was at hand, hence the RAAF started without top-of-the-line aircraft (but it had embarked on an expansion and upgrade program). However the Allies rapidly mobilised their industrial capacity to build their military capacity. In the case of the RAAF:
Quote:
On 29 August 1945, a fortnight after the war against Japan ended, the RAAF had 173 622 personnel personnel operating 5585 aircraft. A majority, almost 132 000 (including the 17 243 women in the WAAAF), were serving in the Pacific. That theatre was also the focus for all but 20 of the RAAF’s 75 flying squadrons.
This represented a fifty-fold expansion over the size of the air service which Australia had maintained at the start of World War II (emphasis added). In September 1939, the RAAF had 3489 officers and airmen in uniform, manning 12 flying squadrons with a total of 246 aircraft—164 of them operational (though obsolescent) types. [Pathfinder Issue 119, Sep 2009, airpower.airforce.gov.au]
It is important to note the vast majority of aircraft were supplied by Britain and the USA. This was because Australia’s:
- economy was small
- economy was still recovering from the worst world depression in the industrial era
- export sector was based on agriculture
- population was not sufficient to support a large industrial manufacturing sector
Australia’s economy was actually so small that it could not support the size of force built up during the fear of Japanese invasion. So after 1942 Army numbers in particular were reduced to transfer manpower to industry and agriculture. This was a better use of our resources in the Allied cause, e.g. most food and much clothing supplied to US forces in the SWPA was produced in Australia.
diggerhistory.info has a table of RAAF aircraft of WW2, with numbers and date of entry into service. This table and Wikipedia entries on various aircraft in RAAF service provide some general answers to TanukiHugh’s points.
Note for example that although the Vultee Vengeance was not top notch, it didn’t enter RAAF service until the Japanese are very much on the defensive in the South West Pacific after their naval defeats at Coral Sea and Midway in mid-1942, and land defeats at Guadalcanal and Buna-Gona in the second half of 1942. And by the second half of 1942 Curtis P-40 Kittyhawks are available in increasing numbers to protect more vulnerable aircraft.
To address TanukiHugh’s question about the good availability of better aircraft, we must consider Allied strategic priorities and particular operational theatre requirements (but again note the good numbers in diggerhistory for Beaufighters, Spitfires, Mosquitos and Kittyhawks from 1942 onwards).
After Japan’s entry into the war Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed that the defeat of Nazi Germany was the first priority. Hence the European theatre took priority for materiel, even though the USA itself had been attacked by Japan in the Pacific. Japanese defeats in the South West Pacific Area of Operations by the end of 1942 eased the urgency of Allied material priorities there.
The nature of air operations in the SWPA determined the type of aircraft the RAAF used. So Beaufighters were good for shipping interdiction and ground support, Mosquitoes for reconnaissance and shipping interdiction, Spitfires and Kittyhawks for air combat and ground support. B-24 Liberators were useful for attacking Japanese land strongpoints, but Australia was (geographically) not in a position to conduct long-range strategic bombing against Japan or its occupied territories in South East Asia. So the fact that we received 1.6% of B-24 production simply indicates that the Allies decided that aircraft’s capabilities could be better used in other theatres.
When we in the early 21st century use our 20-20 hindsight to judge the airpower that the RAAF should have had in 1939 we should remember that:
1. Australia from 1939-41 did not have the financial, industrial and personnel resources to raise, train and maintain the capability we might wish they had.
2. Australian airpower was designed and managed as a contributory element in an Empire-wide defence strategy.
3. Despite these drawbacks the Australian government and military responded quickly and appropriately (sure, with some bumps) to the political and military dynamics of WW2 enabling us to make an effective contribution to Allied victory.
