The Turning Point - LTCOL Steve Young

‘Morale in the face of steel doesn’t always work.’ In this week’s episode, we take off from where we left off with the Bombing of Darwin and the Sparrow Force’s work in Timor combating the Japanese advance through South-East Asia and the Pacific. Joined by my regular co-host LTCOL Steve Young, this episode is about the turning point in the Pacific, the Battle for Milne Bay.

Following the Bombing of Darwin and Sparrow Force’s deployment onto the island of Timor, the 7th Brigade was sent to Milne Bay to establish airfields using the US 43rd Engineering Regiment. The 7th Brigade, under BRIG John Field, would be bolstered by the 18th Brigade under the command of BRIG Frank Wootten. Milne Force as it would become to be known was also allocated two Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) fighter squadrons, making a Combined Joint Force commanded by MAJGEN Cyril Clowes.

This episode tells the story of the Australian’s first win in the Pacific and the turning point for the Japanese Thrust. It started in the dead of the night, LT Robinson’s platoon established the first hasty ambush against the Japanese landing force, then a battalion tasked with fighting patrols was rerolled into the defence of KB Mission, two Japanese tanks advancing without lights and then illuminating Australian’s whose only defence was the Sticky Bomb which was not designed to be used in humid climates. These stories characterise the fighting in Milne Bay which was a battle of a thousand skirmishes fought in the pitch black.

The RAAF’s 75 Squadron (who now fly F-35A Lightning II multi-role, supersonic, stealth fighters) is again mentioned in this episode, as both 75 Squadron and 76 Squadron fly P-40E Kittyhawks in air combat against Japanese Mitsubishi Zero’s to oppose the Japanese beach landings. As each aircraft would land for refuelling and rearming, the underside would be sprayed in mud as the aircraft matting got pushed further and further into the New Guinea mud. The Aircrew and Maintainers would use their bare hands to claw the mud from the underside before a pilot would take off again, exhausted and riddled with malaria and dysentery. The commander of 76 Squadron SQNLDR Peter Turnbull DFC was killed in action defending Milne Bay.

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Lead Source:

Veitch, M., 2019. Turning Point: The Battle for Milne Bay 1942 - Japan's First Land Defeat in World War II. Hachette Australia.