Photos of US Curtis P40 Warhawks, called KIttyhawks in Australia, of the 49 Fighter Group, like the one above , based in the Northern Territory Top End from 1942, will be included in a soon to be published booklet.
Called DeepWater, it has been compiled by Darwin agronomist and activist Robert Wesley-Smith, pictured sorting out his extensive files,
The title is derived from a deep waterhole on the Margaret River on Mount Bundy Station which enabled an abattoirs to be built by Alben Perrett who played an important part in the Territory meat industry . Perrett's grandson, Gary Richards , supplied Wesley-Smith with much background information about the large property, including wartime photos of the base located near the Adelaide River township .
There were 900 soldiers at the base with its dirt airstrip which had a hospital, a naval radio station which intercepted Japanese messages , a large vegetable garden and fruit trees.
Fighter planes pictured include one named Tojo's Hypo which included a drawing of a hypodermic needle. In another ,below, a man standing next to a plane numbered 55 , on which Smile is faintly visible in white lettering , is identified as Lieutenant Clyde "Smiley" Barnett . He was in planes which engaged Japanese over Darwin on April 29, l942.
UPCOMING: Another important project contemplated by Wesley-Smith is about Sammy Kruger , buried in Alice Springs, who is said to have played a part in Operation Vengeance , the April l943 shooting down by Americans of the plane carrying the Commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, on a flight from Rabaul to Balalae Airfield, a small island near Bougainville . Yamamoto was blamed for the attack on Pearl Harbour, hence the name of the special operation to get him .
