IPMS Book Review: RAF in Combat Allied Wings No.5: The Dauntless in RNZAF Service

RAF in Combat

Allied Wings No. 5: The Dauntless in RNZAF Service

by Cliff F.L. Jenks with Malcolm Laird and Phil H. Listemann

Reviewed By Andrew Birkbeck, IPMS# 27087

MSRP: $17.50
ISBN: 978-295263819-7
Website: www.raf-in-combat.com

I am an American citizen, born in Iowa City, Iowa. However, out of the six members of my immediate family, I am the only American. The rest are citizens of the British Commonwealth -- my Mother being a New Zealander, my Father is Scottish. Many of my maternal relatives fought in WW2 in various sections of the NZ Armed Forces, and so I have always had a keen interest in the exploits of Kiwi aviators, which surely is a bit of an oxymoron, since kiwi birds can’t fly!

My parents live in Auckland, NZ, and down the road from them used to live a WWII Pacific theater pilot who was stationed aboard a British carrier during the war. He told me the following story: during a stop at Newport News, Virginia, late in the war for refitting, he ran into some US sailors while in a bar. They soon became great friends over a few beers, and late in the evening, another US sailor entered the bar, a friend of the sailors who had befriended the Kiwi pilot. "Hey Mac, come on over and meet one of our brave allies helping fight the Japanese in the Pacific!". The new arrival came over to the bar, but was confused. "There isn’t anyone helping us fight the Japanese!" he insisted. It was solely an American venture…

Clearly, this wasn’t so, and here we have a very neat 38-page monograph covering one particular New Zealand unit on its 8-week tour of the Pacific in March-May 1944, as well as its training prior to going into combat. The unit concerned is No. 25 Squadron, RNZAF, the only non-US combat unit in the Pacific War to fly the venerable SBD Dauntless, training on SBD-3 & 4s and going into combat with SBD-5s, all of them "borrowed" from US stocks, and overpainted in RNZAF markings.

The Kiwis took charge of their Dauntless training aircraft in July 1943, the planes provided to them by Marine Air Group (MAG) 14, then based at Seagrove airfield outside Auckland for a period of R&R. Training in New Zealand lasted from August 1943 to mid-January 1944, when the unit transferred to Pallikulo airbase on Esperitu Santo in the New Hebrides for operational training to prepare them for tropical conditions.

Finally, at the end of March 1944, No.25 Squadron, together with its maintenance crews in No. 25 Servicing Unit, transferred to the front lines at Piva airfield on Bouganville Island. Target for their tour of duty: the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul and surrounding areas. For eight weeks, the Dauntless’ of No. 25 Squadron, together with various US Marine Dauntless units and TBF bombers from both US and RNZAF squadrons, flew almost daily sorties attacking various enemy targets: gun emplacements, supply dumps, bridges, airfields etc. Thankfully for the Dauntless crews, flying their slow, and by this time obsolete aircraft, the Japanese Navy and Army air forces had been shattered and aerial opponents were rarely encountered.

The text of the book covers in some detail the training of the squadron and, in particular, its day-to-day operations at the frontline, chronicling daily targets, the success or not of the particular operation, etc. Lists are provided for all the SBDs that served in the squadron, both training and front line, covering their NZ Serial number, their BuNo etc., along with figures covering their daily front line service, such as sorties flown on each day, number of hours flown per day, etc. Also included are 28 black-and-white photos of good to very good quality, showing the aircraft in NZ service and their crews. There is a nice section of six photos showing the pilot and gunner standing on the wing of their aircraft, and that also shows their personal fuselage artwork. These photos, together with the text, help the reader sort out which pilot and gunner flew in which aircraft. Rounding off the book are seven pages of high-quality color artwork, depicting colors, general markings, and personal crew fuselage markings.

I really enjoyed reading this book and thumbing through all the photos and color artwork. It is a first-rate book, covering the training and operational history of one small unit from one of the smallest participant nations involved in WWII. If you have any interest in small air forces, the SBD Dauntless or the Pacific War in general, I highly recommend you track down this quality monograph. My thanks to the publishers for supplying IPMS/USA with a review copy.

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