A forgotten campaign

The USAAF 49th Fighter Group over Darwin

This year has seen many 75th anniversaries of battles and campaigns from the darkest hours of 1942, with the Battle of the Coral Sea (4 to 8 May) prominent. But in all these commemorative activities there has been no mention of the air campaign over Darwin conducted by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) 49th Fighter Group from March to September 1942.

The prelude to the campaign of the 49th Fighter Group covers some of the darkest days of the Pacific War: the fall of Singapore on 15 February; the bombing of Darwin on 19 February during which the Japanese shot down nine of the ten P-40s of Major Floyd Pell’s 33rd Pursuit Squadron; and the sinking of the USS Langley (CV-1) on 27 February, taking with it thirty-two P-40s and thirty-three pilots from the USAAF 13th Pursuit Squadron.