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A Douglas Boston on the runway at Port Moresby. (Australian War Memorial, John Thomas Harrison)
From Richmond to PNG: the Douglas Boston in RAAF service
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In this exclusive extract, Michael Claringbould explains how No. 22 Squadron obtained light bombers meant for the Dutch, which went on to fly daring attack missions for the Australian Air Force
The story of the Douglas Boston in Australian service stems back to the German invasion of the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. After this momentous event the Dutch government in exile in London created the Netherlands Purchasing Commission in New York, and at the end of that year it presented the US government with a shopping list of military aircraft with which to defend the NEI. However, since 1938 the US aircraft industry had already been swamped by competing Belgian, British, Finnish and French orders, with the US government giving priority to Britain and France. More peripheral nations such as the Netherlands were therefore reduced to the acquisition of second-tier aircraft, particularly for distant colonial use.
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