GRASS stopped Langdon Badger and his family in their tracks when they first tried to reach the old war planes on PNG's Goofenough Island - it was Kuni grass, and it was more than 2m high. Impassable ... rest assured, if it stopped an aircraft fanatic, it was impassable. This was August 30, 1971. The Badgers - five of them - had landed on the Vivigani Strip in their plane, Mooney VH-MBO, in search of warbirds. They were met by Patrol Officer Alan Stevens, who knew of aircraft in a nearby wartime dump. It was a year before his intrepid guests got to the dump.
"The next year our family stayed with Alan and his wife on the 24th and 25th August, arriving in our new Twin Comanche VH-MED," Langdon says.
"The island was suffering a drought, so it was an easy drive to the wrecks - comprising a Kittyhawk, Douglas A-20 Boston, several Beauforts and a Spitfire. We had to have the Spitfire."
That is an understatement.
Alan arranged for inmates of the local prison to carry, by hand, the wings, fuselage and tail to the port of Bolu Bolu, 11 miles away. Here, Methodist Missionaries from adjoining Normanby Island constructed crate large enough to hold all the Spitfire parts.
The parts got safely to Adelaide by ship.
"The only item lost was a rusty Browning machinegun," Langdon says.
"I suspect the customs took an interest in it!
"Incidentally, some years later we met the inmates on Goodenough Island, now free men, and they were very interested to see pictures of the Spitfire's restoration progress."
Not half as interested as Spitfire buffs the world over, of course.
"Collecting the many small parts for the rebuild was, in those days, a huge job," Langdon says.
"Some items came from farms at Oakey in Queensland, where most RAAF Spitfires were scrapped after WW11. Others (came) from a visit to Merauke in West Irian with VH- MED. The De Haviland propeller and radiator fairing came from a crash site 40 nautical miles south of Darwin on Labelle Downs Station."
Peter Arnold, the British Spitfire historian, supplied its spinner.
The Badgers gave a Hurricane Rotol propeller and spinner to the late Charles Church in exchange for many Spitfire items.
Years later they obtained the last few, rare bits needed to finish the Spitfire.
Another Brit, Guy Black, had them.
"We obtained these for the loan of our spare Volkes Filter, so he could make a copy to complete the Spitfire now on display in the USAF MUSEUM in Dayton Ohio, as flown by American pilots in Middle East," Langdon says.
The Badgers' Spitfire was the second 79 Squadron Spitfire to bear UP-O.
It was to have gone to the Western Desert aboard the SS Sussex on March 9, 1943, but the ship did not enter the Mediterranean. On the orders of Winston Churchill, it was redirected to Port Melbourne. Here, its cargo of Spitfires was unloaded. They were assembled at Laverton.
WO Douglas Scott, who had experience on Fairy Battles, flew four Spitfires to a secret location - the Churnside family's sheep station, “Wooloomanata” north west of Geelong. (This property is now owned by John Pettit and houses his AOP 9 and DH Collection.)
The CO of the newly formed 79 Squadron was Squadron Leader Alan Rawlinson DFC OBE AFC. Under him were some RAF and RAAF pilots with considerable overseas experience, and locally trained, green pilots.
Together, they flew the Spitfires to Goodenough.
When the CO was asked what letters he wanted for his squadron, he chose “UP, and I will have U”.
Owing to the urgency of the war situation, the planes' desert sand scheme was simply over sprayed with foliage green. All red from the roundels and tail was removed. A point of interest - the British number EE853 was not changed for the allocated RAAF serial, A58-146.
Enroute to Goodenough, the Spitfire later rescued by the Badgers was damaged during landing at Milne Bay. Sgt Pilot A E Byrne slid on the muddy Marsden pressed-steel matting.
The plane ended on her nose.
UP-O got a new propeller ... and the slight bend in the fuselage that is still apparent.
After serving from Goodenough Island's Vivigani strip, 79 Squadron moved north to Kiriwina Island (code name “Byproduct”).
"We have the logbook entries of the four pilots who flew A58-146," Langdon says.
"They were Squadron Leader Al Rawlinson , P/O Andy Byrne, P/O George Voges and Sgt Pilot Alec Chomley from Geelong.
"On the 29th August, 1943, Alec had the misfortune to ground loop UP-O when landing at Kiriwina. The damaged aircraft was then broken up to components and shipped to the main repair base at Goodenough Island, with its secret code name, “Ginger”, painted on the items. Some of these marked pieces can be seen on the staircase wall of the (South Australian Aviation) Museum.
"A rebuild never happened as the Allies moved ever onwards, chasing the enemy north by island hopping in front of the Japanese to cut off their lines of supply. Fortunately A58-146, being un-flyable, was left behind to be reclaimed by the jungle and then, eventually, by us."
Luck's a fortune.
"We became great friends with Shirley and Alec Chomley and in 1980 flew them back to Goodenough and the Kiriwina Islands where Alec served, in our Aerostar VH-UYV, which we still have.
"UP-O is probably the most original RAAF Spitfire in existence.
"It is fitted with a never-used, inhibited Rolls Royce Merlin 46 of 1415 hp. In addition to the aircraft, we have the total Squadron history and over 3,000 photographs of aircraft and the history of day-to-day life of 79 Squadron personnel during this period, plus many Spitfire, Mustang and aviation artifacts from all the theatres of the WW 11 conflict in the display cabinets.
"A separate bay contains WW1 engines, propellers and artifacts."
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
