Hellcats at Owi Airfield, PNG, April 1945?

[Dave Homewood]

An RNZAF Corsair pilot I recently interviewed told me an interesting story. He said that one dy around half a dozen pilots piled into a Dakota and were flown to Owi, Papua New Guinea, where they were offloaded and told they were going to pick up a Hellcat each and fly them back to their base at Los Negros.

I found this curious because RNZAF pilots never flew Hellcats usually, the RNZAF never had any issued to them and the type never served on any of our squadrons. So these pilots were all inexperienced on type. So I asked, "Why were you ferrying them to Los Negros? Was it as a favour to the Americans?" No, he says, they were informed that they were re-equipping with the Hellcat and would be converting onto them.

This is astounding news. I looked up his logbook and this took place on the 19th of April 1945. At that time the RNZAF had plans to soon replace the Corsairs with P-51D Mustangs. But it seems that perhaps this particular Corsair unit, No. 19 (Fighter) Squadron RNZAF was to get Hellcats instead?

He said one of the pilots did actually fly the Hellcat to Los Negros from Owi. He said it was John Killian who was their CO. He reckoned Killian took off and got away but the weather closed in and the rest of the pilots ended up flying back to Los Negros in the Dakota (flown both ways by a Lt. James so possibly a USAAF aircraft I guess - he only noted the number 27 in the serial column). And that was the last he heard of Hellcats, they continued to fly in Corsairs, and then in July he crashed and burned and ended the war in hospital.

So I'm very curious now. I looked up Owi and sure enough it seems to have been a US base http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owi_Airfield

So does anyone know which unit would have had Hellcats there at that time, 19 April 1945? Was there really any intention of handing them over to the RNZAF, or was someone pulling his leg? Did Killian really fly one to Los Negros?

Over to you guys, who's Hellcats were they?

Last edited by Dave Homewood on Sun Jun 27, 2010 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[jdvoss]

Dave :

Is it possible that these Hellcats could have been destined for the British Royal Navy?? The reason that I brought this possiblity up is that in the Los Negros area the USN had an airfield on the island of Pityilyu...also known as Ponam. On 2 April 1945 the base was turned over the the Royal Navy and renamed HMS Nabaron (MONAB No. 4). It was the RN's only dedicated RNAS in the Pacific Theater. Initial aircraft to this base were brought in on the HMS Fencer that departed Sydney on 30 March 1945.

John

[Dave Homewood]

That is an interesting theory John. I knew that the Royal Navy's British Pacific Fleet had a station at Los Negros but they had not come into this equation. I'm not sure why though if this was the case they didn't send FAA pilots, and why the RNZAF pilots were told they were re-equipping with Hellcats. Plus I have never come across any cases where the RNZAF did ferry work for the FAA, or for other services for that matter. Even if they'd been ferrying them for the US Navy it would have been a very unusual event.