Back to the Track 2021

[Lang]

Thanks Hanno. We leave Tuesday morning.

Five 600km days should see us there but if we can average 250km a day in case of disasters enroute there is enough time to still make the start 01 August.

PS Hanno. In the photo of rolling bombs off the back of the truck you will notice that half the people are Dutch. This was the mixed Dutch/Australian B-25 Mitchell Squadron operating out of Batchelor Strip south of Darwin

Lang

18 Squadron (NEI) RAAF

One of the RAAF's most unusual units, No 18 Squadron formed at Fairbairn in the Australian Capital Territory on 4 April 1942. The commanding officer was a Dutch national, while the remainder of the squadron's complement was a mix of Netherlands East Indies (NEI) citizens and Australians.

Allocated a bomber role, most of the Mitchell bombers were captained by Dutch pilots, with Australians and Dutch nationals making up the remaining aircrew.

On 6 July 1942, No 18 Squadron was officially deleted as a unit of the RAAF and became part of the Netherlands East Indies Forces. The Squadron moved to the Darwin area in January 1943 and, under the operational control of RAAF Command, continued its attacks and anti-shipping strikes throughout the Netherlands East Indies.

After the War, RAAF personnel were withdrawn from No 18 Squadron, which moved back to the East Indies and was later absorbed by the Indonesian Air Force

[Lang]

Some More Alice Springs

[Lang]

Some photos coming in from the troops on the road to the start. This is a shot of the (non) scenery on the Stuart Highway heading north to Alice Springs from the window of a Studebaker US6.

[Lang]

Found a photo of a 1940 Chevrolet in Darwin in 1942.

VIP is William (Billy) Hughes who was the Australian Prime Minister during WW1. At 80 years of age he must have been the oldest person in parliament by the time WW2 rolled around.

Two features for my car.

The Chevrolet is black so no need to repaint mine.

The Tac Sign is the 12th Division of a buffalo over boomerang. Mine has been corrected to this insignia. 12th Division only lasted for 4 weeks. In the space of a month it changed from Northern Territory Force to 12th Division and back to Northern Territory Force. There are a lot of buffalo over boomerang photos so I suspect they continued to use this insignia despite the boomerang design being standard divisional or higher designator.

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Lang

Found a photo of a 1940 Chevrolet in Darwin in 1942.

VIP is William (Billy) Hughes who was the Australian Prime Minister during WW1. At 80 years of age he must have been the oldest person in parliament by the time WW2 rolled around.

Two features for my car.

The Chevrolet is black so no need to repaint mine.

The Tac Sign is the 12th Division of a buffalo over boomerang. Mine has been corrected to this insignia. 12th Division only lasted for 4 weeks. In the space of a month it changed from Northern Territory Force to 12th Division and back to Northern Territory Force. There are a lot of buffalo over boomerang photos so I suspect they continued to use this insignia despite the boomerang design being standard divisional or higher designator.

Not sure about the chevy being black but the 42 Ford (132425) does appear to be black .. this scene supports the Laurie Wright article where he writes describing his car spotting during WW2 where he spotted staff cars finished in black livery driving around Sydney .

[Lang]

I credited 12 Division with a longer life.

Northern Territory Force was renamed the 12th Division on 31 December 1942 and reverted to the title of Northern Territory Force on 15 January 1943. During the fifteen days that the formation constituted the 12th Division, it comprised the 3rd Brigade, 19th Brigade, 23rd Brigade, 2/4th Pioneer Battalion and 2/6th Cavalry Regiment.

Lang

[Mike Cecil]

Hi Lang,

Actually, I think you accorded 12 Aust Inf Division a much shorter life than it actually had, and listed units that were not part of the 'Division'.

On 19 Dec 1942, NT Force HQ issued an instruction which stated that 'to give formation identity to units now classified as Force Troops, they will be re-designated as shown below ...' The list has two columns: the left being the NT Force name, the right being the new designation. A few examples: HQ RAA NT Force became HQ RAA 12 Aust Div; NT Force Cipher Section became 12 Aust Div Cipher Section; NT Force Provost Company became 12 Aust Div Provost Company, and so on. These units continued, while they existed, in the order of battle (OOB) for NT Force as 12 Aust Div units, and later 12 Aust Div (AIF) units, until a reorganisation in 1945. Correspondence for all units in NT was still to be addressed to 'HQ NT Force' and signals to 'NORFORCE'. The units you listed as part of 12 Inf Div, unless I've missed a subsequent instruction, remained as part of the over-arching formation, that is, NT Force.

So NT Force was never renamed '12 Aust Div', only units of Force Troops within NT Force, and those designations were retained for the duration, although some documents, just to confuse things, seem to use the two designations interchangeably. The differentiation between Force and Field Troops (ie NT Force and 12 Inf Div) for command and administration was retained until 7 October 1944, when all Field Troops (12 Aust Div units) came back under direct command of NT Force HQ.

The formation sign of a Buffalo over a boomerang, in white on a black background: during 1942, NT Force issued specific instructions on several occasions that all formation insignia in the form of emblems be removed from vehicles, with a horizontal bar above or below the unit sign, either white or grey depending upon the unit's designation, used to indicate NT Force Units. The earliest official reference I have to the buffalo over boomerang formation sign for NT Force (and hence, all the units within NT Force, including those designated as 12 Inf Div) is a list of approved formation signs dated 7 April 1943. Secondary sources (eg Taubert) state the sign dates from Dec 1942, but nothing I've seen to date in either LHQ or NT Force instructions supports that. I may well have missed an instruction, of course, but the above is what I have at the moment. The formation sign remained extant for the duration.

Hope that clarifies things a little. Very nice car: should be a pleasant motoring holiday in the company of many like-minded enthusiasts.

Mike