Thursday, September 08, 2016

see something wrong? Lt. Col. Johnson accidentally shot down an Australian Air Force Boomerang recon fighter in Nov 1943, after being told there were no friendly aircraft in the area.


Flight Officer R.M. Stewart, who had been spotting for artillery, crash landed near the Finschhaven (New Guinea) airstrip, the Boomerang caught fire and was totally destroyed. He survived, suffering shock and cuts to face.

 He was later tracked down by Johnson, who brought over some black market liquid as part of an apology. 5th Air Force lore has it that 5th AF Commanding General Kenney himself provided Johnson with a case of bootleg gin for Stewart. Stewart apparently didn't mind that Johnson added him to his scoreboard.

Thanks Steve!
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1 comment:

  1. Burkey12:26 AM

    I love it. What a great story.

    Stewart would have been so pissed....The Boomerang was a pretty slow, fairly useless aircraft but was very effective on Japanese snipers and ground targets. It was the only WW2 fighter which never shot down an enemy aircraft, for gods sake.
    I'm sure a fair bit of that 'liquid' went down and they wet their pants laughing about it.

    I suppose.... you get that on big jobs.

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