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The Magnificent
Seven.
These are seven aircraft
types that played a close supporting role with the 42nd Australian
Infantry Battalion and or the 3rd Division in the Pacific war. The war
in the jungle required a different approach to the problems of
re-supply, troop insertion and extraction and air to ground support as
well as bombing.
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF),
the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC), the United States Navy, the
United States Marine Corps (USMC) and the
United States Army Air Force (USAAF) all played a part and they flew many
different types and models of aircraft.
These seven have been included because
of the close association of these models with our troops on the ground.
Click on the navigation bar or the
thumbnails to see an enlarged photo with details. The
USA did NOT have an Air Force as we know it.
You'll have an easier time of
understanding the situation if you know about the American Army-Air
Force's structure during WWII. What most people
think of as "the Air Force" was a branch of the United
States Army (ie, it was not a separate military unit) known at the
beginning of the War as the "United States Army Air Corps' (USAAC) and after 9 March
1942 as 'The United States Army Air Force" (USAAF). The table below presents a
rundown of the different name changes and structural changes the
'Air Force' has undergone with the WWII names in red.
| 1 August 1907 |
United States Army Signal
Corps Aeronautical Division |
| 18 July, 1914 |
United States Army Aviation
Section |
| 24 May 1918 |
United States Army Air
Service |
| 1926 |
United States
Army Air Corps (USAAC) |
| 9 March 1942 |
United States
Army Air Force (USAAF) |
| 26 July 1947 |
United States Air Force
(USAF) |
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