The Douglas Boston in RAAF Service, No 22 Squadron 1942-1944

Near the start of WW2 in the Pacific,  22 Bostons due to be delivered to Dutch East Indies to serve with the Dutch Naval Air Service (MLD) were diverted to the Royal Australian Air Force.

Australia’s association with the Boston was initiated by events in the Dutch East Indies. The Dutch Navy had ordered 80 DB-7 Boston’s from the US in a frantic attempt to modernise the MLD before the war with Japan. Of this order 32 were DB-7B’s diverted from a British order and 48 were DB-7C’s build to a Dutch spec with interchangeable solid 4 x 20mm cannon noses and bomb aimer noses with automatic deploying life rafts and equipped to carry torpedoes. These 48 DB-7C’s were not completed before the fall of the Dutch East Indies and were completed to DB-7B specs and delivered to the USSR. Of the 32 DB-7B’s dispatched from the US only six were to make it to Java before the Dutch capitulation and only one was made flyable. The Japanese subsequently captured these six and got 2 and possibly 3 of them flying, two with the JAAF test unit and one with the IJNAF test unit. This last aircraft (AL904) was recovered at Atsugi naval air base in Japan after the war. Of the remaining 26 , four still on freighters in the Pacific when the Dutch East Indies fell returned to the US and these aircraft were taken on as training aircraft with the USAAF. The remaining 22 on five refuge ships landed in Australia after the fall and these 22 DB-7B Boston III’s were to become the nucleolus of 22 Sqn and the first of 69 Boston’s to be operated by the RAAF. These unwanted and un expected aircraft were to be the RAAF’s premium strike/ attack aircraft for almost two years until large numbers of Beaufighters became available.

They served with No. 22 Squadron RAAF and fought in the East Indies from September 1942. RAAF Bostons took part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea and in attacks on a large Japanese convoy headed toward Lae. Some A-20A/C/G planes arrived from the US from September 1943. By November 1944, No 22 Squadron was going to be assigned to the Philippines.

13 Bostons were destroyed on the ground during a Japanese raid on Morotai. The squadron was withdrawn to Noemfoor, where it was re-equipped with Beaufighters before it returned to action. Surviving Bostons were relegated to transport, mail delivery and communications

This volume presents the most detailed history and accurate profiles to date of the Douglas Boston light bomber (DB-7B and A-20 models) in RAAF Pacific service. Unusually just one unit, No. 22 Squadron, operated the type. From late 1942 until mid-1943 it flew daring low-level attack missions in New Guinea, before advancing to the Netherlands East Indies in 1944.
This volume illustrates and explains the development of the type in RAAF service, and for the first time closely aligns its Japanese belligerents, in the air and on the ground and sea. It also explains combat and other losses contrasted against the unique operational environment. A wide range of primary source material has been drawn upon including official records, diaries, rare photos, captured documents and operational logs of relevant Japanese units.
The author is world-renown for his expertise on the aerial war in the Pacific, while his passion for the Douglas light bomber stems from assisting with the 1984 salvage of an RAAF Boston from New Guinea.