Litchfield Wartime Airstrips

LITCHFIELD’S WARTIME AIRSTRIPS – LIVINGSTONE, STRAUSS AND HUGHES

These three airstrips must rank among Australia’s supremely important historic sites. Yet they are little known, possibly because most Australians would rather forget just how close we came to defeat in early 1942.

From 7 December 1941, when Japanese attacks began in Malaya and then at Pearl Harbour, enemy forces swept through south-east Asia and New Guinea. From 19 February 1942 Japanese aircraft began attacking targets in the Top End of the Northern Territory.

The enemy strategy was to isolate Australia and force its eventual surrender. Part of that strategy was to prevent the build-up of any Allied counter-offensive capacity in the north. So, the Northern Territory had to be neutralised. This was to be done by air attack and by cutting the sea lanes to and from Darwin.

The strategy might well have succeeded but for the skill, bravery and tenacity of men who fought back from these airstrips.

In response to the enemy threat the Allied defensive strategy was to build airstrips just inland from the coast – far enough inland so that the defending aircraft could gain height before the enemy planes crossed the coast.

Airstrip sites were selected adjacent the north – south road (later developed into the present Stuart Highway) so that the strips could easily be supplied. In March 1942 the American 808 Engineer Battalion, aided by RAAF mobile works units and the Allied Works Council, began work, first at the 34 Mile (later called Livingstone), then at Hughes and the 27 Mile (Strauss). Equipment was so short that surfaces had to be compacted by men pushing improvised rollers.

The only effective aircraft the Australians had were Hudson bombers. From March 1942, first the RAAF No 13 Squadron, then No. 2 Squadron, began taking the war back to the enemy by flying the Hudsons on offensive bombing missions over the enemy held islands to the north. Both Squadrons were awarded a US Presidential citation for their work.

Australia had no effective fighter aircraft in the area until March 1942 when the USAAF 49th. Pursuit Group arrived. The Group soon had 60 Kittyhawk aircraft in the area, facing a much larger and better equipped enemy air force based in the islands.

From April 1942 first Livingstone and then Strauss became operational fighter bases. On 25 April 1942 the 34 Mile strip was officially renamed Livingstone, after the American pilot John Livingstone who had crash landed his damaged aircraft on the strip and was burned to death in the fire which followed.

The 27 Mile strip was renamed Strauss in honour of Allison Strauss, another American, who was shot down into the sea off Darwin on 27 April 1942.

Despite these and many other losses the 49th. Pursuit Group held the line and then turned the tide. They forced the enemy to fly higher and at night, when their bombing was less effective.

The American airmen were moved to New Guinea in September 1942, to be replaced by RAAF units, at first flying Kittyhawks, then Spitfires. The war in the air continued until November 1943, although the airstrips were operational until the end of the war in 1945.

It is not possible to be exact, but it is a clear that a total of not less than 127 enemy aircraft were destroyed by defenders based on either Livingstone or Strauss – about half the victories were American and half Australian.

But for the effective defence and counter-attacks from these three airfields at this most critical of all times in our history, the enemy would have achieved its objective of maintaining effective control over the Top End region. The consequence would have been the frustration of the dramatic Allied build up of counter-offensive capacity.

Sattler airstrip, also within the Shire and clearly visible from the Stuart Highway, did not become operational until 1944, after the air war above the Northern Territory was over. However, the strip was important as a staging point in the latter stages of the war.