Terry Sullivan's RAAF Oboe 4 DAP Hurribomber - finished!

[comrade harps]

The HobbyBoss Hurricane IIC kit flies together.




But I'm having problems with the Humbrol 149 paint job on the right wing. The first coat was OK but when I applied the second it went all streaky and pale. I'll have to have another go at this.


Oboe 4, by the way, was the planned Allied invasion of Java to capture either Surabaya or Batavia (Jakarta). I'm still considering which city, but the scenario may include an uprising against both the Japanese and the Allies by Indonesian independence fighters.

It's an Australian-built Hurricane. I'm currently trying to fit P-51 exhausts in to replce the Hurricane II ones.

[rickshaw]

You going to do a family diorama?   

[NARSES2]

Looking forward to this. An allied invasion of the Dutch East Indies opens all sorts of possibilities.

[comrade harps]

Decided on Jakarta (Batavia) and the scenario will include the Japanese accepting Indonesian independence (from the "Western colonialists") on the eve of the invasion and the locals and the Japanese joining forces to defend against the Allies. The Battle of Batavia is quite a bloody affair, requiring some air support...

[comrade harps]

DAP Hurricane XXV, 4 Squadron, RAAF,  Taman Baru, Java, Netherlands East Indies, January 1946
pilot: Terry Sullivan



This aircraft was the personal mount of then Flight Seargent Terry Sullivan, who later became famous as one of The Fighting Sullivans in a popular 1967 book (written by Terry) and 1976 movie. During his first combat tour, with 4 Squadron flying Boomerangs in New Guinea, Sullivan was forced to bail out over northern New Guinea and made an epic 3 week walk back to Allied lines. When he finally made contact with Australian troops, he was wearing the remains of his uniform as a loin cloth, rags on his feet, and a Japanese Army hat; he was carrying an Japanese machine gun and a packet of Japanese cigarettes (souvenired from an encounter with a Japanese soldiers). After recovering his health, he served as an instructor pilot before returning to combat with 4 Sqd in late 1945 as they re-equipped with DAP Hurricane XXVs and moved north to participate in Oboe 4, the Allied invasion of Japanese-occupied Java. He was given a medical discharge in April 1946 (he was said to have gone troppo). Sullivan was restless in civilian life and became involved in criminal black-marketeering and spent several years behind bars at her majesty's pleasure.

Other members of the Sullivan family featured in The Fighting Sullivans included Terry's parents, two brothers and sister. His father Dave (a WW1 veteran and played in the movie by Rod Taylor) was a foreman for at the CUB brewery in Melbourne and the movie features several product placements of Victoria Bitter (VB). The family matriarch Grace (played by Lorraine Bayly) by was killed in London by a V1 in June 1944 whilst on a mission to identify her long-lost son, John; he had joined the medical corps and been thought lost at sea in the Mediterranean during 1942. Actually, John (played by John Howard) had been rescued by locals and ended up fighting with Yugoslavian Partisans before being repatriated to England, injured and suffering trauma related amnesia. Tom Sullivan (played by Graeme Blundell) was more gun-ho than his elder brother John and served with the Australian Army in Greece, North Africa, New Guinea and Borneo, where he was killed by a surrendering Japanese soldier in October 1945 who was holding a hand-grenade behind his back. Youngest sibling, Kitty (played by Anne-Louise Lambert), became a nurse during the war and married a war correspondent (played by Jack Thompson) who committed suicide in September 1945, upset at the horror of the atomic bombings of Japan. The film ends with Dave's death as he is run over by Terry during a failed attempt to deter him from driving away in a stolen car and evading police capture. Darkly melodramatic but closely biographical, the movie version was box-office poison, but despite popular rejection it was critically acclaimed and has become a cult classic. The film was directed by Bruce Beresford and Terry Sullivan was played by John Jarratt.




Oboe 4 was one of a series of Allied invasion operations planned for the Indonesian archipelago. The Americans were not in favour of invading Java, but the Dutch and their British colonial allies saw the necessity of invading Java as intelligence of collaboration between Indonesian nationalists and the Japanese became available. In late December, 1945, Tokyo instructed the Japanese occupation forces in the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) to accept Indonesian independence should the Japanese home islands be invaded. They were then to fight alongside the Indonesians against the Allies. This message was intercepted and decoded by the Allies, who were also aware that the nationalists were planning to declare Indonesian independence before the arrival of the Allies. Oboe 4 was thus brought forward to enforce Dutch colonial rule before the nationalists could establish control. The January 14 invasion of Java precipitated the Indonesian declaration of nationhood the next day and the Japanese and the Indonesians fought alongside in Java for the next month before full Allied control was established.



The Department of Aircraft Production (DAP) manufactured 801 Hurricanes between March 1940 and January 1945.  The original model, similar to the Hurricane I, was the Hurricane XX. The Hurricane XXI was a one-off prototype replacing the Rolls-Royce Merlin with a CAC-built Twin Wasp as an insurance against a shortage of Merlins. The XXII was similar to the Hurricane II and featured a pair of 20mm cannon. The XXIII was similar, but used Packard-built Merlins and replaced the .303 cal machine guns with .50 cal Brownings. The XXIV was a long-ranged version of the XXIII with extra internal fuel. The final version, the XXV, was built specifically for the attack role and used the Merlin 27 powerplant, featured four 20mm cannon and could carry RP3 rockets.



4 Squadron was equipped with new Hurricane XXVs (taken from storage at Laverton) at a time when other RAAF front-line squadrons had moved on to more modern types and by February 1946 was the only RAAF combat unit still flying Hurricanes.  4 Sqd remained on the type until the Japanese surrender in May, 1946, operating against enemy forces in the NEI and disbanded in July. Sullivan's aircraft is depicted here as photographed at Taman Baru, near Serang on Java, during the Battle of Jakarta.

[NARSES2]

I like that, looks good in that scheme