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On 1 July 1942, a small military aircraft crashed into the cloud-shrouded slopes of Mount Stanley, in northeastern Victoria, during a flight between Laverton, west of Melbourne, and Wagga Wagga, in New South Wales. The American pilot, Second Lieutenant Henry Orous Null, Jr, was killed in the crash and his remains have since been repatriated to the United States. The aircraft, a Brewster Buffalo single-engine fighter, was originally ordered by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army Air Force for use in their fight against the invading Japanese in what is now Indonesia, but was delivered subsequently to the United States Army Air Forces in Australia. Only 20 examples of this model of Buffalo aircraft are known to have been built, and this was the only one to have crashed in Victoria while being operated by the American military, the remains of which can still be found at the site. These events all occurred during the very early stages of World War II in the South West Pacific, a time for which the historical record is often incomplete or contradictory. Despite artefacts having being salvaged over the years, this wreck site—essentially in our own backyard—offers much to be learnt regarding aircraft use in the early aerial battles of the Pacific War that took place thousands of kilometres away. This paper presents the preliminary historical research for this project and the results of a 2015 reconnaissance survey that located the wreck of this Brewster Buffalo. It also poses questions for future study relating to the aircraft’s identity, its paint markings, and the exact cause of its demise. |
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