No. 17 Squadron was a fighter squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Formed in October 1942 at

Ohakea RNZAF Base Ohakea is an operational base of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Opened in 1939, it is located near Bulls, 25 km north-west of Palmerston North in the Manawatu. It is also a diversion landing point for civilian aircraft. The bas ...

, the squadron was initially equipped with Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks, before converting to F4U-1 Corsairs in 1944. The squadron fought in the Pacific theatre during World War II, flying combat operations against Japanese forces until it was disbanded in late 1945.

History

The Squadron formed at

, New Zealand in October 1942 on

North American Harvard The North American Aviation T-6 Texan is an American single-engined advanced trainer aircraft used to train pilots of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), United States Navy, Royal Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and other air forces ...

s and

Curtiss P-40 The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...

Kittyhawks; after a period of training it moved to

New Georgia New Georgia, with an area of , is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 200th-largest island in the world. Geography New Georgia island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most ...

in January 1943, Santo in July and then Guadalcanal in September and Bougainville in January 1944, rotating between these bases and serving largely in an air-to-air role, in which it enjoyed considerable success. By mid-1944 when the squadron converted to more potent Vought Corsairs, Japanese aerial activity had all but ceased in the South West Pacific, and the unit was largely deployed in a ground attack role, despite moving to Green Island in January 1945, and

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in May.Ross, pp. 327–328 The squadron was still in Los Negros when disbanded in September 1945. Crashed Kittyhawk of No

Commanding officers

The following officers commanded the squadron: * Squadron Leader J. V. A. Reid (October 1942–July 1943); * Squadron Leader P. G. Newton (July 1943–January 1944); * Squadron Leader D. F. St. George (April–November 1944); * Squadron Leader B. V. Le Pine (November 1944–September 1945).

References

Citations

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:No. 17 Squadron Rnzaf 17 Military units and formations established in 1942 Squadrons of the RNZAF in World War II Military units and formations disestablished in 1945