Quote:
Originally Posted by Lang
Mike
I don't think it was as simple as that. Australia had a government purchasing commission in USA and deals were mainly done on a commercial basis.
As discussed in another thread unlike UK, Australia had relatively few Lend Lease acquisitions and bought most of its equipment or traded the value for goods and services provided to US forces in Australia.
Macarthur's people may have helped push Australian orders ahead in the queue for certain operational reasons. Remember that for well over a year the only combat troops in contact with the enemy Macarthur had on the ground were Australian units.
Lang
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There was large scale "unofficial" vehicle procurement as well as the official . The unofficial vehicles in the SWPA would have been in high numbers , in the field vehicle swapping was going on continuously.
I have a book written by RAAF wireless mechanics, they would routinely fly long distances ( from Australia to PNG ) to American aircraft dumps to salvage stuff from discarded US aircraft , this was all unofficial of course bit it happened all the time.
The official records in the archives don't tell the whole story