Australian Forces

Australians at Rayak

3squadron.org.au

Rayak air base, Lebanon, after the conquest by the British troops and the end of the campaign against the Levant’s Vichy forces, July 1941: Jim Kinnear, of the No 3 Squadron Royal Australian Air Force standing in front to one of the French Vichy Air Force’s Dewoitine D.520 fighters destroyed on the ground by the earlier strafing attacks on June 1941 accomplished by the Curtiss Tomahawks of the same 3 Squadron flying from their temporary airfield at Jenin, Palestine, where was redeployed from Egypt. Crazy but true: in the No 3 Squadron RAAF history the French fighters Dewoitine D.520 are named «little Swiss-designed fighters»!!!! [photo Jim Kinnear Collection via 3squadron.org.au]. Victor Sierra