Fleeing to Australia just as war broke out, David was interned as an enemy alien until CAC’s general manager, Wing Cmdr. There he helped develop the Mitsubishi A5M “Claude” fighter and Aichi D3A “Val” dive bomber before the Kempeitai secret police began to show an unwelcome interest in him. Born with few advantages but succeeding through dogged persistence, the Commonwealth Aircraft Company CA-12 through CA-19 Boomerangs were true “Aussie battlers.”Īn Austrian Jew, Fred David had been sent to Japan by Ernst Heinkel to save him from Nazi persecution. It was designed by Friedrich David, who was officially an enemy alien. The new plane had to use whatever components were already on hand: engines from a torpedo bomber, structural elements from a trainer. The RAF’s needs had preempted the supply of new airplanes and spares from Britain, and as the United States geared up for war, Australia could no longer be certain of promised aircraft from that ally either.Īustralia had never before produced a frontline combat aircraft. With fears of a Japanese invasion growing, the island nation urgently needed fighter aircraft, but the Royal Australian Air Force fleet was small and largely obsolete. Australia's First Homebuilt Fighter Holds the Line Closeĭesigned by an Austrian around an American engine, the Commonwealth Boomerang was the first frontline combat aircraft built in Australia.īarely two months after Pearl Harbor, Japanese bombers attacked Darwin, Australia’s Northern Territory capital, in the first of 97 raids.
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