PBY Catalina
 

Warning Star
Looks like the Indian Ocean operation is worth a book & documentary!
Thanks for the most interesting post.

Capt. Crosswind, here's a link to "Beyond The Dawn" a book about QANTAS. Chapter 11 has a bit about the Catalina operation.www.qantas.com.au/company/history.html

PBY Catalina
 

Thanks for the link Pigboat.
Scuttling the 5 Indian Ocean Cats borders on vandalism.
I never did understand the Lend - Lease principle.
What a pity they could not have been put in storage.

The PBY War Story that regretably did not happen
 

Reading of all the finger pointing & accusations of incompetence made against the Intelligence Services after the Pearl Harbour attack it seems that one major point overlooked was that the Cats were not on patrol. Considering the capability of the acft as detailed in previous posts, the Cats would have provided good warning of the approach of the Jap Fleet & saved the day.
The Cats not being airborne on reccy appears to be a major screw up by the top brass.

PBY to Macquarie Island
 

Some 40 years ago I spent a summer on Macquarie Island. The only way in
and out was by ship, two visits a year There is no airstrip on the island but
there was the story (at that time) that in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s the
diesel generator mechanic on the station had died by accident. As a diesel
mechanic is vital at an isolated location like Macquarie, I was told that the
RAAF flew a replacement to Macquarie using a Catalina. The story as I
remember was the plane landed on the open ocean to the east of the island,
disembarked the mechanic onto a life raft for the station personnel to rescue
using their small boat and immediately took off back to Australia.

I would be curious if any of the PBY enthusiasts have heard of this story and,
perhaps, could fill me in on how accurate my version is.

PBY / Macquarie Island
 

Devans, I might have a lead on this story, give me a few days
to chase it up.

Macquarie Island PBY
 

On 7th March 1948, the A.N.A.R.E ( Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition ) was set up on Macquarie Island.
On 8th July that same year, a fatal accident happened at the base. Diesel engineer Charles Scoble was drowned while skating across a frozen lake. This lake is now known as Scoble Lake on the plateau south of the main base.
Due to the critical importance of the diesel generators for the provision of electrical power at the base, the A.N.A.R.E. HQ in Melbourne, Australia arranged to send a replacement engineer, Frank Keating.
This was achieved in August 1948 in a hazardous winter flight using a RAAF Catalina ( from 11 SQN I think ), equipped with JATO rockets to assist in it's takeoff from the water near the Macquarie Island base.

Hope this is of value.
With Regards
Tracey
H.A.R.S., Sydney, Australia

Thank you very much, Warning Star, for the information. The facts
you provided are in good agreement with the story I had heard
years ago. The seas are rough at that latitude in the summer
and a winter landing and takeoff would have been very
hazardous indeed.

Thanks again

Dave Evans

Midway
 

RBFlying, after your info ref the Midway Battle I did a square search for a documentary I knew I had on this action. Just found it.
The role of the Cats in finding the Jap fleet gets one sentence & 15 seconds of video.
Reflecting on this operation one has to admire the airmanship & courage of the aircrews who flew these missions.
They were virtually in the position of hunting a tiger without a gun. Once they found the Jap fleet the Jap fleet had obviously found them also. Apart from the evasion tactics they also had to find their way back to base over vast expanse of ocean.
It must have called for a top Nav in these crews.
Were many PBY Patrols intercepted & shot down on this & other actions I wonder ??

Hollywood’s ‘recollections’ of the events of the first week of Dec 1941 notwithstanding, the attack on Pearl Harbo(u)r was little more than a sideshow. The main Japanese attack was on Malaya and the Philippines, and the timing was based around catching the Brits and the Yanks with their pants down early on Monday morning, Dec 8th, after another dissipated weekend. (With Hawaii being on the other side of the international dateline, where it was still Sunday, Dec 7th, this seems to confuse may people into thinking the attacks on Hawaii preceded the invasion of Malaya, which isn’t so. The Japanese had landed just north of the Thai border and attacked Kota Bahru in Malaya on the Sunday night, before they attacked Pearl Harbo(u)r.

My point for this pocket history lesson? I understand that the first Allied casualty of the Pacific war was an Australian PBY whose crew had sighted and reported the invasion fleet steaming south from Vietnam and off the Thai coast on the Sunday afternoon. They were promptly shot down by supporting Zeros, long before the war ‘officially’ started.

There are some who maintain that the first major casualty of the Pacific war actually occurred two weeks earlier, when HMAS Sydney, the Australian cruiser, was lost with all hands off the West Australian coast when it encountered the German merchant cruiser Kormoran. (For those not familiar with the term, a merchant cruiser was a cargo ship converted to be an armed raider, an unlikely winner in an encounter with a major warship, even if it did get the first salvo in.)

There have been allegations almost from the start that a (then neutral) Japanese submarine might have been involved in the engagement, possibly surprised by Sydney when rendezvousing with the Kormoran for who knows what purpose. There have been books published pooh poohing these allegations and ‘proving’ that Sydney’s captain was a reckless fool whose past performance suggested that he might well have sailed right up alongside the disguised raider and presented himself as an unmissable target. (The Naval version of ‘pilot error’?) This of course begs the question: what were the Sea Lords or their Australian equivalent thinking putting such a man in charge of Australia’s best ship?

Over 300 of the German crew survived, but not one Australian, and the only trace of Sydney ever found was a bullet-riddled life raft – and the bullet holes were clearly from small arms, not shrapnel. The raft is now on show at the Australian War Memorial.

I believe the people who found the ‘Titanic’ and the ‘Bismarck’ have ‘Sydney’ on their list of wrecks to locate and photograph. If and when they find it, it could re-write history, although in this day of Political Correctness, I’d be guessing that if these allegations were found to be true, they would be still too hard to swallow, and my money would be on the Australian Government sitting on any unpalatable findings in the interests of brotherly love among nations – to say nothing of tourism and trade.

Here's a couple more links to wartime action involving the Canso.

www.chapter-one.com/vc/award.asp?vc=280
http://www.geocities.com/bgmcansh/ho...idhornell.html

Those guys had big ones, made of brass.

The PBY now flying for the Canadian Warplane Heritage has now been dedicated to F/L Hornell.

www.warplane.com/pages/june22.html

WWII Ops in which the PBY played a key role
 

When Bismark gave the Royal Navy the slip South of the Denmark Strait an intensive sea/air hunt was mounted by RAF & RN.
Bismark was found & shadowed by a RAF PBY which set up the Swordfish (another under rated WWII acft) attack which disabled Bismark's steering,leading to her eventual destruction.

The PBY was operating out of Lough Erne, Nth Ireland & under the command of F/O Dennis Briggs. His co pilot was Ensign T Smith of the USN who really should not have been flying with RAF on combat ops at that stage of WWII,but had been seconded to the RAF to assist with the introduction of the lend- lease PBY's.
In attempting to get a better look at Bismark to confirm the sighting ( in poor viz & low cloud); they inadvertantley broke cloud over the ship & were instantly brassed up, taking a number of hits but no crew casualties. They shadowed Bismark until relieved by a Swordfish - this alerting Captain Lindeman that a carrier was now within range.
PBY's operating out of Iceland had previously played a major role in shadowing Bismark when she sailed through Denmark Straits.

The PBY that found the Bismark was WQZ.

Last summer we flew for Mirimax, filming the movie "Below " which should be released anytime now.

The movie starts with the PBY painted exactly as it was during the war, we even had real Browning 50 caliber machine guns installed as well as depth charges hung under the wings.

On the first flight with the depth charges hung unnder the wings I was quite suprised at the amount of drag and loss of speed caused by having them there.

When the movie is finally released you must see it, there is some of the most awesome footage of a PBY in flight you will ever see.

Cat Driver:

..................
:D The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no.:D

Thanks for the headsup on the movie Chuck, it's a must see.
The more I dig into PBY Ops in WWII the more I realise what a magnificent aircraft it was & what an important role it played in both the Pacific & Atlantic naval operations.
There is no doubt a large volume waiting to be written on this subject.

Capt. xwind:

Wait until you see the PBY6A HARS just bought, it is a really nice example of the type and flys real nice.

Cat Driver

PBY6A
 

Chuck,
Quite a few ex Cat people are looking forward to its arrival.

PBY / Macquarie Island
 

Devans
Info I have is as already posted by Warning Star -
I can confirm that the acft was from 11 SQN as surmised by
W/Star.
The acft tail No. was A24-104 & departure point was from
Hobart.
Operation was hairy due Wx as mentioned.

Ref Wiley's post on PBY shot down 07 Dec 1941.
I may have some info available on this operation shortly.

PBY Catalina - the First Casualty of the Pacific War
 

As posted by Wiley, a PBY was shot down after locating & reporting the Japanese invasion fleet off the Thai coast,enroute to Kota Bahru.This incident occured on the 7th December (USA date/time) some hours before the Pearl Harbour attack. As Wiley surmised this was the first casualty of the Pacific war.
The PBY was from RAF 205 Sqn and the sortie was launched after a previous PBY sent on the same task failed to return. It is uncertain as to the fate of the first acft.
The crew may well have been RAAF, as an account of the incident is mentioned in the official RAAF history.
I may have more on this operation in a week or so.

Capt, take a look at www.zianet.com/tmorris/charlie.html . It has the story of a rescue of a crewman from the USCG cutter Bibb. At the time the Bibb was acting as Ocean Station Charlie in the North Atlantic. They had a crewman fall ill, and he was airlifted to Newfoundland by a PBY based in Argentia NF.
It also has the story, albeit in a condensed form, of the rescue of the passengers from the Bermuda Sky Queen, a Boeing 314 that was forced landed in the Atlantic near the Bibb, because of insufficient fuel to make Gander.

Chuck,

You said that your delivery flight through the middle east and India was cancelled. Does this mean that you are going over the Pacific or waiting until after the Monsoon season?

Cheers

Mutt.