After recently completing a Database for
Aeroplane magazine with Allan King, I thought I'd share a few Sunderland shots here.
A lovely colour shot I found on the web of a Sunderland with a Fairey Swordfish in the background, on floats. Sunderlands are big. This one looks like it's had the ailerons refabriced; most maintenance was carried out 'on the trots' in harbour, coming 'ashore' was rare.
Its job was to sink these, which it did well, or keep them down, which it also did.
It was heavily armed, in British pre-war terms. These are the offensive weapons - the early war RAF anti-sub bombs were useless (an Avro Anson accidentally bombed a British sub; the sub had one broken lightbulb, the Anson brought itself down by the splash, and were rescued by their 'target' - that would've been an interesting 'chat' between the RN captain and the RAF captain...)
The big one is a naval depth charge with additions to 'streamline' it!
The rear turret impressed the British press who came up with a lot of stories the Germans called it a 'Flying Porcupine'. This is almost certainly another propaganda myth; the Germans had cannon, and weren't going to be particularly impressed by four .303in machine guns.
Inside:
The turret worked well, and was effective, but more to do with the guts of the gunners, than the pop-guns.
And on top;
Two crew show the pan-fed Vickers K or VGO guns. 96 rounds of .303 pellets. Note in this propaganda shot the ammo pans aren't fitted. Clearly you could also shoot your mate.
What the gentleman pilot did. This is Dickie Cohen, RAAF. He's still going, and has a fund of great stories.
And it had a lot of the comforts of home. Time for tea! From the material on the wall, you can tell this is an Aussie machine (Can you see the roo and the koala?).
All bar the colour shot are of 10 or 461 Sqn RAAF Sunderlands, based in the UK, keeping the Atlantic open. They were passed to me from several different sources, including my friend Ian Le Sueur.
If this is of interest I can post more - (The Database feature is here, btw:
http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com/ ). Fire off any questions too, and I'll do my best to answer them.
There are countless amazing Sunderland stories too.
Cheers,
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It's all learning; researching the type for the feature taught me a lot I didn't know about it. I also met up with a 10 Sqn fitter, and have dispatched a copy to him. It's all good.