Another Cairns Catalina

A24-305 Taken on the Cairns inlet "some time in the 40s " from the Cairns HS collection

This post has been edited by cristo on Apr 4 2019, 09:03 AM

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Not a lot of detail on A24-305 on the ADF Serials history page so I did a bit of searching and came up with the following

The 43 Squadron records mention it arriving in Darwin on 29/8/45 from Rathmines in company with A24-2 en-route to Singapore. Departing Darwin 30/8/45. No other details but no doubt in connection with the Japanese surrender and the repatriation of POWs

The 114 ASRF records show it arriving in Cairns 15/2/46 from Rathmines in company with A24-302 A24-307 and A24-63 to assist in the search for Norseman A71-4 which crashed at Iron Range 14/2/46.

A24-364 from 111 ASRF at Madang is also shown as assisting. The crash site was located by A24-364 ( Pilot F/O R B Black 415963 ) on the 19/2/46. The four Rathmines Catalina's are then shown in the 114 ASRF records as being used " as a transport flight between Cairns and Madang " with no other details.

The Cairns HS collection has a photo of A71-4 taken at Cairns airstrip in 1945 taken by LAC Bruce Galbraith Downie 147586. LAC Downie was a keen amateur photographer based in Cairns with 114 ASRF who donated a lot of his photos to the Cairns HS.

This post has been edited by cristo on Apr 4 2019, 08:58 AM

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Fantastic clear photo of the Catalina

That's a brilliant photo! What is the Cairns HS collection?

Cairns Historical Society

A photo of a RAAF Catalina on the Cairns inlet from the Cairns Historical Society collection. The serial is not clear but I think this is PBY 5 A24-33. Delivered to 20 Squadron at Cairns 25/10/43. On operations from Cairns as RB-S until it was transferred to 3 OTU 13/6/44.

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An unidentified RAAF Catalina and crew on Cairns inlet from the Cairns Historical Society collection. This photo is also in the Australian War Memorial Collection Accession NEA0330 attributed to John Thomas Harrison with the following caption.
“ Cairns, Qld. 1944-01-12. The bowman of a RAAF Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat takes aboard a towline so the flying boat can move to another mooring buoy. “
By this date 20 squadron had moved to Darwin and 11 Squadron to Rathmines so the plane may have been from 114 Air Sea Rescue Flight

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Fantastic image

Some nice photos. I agree with the 1st pic of 33

Yes it is a painting, used years ago in the 1977 DAFS calendar, marked as A24-35.

This post has been edited by batman on May 28 2021, 01:47 PM

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Interesting what we have looks like a photo copy. I thought it looked a bit odd. Do you have any information on who painted it ?

Yes, it normally was a guy called Connor that did the DAFS artwork.

Thanks for that. What does DAFS stand for ?

Thanks Shep thats a little bit over my head. The only connection I had with Defence was when they signed me up as a two year nasho back in the day.