Aviation News - February 2016 UK

T

he elegant Short Sunderland was

not only the last flying boat to be

operated by the RAF, but also the

longest serving. Its career straddled

the age of the biplane with that of the jet

airliner. Developed in parallel with the S 23

‘C-Class’ for Imperial Airways, the prototype

of the S 25, soon named ‘Sunderland’, flew

for the first time on October 16, 1937 and

after further development production began at

Rochester, Kent.

No.230 Sqn received its first Sunderland

on June 22, 1938 when L2159 arrived at the

unit’s base at RAF Seletar in Singapore. The

Squadron was assigned to Far East Command

and under the command of Wg Cdr W H

Dunn. It was the first unit to be fully equipped

with the type and by late September eight

Sunderlands had been delivered and the unit

worked to an operational pitch.

Four leaders of the Malay States donated

funds to purchase Sunderlands. To formally

record this generosity and to establish links,

four aircraft were named after the donor state

at a ceremony and wore their name in Malay

on the nose. They also wore the flag of the

state on the fin and these remained until

the aircraft were camouflaged at the start of

World War Two. The aircraft in question were

L2160 Selangore, L2161 Negri Sembilan,

L2164 Pahang and L2166 Perak.

The silver-coloured Sunderlands flew

regular patrols among the many Malay

islands, monitoring shipping, looking for

pirates and providing a visible and impressive

presence in many remote areas. However,

all this changed the following year when

war broke out and a large detachment was

ordered to Ceylon for Indian Ocean shipping

patrols and meteorological reconnaissance

flights. The reported presence of the

pocket battleship Admiral Scheer (the

intelligence was incorrect and it wasn’t in

the area) resulted in a flurry of activity and

then in February 1940 the whole Squadron

concentrated at Koggala, Ceylon. It was a

brief stay, as in May – with rising tensions

in the Mediterranean – the Squadron was

ordered to move to Alexandria in Egypt.

SUBMARINE SUCCESSES

There Wg Cdr Geoffrey Francis assumed

command and when Italy declared war on

June 10, 230’s Sunderlands began patrols

monitoring Italian naval movements. Action

soon came, as off the Libyan port of

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 63

230 SQUADRON

SUNDERLANDS

David Nicholas recounts the exploits of 230 Squadron with the

Sunderland over almost 20 years of operations with the flying boat.

Artwork depicting the attack on submarine

U-577 on January 9, 1942 by Sunderland Mk II

W3987/DX-X. David Ails/www.ailsaviationart.com

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