52 |FLIGHTPATH
Attheendof1934,on8Novemberboth
Southamptons were used to meet a flight of
threeShortRangoonflyingboatsof203
Squadron RAF and escort them to St Kilda,
Melbourne. The Rangoons had come all the
wayfromBasra,Iraq,andwereinAustralia
asagoodwillgesturefortheVictorianCen-
tenarycelebrations.Ontheeighteenththe
Southamptons escorted HMSSussex,with
HRH Prince Henry aboard into Port Mel-
bourne. As the largest aircraft operating in
Australiaatthetime,andinaneraofrela-
tivelyemptyskies,theseflightswouldhave
been very impressive.
When the DH.86 airliner VH-URN ‘Miss
Hobart’wentmissingoverBassStraiton20
November 1934, the searching Southamp-
tons’crewsspottedwhatwasbelievedtobe
wreckage,butnothingwasfoundbyinvesti-
gating ships and the exact cause of the loss,
with eleven people aboard, remains a mys-
tery.Lesstragically,theSouthamptons
wereusedtoprovideanescorttoRAAF
landplanes being flown from the mainland
to Tasmania, thankfully without incident.ABOVE:Beaching, or as here, launching the
Southampton from the Point Cook pier was a challenging
job in winter conditions...[State Library of Victoria]LEFT:Asmall,poorqualityimageshowsthelastdaysof
SouthamptonA11-2leftouttopastureatPointCook,
withelevator,ruddersandinsremoved,andawing loat
dropped to the ground.[RAAF Museum Archive]BELOW LEFT:From the Argus Newspaper Collection, this
photograph of Southampton A11-1 shows how a port scene
couldbetransformedintoa‘coastalscene’forthenewspaper
by the eforts of the retoucher![State Library of Victoria]