94 FLYPAST August 2018
SPOT FACT A 10 Squadron Sunderland performed
the type’s rst unassisted U-boat killthree engines back to the UK. In
May 1948, it was in store (afloat) at
Wig Bay. By the summer of 1950,
after reconditioning by Shorts, it was
delivered via PD to Brest to join the
Aéronavale on October 28, 1951. It
served with a variety of units, mostly
from Dakar, Senegal.
With the scrapping of the RAF
Sunderland fleet, British aviation
heritage pioneer Peter Thomas,
was determined that one example
should be preserved in the UK.
Initially he approached the RNZAF
for an airframe, but then turned his
attentions to the French. Peter got a
resounding “Oui!” and was offered a
Sunderland free of charge.
The Sunderland Trust was
established at Pembroke Dock. On
March 24, 1961 with Capitaine
Henri Luthereau at the helm,
ML824 unstuck for the last time
from the waters of Lanvéoc-Poulmic
and headed west. Escorted by a pair
of St Mawgan-based Shackleton
MR.3s, the Sunderland made its
way around the English and Welsh
coastline, alighting before noon.
It was brought out of the water the
following day and on June 2, 1962
opened to the public. By 1967,
more than 20,000 people had
toured the Sunderland, but the
trustees had realised its long-term
lay with an organisation such as
the RAF Museum, and an official
hand-over of ML824 was made on
January 11, 1971.
However, flying it again was out
of the question. Based at Bicester
in Oxfordshire, 71 Maintenance
Unit was charged with moving the
monster. The unit’s role was ‘crash
and smash’ – the recovery of downed
operational aircraft – and delivering
the Sunderland was a challenging
training exercise for its personnel.
As much as possible was put on
low-loaders for transport by road.The fuselage was placed on a landing
craft, which sailed from Pembroke
Dock on March 10, 1971. Unloaded
at Dagenham on the Thames, the
fuselage, on its side, travelled in the
early hours of the 21st by road
to Hendon.
Refurbished and re-assembled,
in late October 1971 ML824 was
positioned outside the museum
buildings; the RAF Museum was
officially opened on November 15,- Six years later, it was moved
inside what was then called the
Battle of Britain Hall.
Shopping list
When it was retired by the
Aéronavale in January 1962, ML796
was stored at Lanvéoc-Poulmic.
It was sold in 1965 and trucked
to Moisdon-la-Rivière, north of
Nantes, to become a bar, but was
moved again four years later to
La Baule, near St Nazaire, with
intentions to turn it into
a nightclub.
A Sunderland had long since been
on the Imperial War Museum’s
‘shopping list’. The building of a
new road threatened ML796 and a
team from Duxford began an epic
rescue. Excluding the fin and rudder,
the hull of a Sunderland is about a
maximum of 18ft (5.6m) high and
9ft (2.7m) wide.
To bring such bulk intact by road
and sea would be prohibitively
expensive, probably needing a
specially chartered vessel. So ML796
was sliced horizontally, to allow
sections to be accommodated in a
conventional roll-on, roll-off ferry.
A convoy of five lorries brought the
Sunderland to Duxford, arriving on
July 9, 1976. Today, it graces the
AirSpace hall in the colours it wore
with 201 Squadron, in late 1945.
Another UK museum had hopes
for a Sunderland variant to illustratethe era of the great flying-boat
airliners. On February 2, 1981
Sandringham 4 N158C of Antilles
Air Boats, built as Sunderland Mk.V
JM715 in 1943, alighted at Calshot
from Killaloe on Lough Derg in
Ireland, for what turned out to be
its final flight. Its Twin Wasps were
fired up again in July as it was taxied
across Southampton Water to the
slipway at Royal Naval Air Station
Lee-on-Solent.
The Science Museum was able
to secure the Sandringham, but
baulked at the logistics of taking
it deep inland to its storage site at
Wroughton in Wiltshire. A perfect
solution arose. Due to open in early
1984 was the ambitious Hall of
Aviation (now called Solent Sky)
in Southampton, close to where
passenger-carrying flying-boats had
last operated in the 1950s and less
than 12 miles (19km) by boat from
Lee-on-Solent.
Placed on a barge, the Sandringham
arrived at its new home on March 2,- It was repainted in the colours
of Australian airline Ansett, with
which it flew from 1950 to 1974,
and the ’boat went on public display
in May 1984.
In late March 1981, another
flying-boat touched down off
Calshot. This was Edward Hulton’s
former Antilles Air Boats, Ansett,
RNZAF and RAF (JM715)
Sunderland 5. It was en route to
Marseilles in France, but came back
the following year, British registered
as G-BJHS. It flew infrequently, but
drew massive crowds wherever
it appeared.
Acquired by well-known American
pilot-collector Kermit Weeks, Hotel-
Sierra took off from Southampton
Water on July 20, 1993. It was
bound for the Fantasy of Flight
museum at Polk City in Florida
where it is kept in airworthy trim.
Below
Restored to the
colours it wore with
201 Squadron in 1945,
MR.5 ML824 at the
RAF Museum Hendon
in early 1977.
ALL VIA AUTHOR