VH-EBD (1)
Boeing
PB2B-2
Catalina
(c/n 61185)
Qantas' had a fleet of seven Catalinas at one
stage. They were all Boeing-built. These were used
mainly
in New Guinea, and the above badly cropped shot shows -EBD at a
cluttered DCA base
at
Port Moresby, circa 1954. Correspondent Rowan Hughes
indicates that Qantas terminated
all services within
PNG in 1957, rather abruptly, when PNG was decreed to be Australian
domestic
Qantas may well have been glad to be
out of the "terror-tory." Formerly RAF
Catalina JX641,
VH-EBD had
gone to the RAAF as A24-371. It was officially withdrawn from use
in 1959.