Catalina Airlines    Douglas DC-3  N55L                  (c/n  15230/26675)

                                      

                                          This DC-3 held a somewhat illustrious career.   Built as a C-47B-15-DK with the USAAF serial
                                          43-49414, it was civilianized into the European theater after WW II as I-TROS for the Italian
                                          foundling airline Transadriatica.. It was used to transport migrants to Australia in 1946 and
                                          remained there, being sold into the Aussie register as VH-BNH for Butler Air Transport. 
                                         When Butler retired it in 1956 it was brokered to Catalina Airlines as N55L.  Catalina was in
                                          the habit of changing the titling on their aircraft regularly, and thus this shot of it, taken at Long
                                          Beach in 1958, is rare in that it shows the machine under the guise of Catalina Airlines itself.
                                          Soon after this photo was taken it was leased to Transocean Airways in Oakland, returning
                                          to Long Beach in 1962 to Avalon Air Transport.    I n 1966 it was sold to Continental Airlines
                                         subsidiary Continental Air Services for clandestine operations in Cambodia during the Viet Nam
                                         war in more or less direct competition to the CIA's own airline Air America.  It later went to
                                         Air Alliance and was a write-off at Phnom Penh in February 1971.