Catalina Memorial by junge1

Photography • Military • posted on Feb 06, 2012

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Description

This memorial, located on the Esplanade in Cairns, is dedicated to the Catalina Flying Boats of 11 and 20 Squadrons of the Australian Royal Air Force. The dedication at the base of this memorial reads as follows: 'During the early critical months of the Pacific War, Catalina flying boats of 11 and 20 Squadrons, Royal Australian Air Force played a significant part in slowing the initial Japanese advance. Operating from northern island bases as emergency bombers and reconnaissance aircraft, although deficient in speed, arms, and amour, they exerted an influence out of all proportion to their limited numbers. As these inexorably dwindled and their bases were overrun or became untenable, the survivors withdrew to mainland Australia and - briefly licking their wounds - renewed the fight from the waters which this memorial overlooks. Armed with bombs, depth charges, mines or torpedoes they reached out from here in single flights, to the Solomons, New Britain, New Guinea, and the Netherlands East Indies; and by stages and in increasing strength, to the Palaus, the Philippines, Formosa, and China. In January 1942 the two squadrons attacked Truk, the great Japanese Naval base in the Carolinas; by June the enemy flood had reached the Solomons and the 'Catalinas' were bombing Tulagi, the centre of the group; three years later, in May 1945, with the reinforcement of 42 and 43 squadrons, they were mining the South China coast; and in July, as the test atom bomb exploded in New Mexico, they were full strength, mining the Banka Straits off Sumatra'. This picture was taken on 13 December 2011, Sig...