Andy Anderson - The fate of the flying boats

Transcript

They had this original idea of flying the flying boats back since the story, the Australians bought them in the first place. But the difference in cost between the Mark I and the Mark V was so great that the Australian government decided that they couldn't afford it or they didn't want to afford it. So after we'd been sitting around in England waiting months after months for them to make up their mind they said, "No. We won't buy them."

So then we were faced with the problem of coming home by ship. The aircraft, we flew them up to Scotland. The Navy took them out and sank them. They had a gunnery practice on them. Can you imagine that? And the CO said “You're not allowed to take anything off those aircraft. It's a court-martial offense if you do". So we couldn't even take the clock out of the combing panel or anything. No. Nothing. So we all came back by train having left our lovely flying boats there and the Navy towed them out and fired at them and sank them. That was awful.