The 81st Entry

The Sunderland which was designed by Arthur Gouge, later Sir Arthur, is a military version of the Short bros. "Empire" boats. With the addition of turrets and other military requirements it was found that the Centre of Gravity had moved to the rear and it would be necessary to sweep the wings slightly backwards. Before this was done Short's Chief Test Pilot John Lankester Parker flew the prototype K4774 with straight wings in the October of 1937. She was then put back in the hanger only to re-emerge with "swept" wings and flown in the March of 1938. The four engines were not re-aligned in the direction of flight and remained pulling slightly outboard for the rest of its various marks.

The Sunderland entered service with the RAF in June 1938. Further improvements were made to the armament and on the Sunderland III the planing hull was improved. By this time the Bristol Pegasus engines were struggling with the increased weight so Shorts brought out the Sunderland IV. It had a redesigned fuselage, dorsal fin and was powered by four Bristol Hercules. At the same time a Mk III was fitted with Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasps. The result was such an improvement that further work on the IV was stopped and it was re-named Seaford I and the re- engined Sunderland III became the Sunderland V.

All during it's service with Coastal Command the Sunderland performed well and was well armed. The III had two 303s Brownings in the nose turret, four 303s in the rear turret, two 303s in the upper turret a .5inch Browning in both waist positions. The vulnerable area was the underside so when attacked the pilot would dive to sea level to protect it. So formidable was it as an opponent that the Germans called it "Fliegende Stachelschwein". The Flying Porcupine. Towards the end of the War U Boats had four 88mm cannon fitted on the foredeck with orders to stay on the surface when attacked by Sunderlands as at that time only the two gun nose turret could be brought to bear on them. Subsequently four 303s Brownings were fixed in the nose which could be fired "fighter" style by the pilot. This became standard on the Vs. After the War all remaining Vs were designated M.R.5s.

Of the total number of Sunderlands produced, 749, only two remain in the UK both Mk5s. One at the RAF Museum Hendon, ML842, which was built under licence by Blackburn in Dumbarton and our Rochester Sunderland at Duxford.

She was built in 1945 in Rochester Kent, the first in a batch of Sunderland MK5s. She did not however go into squadron service and as far as we can ascertain never did. Calshot was her first move on 15May, 1945. Then 4OTU, 4th March 1946. 57 MU 10thJuly 1946. It was claimed that ML796 was attached to 230 Sqd'n for a while in support of the Berlin Airlift and although later we found traces of coal in the hull we have seen no documentary evidence. Back to the maker on 22 June1950. In the August of 1957 she was in a batch of 19 sold to the French Aeronavale. After her service with the French she was sold to M.R. Bertin in 1965 who converted her to a Cafe/Bar at Maisden-Le-Riviera. In 1969 she was transported by road, on her main beaching gear, south to La Baule. Unfortunately, on this journey, they came across a very low bridge where they sought the assistance of a local garage who (kindly) cut off the fin level to the fuselage using an oxyacetylene torch!

Later we were to find out what had been done to convert her to a cafe/bar. Most of the bulkheads and floors had been removed which included both waist gun positions. The deck over the bomb compartment had been taken out; the stairs up to the cockpit had also been removed and replaced with a wrought iron spiral staircase. The bar occupied the (removed) navigator's and wireless operator's position and they had attained further room by cutting approximately two feet out of both lower main spars (there were two upper and two lower in the Sunderland) and supporting it all with steel girder work. The fuselage walls had been packed with fibreglass wadding and covered with plywood. The work was not done sensitively as you can imagine using, it seems, mainly hammers and chisels. It was sat on a concrete block. A hole was smashed out through the keel and the sewerage went out and down via the block with the toilet under the nose turret. To add further insults it was painted silver and hung with fairylights!!

The "bar" suffered ventilation problems and when it was proposed to put a motorway through the area it occupied M.R.Bertin put it up for sale for a nominal fee with the purchaser paying the costs of it's removal. For the next four or five years it sat derelict and victim to vandalism. When inspected by the Museum in 1976 not one pane of Perspex remained unbroken on the entire aircraft. Not one instrument and very little floor remained on the shattered flight deck.

So it was that in the July of that year a team of mainly volunteers, with an IWM expert, were sent to retrieve her and bring her back to Duxford. They had a few problems!! The shipping height was fifteen feet which meant the fuselage had to be cut in half horizontally for most of it's length with about ten feet of the tail section unbolted and de-riveted. The flaps had to be taken off and a few feet of trailing edge removed. The time limit was three days so there was no time for finesse, which was why most of it was done using a heavy-duty circular saw!! Whilst removing the starboard wing it was discovered too late the she was not securely fitted to her concrete block and she toppled over sideways doing damage to the port wing tip and an outboard prop blade!

Thus it was ML796 returned to the UK on the back of five large trucks!