OT:The Sunderland Trust

[BeauBrummie]

On a wet day in our Pembrokeshire holiday we went to Pembroke and I found this little gem of a museum/project in Pembroke Dock. The Sunderland Trust has two thrusts, to inform the public about the aviation history of Pembroke Dock and to recover as much as possible of a Sunderland sunk on the floor of the harbour. The site is currently split over tow centres, the workshop where all the recovered Sunderland parts are conserved and the museum in Sunderland House which has exhibits about Pembroke Dock. The workshop was also filled with an eclectic collection models and pictures. A great little place.

In the workshop
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some of the models
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A recovered prop
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A float
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A seaplane tender
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[Cuttles]

Beautiful place; boy they'll have their work cut out restoring under-sea parts. Amazing its survived; wonder why sunk: enemy fire?

[BeauBrummie]

The aircraft was sunk in a storm, having broken free of its moorings.

[Led Zeppelin]

This is one of the reasons why I like to go to England, there are a lot of 'little' places to discover.

[hairyspin]

If you're ever up in the Scottish Borders Jeff there's another little gem at Dumfries on the site of the WW2 airfield.

Seeing your photos reminds me of a conversation I had with a veteran at the weekend about the dozens of U-boats which were gathered in Ulster after the German surrender and mostly scuttled or used for target practice thereafter. He said the main interest for them was as a source of pruch (whatever they could help themselves to) and as an agile naval rating he did quite well out of them.

If anyone saw Dan Snow on Ulster's WW2 history recently you'd have seen a dive on a Type 21 U-boat off the Ulster coast.

[Pat Pattle]

A little gem indeed! I'm green Jeff!

[Tako_Kichi]

I remember going to the Pembroke Dock museum in the 60's when I was just a little kiddlet.

At that time they had a restored Sunderland on-site and you could take tours through it. I thoroughly enjoyed my day there and fell in love with the Sunderland especially as I came away with an Airfix 1:72 kit of it.

I wonder what happened to the display aircraft they had there as it doesn't appear to be there now.

[BeauBrummie]

One of the volunteers told us about that one (hello Colin!), they couldn't afford the upkeep so it went to Hendon (I think it was). It was a true volunteer led affair. They were very keen to discuss the project at all levels. To my level of geekiness, my son's bomb questions (and yes he pulled out an airfix model to illustrate where they were), my daughters "how did they go to the loo on 14 hr patrol then?" and even the wife was interested in the recovery project. They have a team of around 20 divers who regularly go down, and as my wife fixed their touch screen display system whe had free admission and coffee's (thanks Colin!).

[Cuttles]

For Beau': good then, at least less damage to the 'frame. Is the display a/c to Hendon surviving?

For Hairyspin:
know they wanted remove any potential threats and 'get rid of old stuff' at war end; but can't help thinking why they didn't 'oil 'em up and put them away somewhere?' Just in case. Even though captured, they still pretty potent at the time, obviously. Viz; the 'Israeli Approach'; never throw anything away, you never know what's against you next. Just musing, a tremendous amount of resource there. (Of course, USA took the V2 program to the moon and now NASA, ICBM's)

[hairyspin]

Not only does the Hendon aircraft survive, it's on full, magnificent display: I saw it a couple of years ago. And slightly OT again (sorry Jeff...) the U-boat was essentially a WW1 design which had run its course. That didn't stop the US using the Type 21 as the basis for a design of their own, although US subs rapidly moved on from these ideas.

[Cuttles]

Thanks. terrific news about Hendon display. Wonder if any more surviving Sunderlands/remains other than as above at Pembroke?

[gecko]

Fantasy of Flight museum down in Florida over here has one. IIRC it is still flyable, but I don't think it's flown in a number of years. It isn't in military configuration though.

[Daiwilletti]

Thanks. terrific news about Hendon display. Wonder if any more surviving Sunderlands/remains other than as above at Pembroke?

I think Motat in Auckland has a Sunderland. IIRC they were an important airliner post-war connecting Auckland with Australia

[BeauBrummie]

They also have one at display at IWM Duxford

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[Led Zeppelin]

Yes and you can go inside, really interesting.

[Cuttles]

Thanks all. That Duxford one is superb; a credit to them......have to save up!

Good to know they were used after war, and not just wasted. And that more than one survives. Looking at Duxford one reminds me of the 'Hobbit Missions'.

Did n't know they had civil use in NZ. But there were a heck of a lot sent all over the world, in war were n't there?
Wonder how many produced?

Fascinating big ship. The Beau'/CC site and missions make it all interesting, too.

School newsletter had an ex-students letter home from early 40's as a Sunderland Captain, nonchalently describing dropping a couple of sticks on a sub, warm sunny morning out over the Atlantic (...bit of classic understatement too..); probably back home for tea and bikkies.

Would n't under estimate long, hard flights over water though. In a way, the sim. replicates if fuul mission length is flown, not skipped. On and on.....


Interested to hear if any more survive? They would have Bristol engines, would n't they?

[BeauBrummie]

A this boat was so big, they carried two crews for looong patrols and sometimes 3(!) pilots so they could stay sharp. Plus some of the squadrons would perform field modifications and add extra guns. The most I heard about was 17, thus the the Germans dubbed her the Flying Porcupine. Yes they initially used Bristol Pegasus engines, but later some were fitted out with the more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasps.

[Cuttles]

Very interesting: they precursed current/recent practices, Qantas uses 3 pilots/extra crew on the 747-400 London/Australia 'Kanagaroo Route'. 24 hr non-stop, actual sleeping compartments down the back, etc.

Surprised they wanted the weight of 17 guns, but guess they were pretty keen to get into the thick of it. (must ve made a difference, though)
Also would have thought the Bristols would have won out on reliability, however...

Thanks for answer.