Flying Catalinas: The Consoldiated PBY Catalina in WWII

Andrew Hendrie

oct 2012 · Pen and Sword Aviation

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The consolidated PBY Catalina was probably the most versatile and successful flying boat/amphibian ever built, serving not just with the US Army, Navy and Coast Guard during the Second World War, but also with the air forces of Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with the Danes, Free French and Norwegians as well as in Brazil, Chile, Indonesia and elsewhere.

With a remarkable lifting capacity and endurance, this long-range twin-engine aircraft could absorb a great deal of punishment and still return home after flights lasting an entire day and covering thousands of miles. It was employed as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft, as a bomber and torpedo-bomber, as an anti submarine weapon, as a mine layer, as a special operations machine and as a search-and-rescue craft by day and night. It ferried stores, mail and people - many of them sick and injured - across the world's oceans.

In this book Andrew Hendrie tells the story of the "Flying Cats", of their achievements and exploits, of the heroism of many of the crews and the problems they had to endure.

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After completing a tour of operations on Lockheed Hudsons during the Second World War, ANDREW HENDRIE logged flights on over seventy Sunderlands, largely air tests of machines delivered by the Short’s factories at Belfast and Windermere. He then began a second tour on Vickers Wellingtons.Post-war, Andrew joined the RAFVR. After 1980 he began researching and writing books about maritime flying operations. His first title, Seek and Strike: The Lockheed Hudson in World War II, was published in 1983. Andrew passed away in 2004.