Episode Details

Guest: Jamie Croker

Hosts: Dave Homewood and James Kightly

Recorded: 23rd of November 2015

Duration: 1 hour 57  seconds

Another stop that Dave Homewood and James Kightly made on the epic Wings Over Australia tour last year was to the Australian War Memorial’s Treloar Technology Centre in Mitchell, Canberra, ACT. There they met the facility’s Large Technology Conservator Jamie Croker and his colleague Kim Wood, who showed them around the huge state of the art storage and restoration facility for the Australian War Memorial’s collection, where aeroplanes, tanks, artillery, vehicles and other historic items are held in reserve by the AWM.

James and Dave were then invited inside the AWM’s WWII Lockheed Hudson Mk. IV bomber (A16-105) which was up on jacks in the restoration workshop, and here they interviewed Jamie about the work that he and his co-workers had been doing to restore this magnificent aeroplane back to pristine condition.

This Hudson had been taken on charge with the Royal Australian Air Force on the 5th of December 1941, and served with No. 1 Operation Training Unit at Bairnsdale, Victoria, followed by a move on the 10th of December 1942 to Ward’s Airstrip, Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea. There it flew transport missions to Soputa and Dobodura. On the 23rd of January 1943 the aircraft returned to No. 1 OTU, remaining there until itwas declared as surplus in September 1947 and sold by tender to European Air Transport for AU£200. The Hudson had a long career in civil aviation with Curtis Madsen Aircrafts [Sic] Pty Ltd, East West Airlines Ltd, Overland Air Services, South Coast Airways Pty Ltd, Herald Flying Services and Adastra Aerial Surveys Pty Ltd.

It was then purchased by Malcolm Long who displayed it at Chewing Gum Field, and later at Air World, Wangarrata, Victoria, partly restored to military configuration, but without the Boulton Paul turret or fittings, bomb bay or ventral gun position, but during the restoration a stock Hudson ‘bomber’ nose was obtained from New Zealand and grafted onto the airframe to replace the photo survey nose fitted at the time. The Australian War Memorial purchased the Hudson on the 15th of January 2001.

The Hudson was selected for conservation and return to full military configuration as it would have been in W.W.II. This was a major project, requiring the recreation of the W.W.II interior and fittings, including bulkheads and support for the Boulton Paul turret, itself a rebuild from many parts collected over the years, and the rebuilding of the unusual ventral gun position and bomb bay, among many other details discussed in the podcast.

Quick Links:

•  The Australian War Memorial’s Website

•  The Australian War Memorial’s Facebook Page

•  History of A16-105 sourced from John Parker’s Warbirds Online Site

•  AWM Blogposts by Jamie Croker on the early stages of the rebuild
Photos from James Kightly:

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