Rose
Bay Flying Boat Base - 1939
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Rose Bay was constructed as the new terminus of the UK to Australia air mail route following agreement to implement the Empire Air Mail Scheme using the 'giant' new Short 'C Class' Empire Flying Boats.
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The Skyways are Today's Highways, c.1940. This poster presents an idealised view from the balcony of the Rose Bay terminal. The signpost was actually at ground level and can be seen at right in the photo above. In the poster it reads slightly differently to the real thing, from top to bottom: To Australia / To New Zealand / To Netherlands East Indies / To Malaya and India / To Egypt and Africa / By Empire Flying Boat. Click on the poster to see a larger version. (Poster: Qantas) |
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The photo below shows the Rose Bay terminal area in enlargement. The crowd thronging the waterfront can be clearly seen. A public swimming enlosure was situated immediately to the right of the jetty in front of the terminal. To the left, the slipway is still under construction, as is the maintenance apron behind it. The cars parked behind the terminal are on the site of a large maintenance hangar constructed for QEA in the following year.
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The other aircraft is G-AETV Coriolanus (c/n S0838). Coriolanus operated the first of the thrice-weekly Australia-England services under the new Empire Air Mail Scheme on 9 August 1938 (5 days after the photo on this page was taken). Also stranded at the Australian end of the route in 1942, Coriolanus was re-registered to QEA as VH-ABG and was the only surviving Empire boat in Australia at the end of the war. The last airworthy Empire boat anywhere, Coriolanus was scrapped at Rose Bay in 1948. The first flights to operate under the Empire Air Mail Scheme took place when VH-ABF Cooee departed Southampton, UK, on 4 August 1938, arriving Sydney on the 13th. The first service from Sydney departed on 9 August using G-AETV Coriolanus, under command of Captain G.U. 'Scotty' Allan with R.B. Tapp to Singapore. This service arrived in the UK on 19 August. Click here to see an air mail cover carried on this flight.
(Photo: 1 - CAHS/Ivan Hodder collection; 2 - Milton Kent/CAHS collection)
Click here to see photos of Short S23 Empire Flying Boat G-AETX at Rose Bay in 1939 Click here to see an aerial photo of the Rose Bay flying boat base, c.1942-43 Compare this top photo with a similar view c.1950
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