Australian Forces

Sunderland (?) gunner, New Guinea

Australian War Memorial

"Probably Port Moresby, New Guinea. c. 1942. An RAAF air gunner sits in the turret of a Sunderland flying boat.." Another example of Australian ingenuity. These firing positions appear to be field modifications as they do not resemble the installations on Sunderland Mk I's operating in the UK which had sliding covers and were much further back so they could fire downwards behind the wing. These are staggered, not side by side and have fixed deflection shields. The SCARFF ring looks like it was taken from a Hawker Demon and the Vickers .303" gun has been replaced with a Browning .50" It is even possible that the captioner has misidentified the aircraft and this might be a Short Empire flying boat, not a Sunderland.