Where do we start! We'd never heard of PP118 until we started looking for something "New" in 2010 and noticed a small (wk) mark on the chart at Calshot.
- Built 1945 at Short Bros, Rochester, scrapped 8th Feb 1950 having flown 10,052 hours
- PP118 was assigned to 235 Operational Conversion Unit at Calshot
- Sank at moorings on Friday 3rd Feb 1950 at 10:35 during a severe gale
- The 235 ORB states that on the Wednesday 22nd Feb 1950 during salvage operations the aircraft caught fire and was “almost totally destroyed”
- Peter Anderson states aircraft ‘H’ was the aircraft whereas the 235 ORB states aircraft ‘G’
- Peter Anderson also states there were 5 days between the sinking and fire whereas the 235 ORB states 19 days
- Peter Anderson states the ‘port outer engine and wing fell off’ after the fire
- Chaz Bowyer's book has;
The aircraft appears to have been left with the door not fully closed and it took on water overnight during a storm. AN RAF Salvage vessel (Reclaim/Seahorse) was used to raise the aircraft and move to to shallow water.
Seahorse remained in operation on the Solent until the late 1990s as a Buoy support vessel. She can now be seen rusting away on the mud in Heybridge Creek, Maldon, Essex.
The aircraft wreck at Calshot was originally thought to be the "burning flying boat", but this has now been disproven - the propeller/engines are wrong and a photo in the Anderson family album has a hand written note on the back "the outer engine fell off", and ours has all 4.
Peter 'Andy' Anderson was awarded the George Medal for rescuing two airmen from the fire - we revealed the story on the BBC News and had a very surprising result.
