Short Singapore

[Dave Homewood]

Plus I am not sure that the wings were still on them when they were sunk to form a breakwater.

[powerandpassion]

I think you would be right that wings would be removed. As fabric covered structures they would no longer be recognisable. Given each mainplane is 30 odd foot, you could probably rely on laziness to punt that they were chucked in after the hulls, in preference to digging a hole on land. Only one way to find out. In mid 1943, after the Battle of the Coral Sea, there seemed to be a ‘psychological moment’, when victory in the Pacific War became more certain. It coincided with a cresting supply of both Lend Lease and Australian built ‘modern monoplanes’, so ‘archaic, ‘embarrassing’ biplanes were SOC in the RAAF and RNZAF. Australian Demons and NZ Hinds, flogged to buggery by trainees and cannabilized to the limits of prudence by groundcrews, were scrapped wholesale. I doubt there was the need for the obsolete Kestrel IIS engines used in the Singapore, which were geared differently to the Kestrel Vs used in Hinds and Demons. I understand one ‘blue painted’ pusher Kestrel engine, as a form of pig with lipstick, is displayed in the excellent MOTAT, where it was originally a spare for Singapores. Who knows what is down there, until you look. Probably a fuselage weighed down with beer bottles..