VH-ANR
Douglas DC-3CG202A
'Oana'
(c/n 1944)
This bird was truly
old, and had an historic life. It was built as a DC-3-194B
for KLM in
1937 and registered in Holland
as PH-ALW. In 1940 it went to the East Indies Division of
the airline (KNILM) and
became PK-ALW. It escaped the Japanese advance into the Dutch
East Indies and on May 1,
1942 was flown to Australia. Here it was impressed into the USAAF
as '11944' and transferred
to 21 Sqdn, RAAF as VHCXE for the personal use of General
McArthur. It
later served with 36 Sqdn RAAF and with ANA as VHCXL in a wartime
courier role.
In 1945 it was given the "official" designation of C-49H-DO and
allotted the serial
number 44-83229. It
was civilianized in 1946 for ANA and became part of the Ansett-ANA
fleet. It was
assigned to Butler Air Transport in 1958 and converted to
'Viewmaster' configuration
as Peter Gates' shot below
illustrates. Butler became Airlines of NSW in
1959, and the livery was
again
changed, as seen in the image at the foot of the page, taken by Greg
Banfield at Mascot in
March 1964.
VH-ANR has been preserved
and is on
display at the Queensland Air Museum at
Caloundra
Aerodrome on the
Sunshine Coast of
Australia. For a recent photograph of it, and details
of the
museum, go to:
http://www.qam.com.au/qam-content/aircraft/dc-3/vh-anr.htm
