A bit of an unusual one here that a long-time follower of the channel sent to me on the grounds that it might interest some of you out there. The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum is asking for help to restore a PBY Catalina flying boat that they have managed to acquire from the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. Apparently, they have raised enough funding to transport the aircraft from Florida to Hawaii but now want to restore the aircraft and preserve it for future generations and are asking for donations to raise the $500,000 required to do that.
I’m sure that I don’t need to tell anyone watching this about the PBY, it has to rank as one of the most famous aircraft of World War Two, seeing action in every theatre and playing crucial roles in such famous events as the Battle of Midway, the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck and fighting in the Battle of the Atlantic. And though more than three thousand of these aircraft were built, there remains only around eighty in existence today.
Plus, the location for the hopefully-to-be-restored PBY has some notable historic significance. The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum is located on Ford Island, which was one of the primary targets of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. Indeed, PBY’s based at the airfield suffered heavily from the attack, with fifty either destroyed or damaged by the Japanese air raid.
So, it seems fitting, considering the role the aircraft played both at Pearl Harbor and in the war in the Pacific that one of the last remaining survivors be on display at Pearl Harbor.
If you want to know more or else donate, click on this link.
Sources/Related:
https://www.pearlharboraviationmuseum.org/join-give/pby-restoration/
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