The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
A US Elco PT Boat anchored, at Kona Kope, next to the Asheville class patrol gunboat, USS Tulsa, at their PT base at Kona Kope. The PT boat has just returned from rescuing four crew members of A16-245, a 6 Squadron Lockheed Hudson piloted by 415152 Flight Lieutenant (Flt Lt) Ray Kelly. Flt Lt Kelly was forced to ditch the Hudson in the bay when poor weather delayed them long enough for the fuel to run out. Note the serial number 22 and the US Navy ensign on Tulsa's bow. Launched in August 1922 and commissioned in 1923 as patrol gunboat 22 (PG-22), the USS Tulsa served with America's Asiatic Fleet before being forced from the Philippines by the Japanese advance. Refitted in Sydney in October 1942, she escorted PT boats along the New Guinea coast at the start of the Buna-Gona offensives before being based at Kone Kope at Milne Bay from November 1942, serving alternatively as a PT boat tender, supply ship escort and patrol craft.
A US PT Boat from the PT base on the southeastern shore of Milne Bay at Kona Kope approaches a makeshift buoy and an oil slick in north eastern Milne Bay which marks the last resting place of A16-245,
One of the Milne Bay locals in the lakatois (outrigger canoes) in which he and others rescued the crew of Lockheed Hudson A16-245 after they were forced to ditch the aircraft in Milne Bay approximatel
A makeshift buoy and an oil slick marks the position where 6 Squadron Lockheed Hudson A16-245 sank after ditching 360 metres off the northern shore of Milne Bay in approximately 15-20 metres of water
Informal group portrait of the crew of 6 Squadron Lockheed Hudson A16-245 photographed on their return to Turnbull Field. Two days earlier they were forced to ditch the aircraft in Milne Bay approxima
AERIAL STARBOARD SIDE VIEW OF THE GUNBOAT USS TULSA (PG-22). NOTE THE SHIELDED 4 INCH/50 GUN FORWARD AND TWO OTHERS, UNSHIELDED, AFT. TWO MACHINE GUNS ARE MOUNTED ABOVE THE BRIDGE. (NAVAL HISTORICAL C
Informal group portrait of Flight Lieutenant (Flt Lt) Ray Kelly's crew outside their tent just prior to an anti-submarine patrol in their B Flight, 6 Squadron RAAF Lockheed Hudson, A16-177. Left to ri
