Flying Boats

Pembroke Dock was, until 1957, home to many of Britian's stock of seaplanes. One observer recollects seeing 99 planes in Pembroke Sound during the dark days of 1943. There's a fascinating museum in one of the Victorian Seaforts abutting the quayside. Coincidentally my father recently gave me a photograph of a Sunderland taken in 1953. In his words; "The flying boat was a 'Sunderland' and was stationed at RAF Calshot at the foot of Southampton Water. The Met people there had to calll a boat in order to get to work. Once I was asleep at the back of Hamilton Road and a flying boat roared overhead. The pilot had mistaken the lights of South Parade Pier for the flare path at Calshot!".