Terence Lawless 'Terry' Duigan : 1916 -

Reginald Charles Duigan seated in the Duigan Brothers' second biplane, an AVRO design of 1912

Read about the second biplane built at Ivanhoe, Victoria in 1913

Terry's secondary education was at Colac High School and later at Geelong College.

In December 1939 Terry completed the degree of Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Melbourne and graduated in April, the following year. In his final year he won a prize for his design for the Vice Chancellor's House, which was later constructed.

On the commencement World War II in September 1939, Terry enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force - RAAF - but was not called up until May 1940. His initial training took place at Laverton, Somers and Point Cook and he obtained his wings on November 15, 1940, the same day he was married !

Terry Duigan (B.Arch.), 1940

On completion of his training in February 1941, Terry was posted to Rathmines, a RAAF base on Lake Macquarie in NSW, to convert onto seaplanes. From April through to late October 1941, Terry was based in Port Moresby, New Guinea, with 11 Squadron flying Short Empire boats on patrol around the islands of New Caledonia, New Hebrides, the Solomons, New Britain and the Netherlands East Indies.

October 22, saw him again at Rathmines converting to Catalinas, known then as PBYs, which had been added to No 11 Squadron.

In December 1941 Terry was posted to Laverton for a special course in navigation but was cut short in mid January 1942 because of the deteriorating conditions in New Guinea with invasion of the Japanese. He was posted back to Rathmines to complete his training on Catalinas before returning to Port Moresby to go into active service against the enemy on January 26, the day following his arrival.

Flying almost daily from January through April, Terry left Port Moresby when the last of the Catalinas were evacuated in early May. During this time he was Mentioned In Dispatches for bravery - MID.

Consolidated PBY Catalina A24-10

http://www.fortunecity.com/

Consolidated PBY Catalina A24-17

source being traced

http://www.raafmuseum.com.au

The Catalinas were eventually based at Cairns in June 1942, where Terry, except for one months leave in January 1943, remained flying on active service until May of that year. Flights of 22 hours were not uncommon especially when on patrol over a convoy. These consisted of the flight from Cairns, usually at 1 or 2am, to wherever the ships were steaming, circling over them during the hours of daylight and finally, the return flight arriving about the same time next morning.

Bombing operations and supply drops to coastguard watchers behind enemy lines, were of similar length; broken, however, after a 4.45 hour flight to Milne Bay for refuelling and to await darkness. Perhaps the most publicised episode of this era in which Terry took part, was the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, although he spoke of it very much as a routine procedure.

Consolidated PBY Catalina A24-11

Australian War Memorial

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Lieutenant Walter Higgins, the captain of the B24, happened to meet Terry in Milne Bay and tell him about sighting the ships off the northwest coast of New Britain. At 22.00 hours, after some three hours of searching, Terry and his crew sighted the Japanese fleet heading for the Bismarck Sea.

On reporting its position, Terry was ordered to shadow the fleet until Beaufighters from Milne Bay arrived. This he did until 02.40 on March 2 when he had to leave, because the Catalinas were only allowed to fly over enemy territory during the hours of darkness because of their vulnerability to attack by Zekes.

So with approaching daylight, they dropped their bomb load, unfortunately due to an error in the bomb sight, scoring only a near miss on a destroyer and headed home. Terry was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross - DFC - for his service during this time.

From May to December, 1943, Terry was instructing on Catalinas at Rathmines. In December he flew to the USA to ferry home a PBM - Glenn Martin Mariner. From January to June 1944, he resumed instruction on Catalinas.

In June 1944, together with Bob Hirst, he converted onto B24 Liberators, the first pilots in the RAAF to do so. They were based in Port Moresby with American 5th Air Force in June and July and with their own Australian crews, operated from Darwin with an American squadron, through August and September, 1944. In October an Australian squadron of Liberators was formed in Southern Queensland at Leybourne, which transferred to Fenton in January, 1945. This squadron operated out of Fenton until May 1945, when it transferred to Moratai in the Halmaheras.

Terry remained with the squadron until July when he was sent to USA to ferry home a Liberator. While he was there in August, waiting for his aircraft to be ready, the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan and peace was declared. Lend-Lease ceased over night, so he was marooned in America for some months before returning home on a cargo ship in November.

Terry flew 3380 hours in total, 2240 on Catalinas and 600 odd on Liberators, thus was one of the longest serving pilots in the RAAF during the war. He was recommended for the Distinguished Service Order - DSO - for his missions on Liberators but with the cessation of hostilities, processing these decorations for temporary ranks also ceased.

On return to civilian life in 1946, Terry joined the firm of Buchan, Laird and Buchan, Architects in Geelong and remained with them until retirement. Among the most notable buildings of his design are the Geelong Grammar School at Timbertop, The Marcus Oldham College and the early buildings of Deakin University in Geelong.

Terry had many talents. He was a consummate artist, from his hand came beautiful water colours, delightful cartoons, poetry and prose. His Christmas cards were awaited every year with great anticipation by his family and friends and his cartoons in The Bulletin, The Digger [now out of print] and in the local Rathmines rag, Cheeriodical, during the war are still remembered.

One of Terry most rewarding designs was for a memorial at Mia Mia in Victoria to mark the site of the first powered flight by an all Australian built aircraft. The pusher biplane was built and flown between 1909 and 1911 by Terry's father Reginald and his uncle, John Robertson Duigan

Terry's father (in closeup at left) can be seen third from left in the above picture taken on May 28, 1960 at the official unveiling of the memorial by Air Marshall Sir Richard Williams

In November, 1940 Terry married Gwynne Elizabeth Eeles. She stayed with him as much as she was able to, during the war, travelling from Victoria to Rathmines many times and following him to Cairns. She made a home for him at Carey Bay and Toronto on Lake Macquarie, while he was instructing at Rathmines. Their son Michael Lawless Duigan was born in October, 1943 in Newcastle. They have two grandchildren, Damien Lawless Duigan and Miranda Celeste Duigan.

Further reading:

Books

Burbank's Books
http://www.senet.com.au

That's That
Robert F. Honan

pby.org/books - a selection
http://www.pby.org/Books.html

Black Cat Raiders of World War II
Richard C. Knott


Catalina, Neptune and Orion in Australian Service
Stewart Wilson


First and Furthest
Jack Riddell


Walk Around PBY Catalina
Capt. W.E.Scarborough (Ret)


Online

John and Reginald Duigan - Australian Aviation Pioneers
http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/duigan_bio.html

11 Squadron : raafmuseum.com.au
http://www.raafmuseum.com.au/research/squadrns/011sqn.htm

11 Squadron "Shepherd or Destroy"
http://dove.net.au/~hqmpg/11sqn.htm

Black Cats
http://www.ixpres.com/ag1caf/blackcat/

The Catalina
http://www.ipas.com.au/aviation/aviationcatalina.html

PBY Catalina International Association
http://www.pbycia.org/

PBY.com
http://www.pby.com/

PBY Home
http://www.powerup.com.au/~tpkelly/pbyhomepage.htm

Catalina Photo Album
http://www.powerup.com.au/~tpkelly/pby_photo1.htm

Catalina Flying Boats of World War Two
http://www.dropbears.com/av/KFXart/articles/catalina.htm

extract...

A not uncommon occurrence was to mine or bomb more than one target on each mission, or be instructed to carry out procedures to induce "alarm and despondency" over a protracted period. An almost famous example of this is the five hour continual harassment of the Bismark Sea convoy by Flight Lieutenant Duigan and crew with only four 250lb bombs! This convoy was later almost totally destroyed during the battle of the Bismark Sea.

extract..."the first air-sea rescue of the Pacific war"

6 April 1942 - We were on patrol over the Solomon Sea, searching for Japanese warships and troop transports, when I received an urgent Morse code message telling us to proceed immediately to Woodlark Island to pick up the crew of a US army B26, that had been damaged in a raid on Rabaul and had just made it to the island. As our search pattern had at that stage taken us quite close to Woodlark Island we were soon over the island and spotted the survivors in a rubber life raft on the lagoon.

There were coral reefs everywhere, but our captain, Pilot Officer Duigan, managed to land between them and taxi to the life raft. We hauled the crew aboard without delay, as this was an area rapidly coming under Japanese control. To our surprise amongst the crew was our commanding officer, Wing Commander Thomas MacBride Price.

While Price was uninjured, some of the Americans were. We flew the crew back to Port Moresby. Until that day we had seen no Americans in New Guinea. Apparently a squadron had just arrived and decided to make an early strike on Rabaul. However they were unfamiliar with the area, and so our commanding officer went along to lead them to the targets. I believe this was the first air-sea rescue of the Pacific war.

A24 Consolidated Catalina
http://www.raafmuseum.com.au

The prototype XPBY-1 (Experimental Patrol Bomber, Consolidated-1) first flew in 1935 and the PBY-1 entered USN service in 1936. Progressive developments followed, and in 1939 the PBY-4 appeared with large blister gun-turrets on the fuselage sides.

In 1940, the PBY-5 version was ordered for the RAAF as the Catalina, a name derived from the island near the consolidated factory at San Diego. The flying-boat was already familiar in Australia, for Capt. P.G. Taylor had used the civilian PBY-'guba' in 1939 to survey the alternative Indian Ocean route.

RAAF Catalinas were ferried across the Pacific by a combination of Qantas and RAAF crews and the first aircraft, A24-1, was accepted on February 5 1941, and the last A24-386 on September 3 1945. In all, 168 Catalinas operated under the following serials: A24-1/114, A24-200/206, A24-300/309, and A24-350/386.

These aircraft include Mks I and II (PBY-5 flying boats), Mk III (PBY-5A amphibians) and the high-tail, radome fitted Mk IV and Mk VI (Boeing built PB2B-1, -2). One exception was A24-28 which arrived on June 5, 1942, as a Dutch East Indies PBY-3 with sliding gun-panels, and was modified to PBY-5 standard with blister-turrets in 1944.

With their long range and endurance, the Catalinas established an impressive war record and operated with Nos 11, 20, 42, 43 Sqns, Nos 6 and 8 Communications Units, and Nos 111, 112, 113 ASR (Air Sea Rescue) Flights.

Post war, one PBY-5A was attached to ARDU (Aeronautical Research and Development Unit) for JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off) experiments, and in 1951, A24-385 was modified as "Frigate Bird II" for Sir Gordon Taylor's South American survey flight. Finally, in 1952, the last Catalinas departed from RAAF Rathmines which had been their main base for 12 years.

TECHNICAL DATA:
(Catalina, Mk II - PBY-5 flying boat)

DESCRIPTION: General reconnaissance flying-boat with 8 or 9 crew. All metal stressed-skin construction.

POWER PLANT: Two 1,200 hp Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp R-1830 radial engines.

DIMENSIONS: Span, 104 ft; length, 65 ft 13/4 ins; height, 17 ft 11 ins.

WEIGHTS: Empty, 14,240 lb; loaded, 27,030 lb.

PERFORMANCE: Max speed, 190 mph at 10,500 ft; cruising, 110 mph; initial climb, 920 ft/min; range, 2,000-3,500 miles; service ceiling, 21,600 ft.

ARMAMENT: One 0.303 gun in bow, two 0.303 guns in each side blister, plus one 0.303 gun in central position aft of step; bomb load, 2,000 lb.

In closing, a simply stunning photograph by Neville Dawson of a lovingly restored PBY in full flight. The image comes from The Catalina Club of New Zealand [ © Neville Dawson 1999 ]

New Zealand's only PBY-5A "Catalina" twin-engine WW2 Canso amphibious flying boat, ZK-PBY. It is currently the only airworthy PBY-5A in Australasia

View more pictures of this wonderful aircraft.