The Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum in northern Victoria preserves the forward fuselage of what is believed to be the last surviving Dornier Do 24K from the six former Netherlands Naval Aviation Service flying boats taken over by the Royal Australian Air Force during the Second World War.
This unusual relic survived because it was converted into a houseboat after the war. Following decades on and beside the Murray River, it was acquired by the museum and returned to the site where the RAAF’s surviving Dornier flying boats had ended their military service.
Dutch Dorniers reach Australia
Six Dornier Do 24K flying boats escaped from the Netherlands East Indies and reached Australia during the Japanese advance in early 1942. They had originally served with the Netherlands Naval Aviation Service—the Marine Luchtvaartdienst, or MLD—and carried the Dutch identification numbers:
- X-5;
- X-7;
- X-8;
- X-9;
- X-10; and
- X-24.
The aircraft were subsequently allocated the RAAF serial numbers A49-1 to A49-6.
The wider operational history of these aircraft is covered in the related DACC article The Dutch Dorniers in Australia: flying boats in exile during WWII.
The Dorniers at Lake Boga
No. 1 Flying Boat Repair Depot was established at Lake Boga in 1942 as a secure inland maintenance and repair base. Its technicians worked on several types of Allied flying boat, including Catalinas, Mariners, Walruses and the former Dutch Dorniers.
The first two Dorniers to arrive were A49-3, formerly X-8, and A49-5, formerly X-10. They were flown from Rathmines and landed on Lake Boga on 2 September 1942.
The repair depot initially lacked beaching equipment suitable for the Dornier. Two water-filled trenches were therefore excavated into the lakeshore to accommodate the aircraft’s bow and sponsons while allowing maintenance personnel to reach the hull and engines.
Restoring the aircraft to service proved difficult. Spare parts were unavailable, electrical systems were unreliable and many replacement components had to be adapted or manufactured locally. The overhauls of A49-3 and A49-5 took approximately nine months.
Other Dorniers subsequently passed through Lake Boga for inspections, repairs and engine changes. The depot gradually assumed much of the responsibility for maintaining the type.
Withdrawal and disposal
One Dornier, A49-5, was destroyed by fire while moored in Darwin Harbour on 11 March 1944. The remaining five aircraft were progressively withdrawn from service and assembled at Lake Boga during 1944.
On 20 December 1944, RAAF Headquarters authorised the aircraft to be “converted to components”. Their engines, instruments and other reusable equipment were removed, after which the remaining aluminium airframes were offered for disposal as scrap.
From aircraft to houseboat
Only one of the former RAAF Dornier fuselages is known to have escaped complete scrapping.
Around 1948, Swan Hill scrap-metal merchant Ron Pickles acquired the fuselage of an unidentified Dornier Do 24K from the former Lake Boga base. He recalled that the fuselage was then substantially complete from the nose to the tailplane, although its sponsons had been removed.
Pickles sold the fuselage to K. Osborn of Bendigo. Osborn removed the rear section and converted the forward fuselage into a four-berth houseboat. The converted craft reportedly had an internal engine and could be steered from the aircraft’s original pilot’s position.
The houseboat was launched at Echuca in 1950. It was sold to Hank Horsefall in 1954 and was subsequently seen at various locations along the Murray River.
By September 1976, the former aircraft was ashore at Echuca on a boat trailer. Its external paint had been removed and some of its cockpit windows had been broken. In 1988, Gary Wood of Echuca acquired it, carried out external restoration work and painted it green and white. It was later repainted cream and carried the name Dornier on its bow.
By 1999, the houseboat was standing on vacant land behind the RSL Club at Moama. Although much of its interior had deteriorated through exposure to the weather, recognisable elements of the original aircraft structure remained.
Return to Lake Boga
The Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum acquired the surviving fuselage in 2010. It was therefore returned to the former wartime base from which the aircraft had originally been disposed of more than sixty years earlier.
Museum volunteers began stabilising and repainting the relic to suggest its wartime appearance. It should not, however, be treated as a complete aircraft or as an exact reconstruction. It is a surviving section of an original Dornier hull that underwent substantial alteration during its decades as a houseboat.
Which Dornier was it?
The identity of the surviving fuselage has not been established.
All five surviving RAAF Dorniers were at Lake Boga when they were stripped and disposed of:
| Former Dutch identity | RAAF identity |
|---|---|
| X-5 | A49-1 |
| X-7 | A49-2 |
| X-8 | A49-3 |
| X-9 | A49-4 |
| X-24 | A49-6 |
Without an identifiable construction number, component marking or documentary trail connecting the fuselage with one of these aircraft, it would be unsafe to assign it a particular Dutch or RAAF identity.
It should therefore be described as the forward fuselage of an unidentified former Netherlands East Indies/RAAF Dornier Do 24K.
Historical significance
The preserved fuselage is important for several reasons. It is:
- a surviving relic of Netherlands Naval Aviation Service operations in the Netherlands East Indies;
- physical evidence of Dutch–Australian aviation cooperation during the Pacific War;
- associated with the RAAF flying-boat repair depot at Lake Boga;
- believed to be the only surviving structural remains of the six Dutch Dornier Do 24Ks that reached Australia; and
- an unusual example of a military aircraft fuselage adapted for civilian use after the war.
Its remarkable transformation—from Dutch military flying boat to RAAF aircraft, discarded airframe, Murray River houseboat and museum object—makes it one of the most unusual surviving artefacts of the Dutch wartime presence in Australia.
Related DACC articles
- The Dutch Dornier Do 24 flying boats in Australian service
- A Dutch flying boat remembered: the Dornier Do 24 engine at Broome
- DACC Air Force Research Portal
- The Catalina at Perth’s Aviation Heritage Museum and its Dutch wartime context
Sources and further reading
- Geoff Goodall, Dornier Do 24 in Australia.
- Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum.
- Victorian Heritage Database—Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum, VHR H2208
