Black Cats: Australia's Long Range Catalina Strike Force

Australian Military History World War II Pacific Theatre Military Aviation History Naval Aviation War Memoir & Biography Cultural History of Australia Stealth & Special Operations History

Black Cats: Australia's Long Range Catalina Strike Force is the only complete, crew-level history of the RAAF’s secret Catalina squadrons that flew 1,200-mile night strikes from northern Australia deep into Japanese-occupied waters. In 250 fast-paced pages, former RAAF navigator A.E. Minty combines official archives with 50 first-hand interviews to show how the big “Black Cats” – painted matte black and armed with bombs, torpedoes and radar – turned the Catalina flying boat from a maritime reconnaissance platform into a deadly stealth bomber years before the word existed. Readers discover how Australian aircrews flew at wave-top height through tropical storms, navigated by the stars to mine Hong Kong harbour, and landed on moonlit coral reefs to rescue downed airmen – missions that never made the wartime communiqués yet shortened the Pacific War.

What makes this 2001 first-edition paperback so collectible is its sheer authenticity: the photos, maps and appendices were assembled before many of the veterans passed away, and Minty’s own logbook entries appear side-by-side with diary excerpts from pilots, wireless operators and gunners. The result is a cultural document as much as a military one – a window onto the mateship, ingenuity and bush humour that defined Australia’s home-front identity. Young-adult and adult readers alike come away understanding not just the aircraft’s technical evolution, but how the crews’ stories filtered into post-war art, slang and Anzac legend.

This clean, tightly-bound copy shows only light foxing on the closed edges and front blank – common in Australian paper of the era – leaving every page of text and illustration crisp and unmarked. No inscriptions, ex-libris labels or dog-eared corners; just an unread-feeling book ready to join a serious aviation library. For collectors of RAAF, Catalina or Pacific War history, it remains the essential reference that later e-books and reprints have never fully replaced.

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