Hiya Flying Pencil,
Latest nice finds are some Pratt and Whitney twin wasp parts including lovely crankcase sections 🙂
Re. Cats at this site, far as I have been able to find out it was just PBY-5 variants, including PBY-5, -5A and PB2B-2. However, I’m also finding a few non-Cat parts, including a Spitfire fishtail exhaust and parts from a Bendix Upper Turret most likely from a B-24 or B-25. None of these make direct sense as there was no land based airstrip anywhere nearby and the maintenance unit was specifically a Flying Boat MU, but I’m figuring spare parts / used parts got mixed up in the post-war dumping processes. Maybe. So unfortunately it potentially widens the possibilities to any RAAF aircraft based in Darwin that had .303 machine guns. I’m trying to start up a list of those; will let you know when I get that sorted.
I’ve been wondering about the Cats and .30 cal guns. Far as I understand (which admittedly isn’t much), I would’ve thought the Cats would have US AN version .30 cal guns rather than the .303. I don’t know if they were ever swapped out though?
🙂

Steel parts survive very well in salt water, but not in fresh water. This was explained and shown by my Norwegian buddy who recovered aircraft from both types.

Finding more good bits in that bay, Caroline? 🙂

PBY used .303 in the tail “tunnel” and nose mount.

Go ahead and list all the aircraft known to be there, use the sub types (PBY-4, -5, -5a, -6a, etc)
Help us narrow down possibilities.