Informal group portrait of Flight Lieutenant (Flt Lt) Ray Kelly's crew outside their tent just ...

Informal group portrait of Flight Lieutenant (Flt Lt) Ray Kelly's crew outside their tent just prior to an anti-submarine patrol in their B Flight, 6 Squadron RAAF Lockheed Hudson, A16-177. Left to right: 416128 Sergeant (Sgt) E ‘Archie’ Prime, Wireless Operator/Air Gunner (WAG); 415152 Flt Lt Ray Kelly, pilot; Flying Officer (FO) William (Bill) A Green, navigator and John ‘Itchy’ Warwick WAG. Note the leather crew bags containing maps and charts held by Sgt Prime and in front of FO Green. The crew's mission was to provide anti-submarine cover for the 689-ton Burns Philp-owned British transport MV Muliama which was one of six or seven small merchant ships which had been undertaking a shuttle service between Cairns and Darwin but which, by 10 December 1942, was one of a small convoy of transports moving supplies via Milne Bay to Porlock Harbour near Buna. Muliama was the first allied ship to enter Milne Bay after the Japanese defeat there and continued to supply the Pacific campaign until the end of the war. Hudson A16-177 survived the war and was sold in 1946 and converted to components.