Built at Short Brothers in Kent, Sunderland EJ134 joined No.461 Squadron RAAF on 31st December 1942 at Hamworthy Junction in Dorset. On 2nd June 1943, with its famous call sign N for Nuts and piloted by Flight Lt. Colin Walker, it set out over the Bay of Biscay conducting a routine anti-submarine patrol. The crew had been ordered to look out for survivors of a KLM civil airliner when they came under fire by no fewer than eight Junkers JU 88s of the Luftwaffes 13/KG40 in what was to be the first of at least twenty separate attacks that would last forty-five minutes. The aircraft was severely damaged from the attacks, but it had a trick up its sleeve in its two 50. caliber machine guns and shot down at least three of the enemy aircraft before the crew navigated the dying plane back to Britain where they ditched just off the beach of Praa Sands.