Aircraft History
This aircraft was an ex-RAF Beaufort formally T-9552, redesignated NK-B in RAAF service. The aircraft was delivered to the RAAF on January 4, 1944 and was received at 100 Squadron in July of that year. In November it suffered an electrical fault which resulted in the nose section being replaced with that of A9-461. The aircraft was returned to 100 Squadron in January 1945. A9-557 completed 103 operational missions, had a total of 126 hours 26 minutes flight time and dropped 146,000 pounds of bombs.

Wartime History
Crashed on landing on January 20, 1945 at Tadji and collided with three jeeps killing one person on the ground. All crew members survived this incident, but were later all killed in Beaufort A9-650 on March 13, 1945.

Recovery
Recovered from Tadji in 1974, by Charles Darby. Shipped to Lae, and then onto Victoria, Australia by Ian Whitney. The nose section was also recovered in 1974 and shipped, with a large number of other Beaufort remains, to David Tallichet (Yesterday's Air Force / MACR).

Sale Back To Australia
The airframe was acquired by Robert Greinert of HARS in 1991, and transported to Sydney, before being traded to the Australian War Memorial (AWM) and transported to the AWM's Treloar Technology Centre, where it was stored and partially restored until 2001.

Used In Two Restorations
Parts of A9-557 have been used in at least two separate restorations:

1) Nose Used In Another Beaufort Restoration
The original nose section of A9-557 is on display at RAF Hendon in the UK, where it is being used with a number of other RAAF Beaufort parts recovered from Tadji in the restoration of Beaufort DD931.

2) AWM Restoration To Static Display
Restoration work began at the Australian War Memorial in 1997 - this used the tail section from Beaufort A9-639, wing pieces acquired from America, propellers recovered from New Guinea, as well as other parts recovered from Tadji in 2001. The nose section of Beaufort A9-152 was also acquired from the Moorabbin Air Museum in 2000, for this project.

In 1998 the wing centre section was sent back to Sydney, to HARS for repairs, followed by other wing and fuselage sections in 2001. The rear fuselage was trucked to Brisbane for repairs work completed by the Beaufort Restoration Group in early 2002. By November 2002, all pieces were back at the AWM and the aircraft was put together.

Display
Today, it is displayed at the Australian War Memorial ANZAC Hall, where it was installed on March 8, 2003 and officially unveiled on March 28.

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