VH-ANB     'Lackrana'                                             c/n   42948
                                              Essendon, 1955                                              

                                              This aircraft was delivered in March of 1946.  It was leased to British Commonwealth
                                              Pacific Airlines from September of 1946 until January 1949.  Not generally remembered
                                              is the fact that ANA themselves operated BCPA's routes in early 1946, until that newly
                                              formed line was able to wean away a couple of DC-4s each from both ANA and TAA.
                                              Seen below is a rare reproduction from the Alan Betteridge collection (via Phil Vabre) of
                                              an ANA bagaage tag from those pre-BCPA days.  Anyway, in the mid 1950s it became
                                              popular to paint aircraft cabin tops white to supposedly lesson the heat inside whilst
                                              on the ground.  -ANB has had such treatment my shot above.  In October of 1957 it was
                                              transferred to the asset register of the, by then, merged Ansett-ANA concern.   In 1958
                                              it was sold to the US 'non-sked' Twentieth Century Airlines (of Burbank, California) as
                                              N5517V.  1959 saw it in service with Trans Mediterranean Airlines (TMA) as OD-ADK.
                                              In 1971 it was sold again, this time to Air Gabon who registered it TR-LPU.  A mere five
                                              months later it was disposed of to Sofimatex in the adjacent Congo where it was registered
                                              as TN-ACF.  By this time it was getting a bit long in the tooth and decrepit after roaming
                                              around in the African Third World and it finally wound up registered 9Q-COK in "the other"
                                              Congo, i.e. the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Zaire) where it finally was
                                              withdrawn from use.  I am sure that, by then, its plush interior had been reduced to rags!