The XP3Y-1, as the prototype was designated, clocked a speed of 184 mph, which was high for a 1935 flying boat, although several years later in World War II some wags used to joke that the Catalina was so slow its crews needed a calendar rather than a watch to rendezvous with convoys! The initial order for 60 was huge for those days, but within a decade the total had topped 4,000. In 1938 three were bought by the Soviet Union, which then urgently tooled up and built its own version, designated the GST, with Mikulin M-62 engines in place of the Twin Wasps. In 1939 one was bought by the RAF for evaluation and large orders soon followed, such was the high esteem in which the aircraft was held. The RAF called the aircraft the Catalina, and the name was adopted in the
USA in 1942. In December 1939 came the PBY-5A (designated OA-10 by the USAAF), the amphibious version with retractable landing gear, which was named Canso by the RCAF. Many hundreds of both the boat and the amphibian were built by Canadian Vickers and Boeing Canada and revised tail-fin versions were made at New Orleans (PBY-6A) and by the NAF (Naval Aircraft Factory) at Philadelphia (PBN-1 Nomad).The Catalina's exploits were the stuff legends are made from, including one which found the Bismark in mid-Atlantic and waited around under anti-aircraft fire until surface contact was resumed; and another which attacked a Japanese aircraft carrier in daylight after radioing "We're going in, please inform next of kin". In 1942 Patrol Squadron 12 started the "Black Cat" tradition of stealthy night devastation, and another "Cat" had both ailerons ripped off in a storm and still crossed the Atlantic and landed safely. Hundreds served in the armed forces of smaller nations around the world long after the termination of World War II.
