My great uncle was a tail gunner on a Canadian Lancaster during ww2. He recalled that German fighters would stay outside of the range of his .303 caliber machine guns and use their cannons to out range him. He ended up being shot down, and he was the only surviving crew member. He landed in a field, broke his leg and was eventually captured. When he was being treated in the hospital, the pilot who shot him down came and talked to him, and according to him, apologized for the loss of his friends.
Without detracting from that WW2 was the closest to a just war I've not heard a story of bomber crew getting punched in the face for the estimated 350,000 to 500,000 German civilian fatalities caused by Allied intentional civilian bombing. Must have happened somewhere.
My great grandfather served as a tail gunner on a Lancaster. He became ill with something and had to stay in the sick bay while his crew went up. That night, the plane was shot down and all of the crew were killed. My great grandfather carried a picture of his crew in his wallet until the day he died. I didn't get to meet him, but from what I heard he was a lovely person, and often talked about the places he'd been in the war to my mom when she was young. I have a picture of him and his crew which I keep a poppy pinned to.
I had the honour of watching the British and Canadian Lancasters fly together when the Canadian plane "Vera" came to visit us in 2014, a wonderful sight that nobody is likely to see again, thanks for posting this.
My father was a Canadian pilot attached to an RAF special duties squadron during the war. He returned from missions several times in a shot-up Lancaster with wounded crew members. On one particularly hazardous mission, his bomber was so badly damaged by flak, he had to drop out of formation, and was attacked by a Bf 109. He did his best to evade the fighter, but he couldn't get away and had to ditch in the North Sea, in darkness. Bomber crews were warned to get out of a ditched aircraft as fast as they could, but he was trapped in the cockpit for a time. He told me he could hear water coming into the aircraft, and he thought he was going to drown. Eventually a crew member managed to free him, and everyone spent the night on a dinghy. In the morning, there was the Lancaster floating beside them! On the second day, a Scottish patrol boat picked them up. Dad told me he often had nightmares about drowning in the Lanc, years afterwards. And I remember as a child seeing him turn his head this way and that occasionally while driving. When he saw me watching him, he just laughed and said, "Keep your eyes peeled for enemy fighters, son." After the war, he made friends with some Luftwaffe fighter pilots--he told me they used to have friendly arguments about who had the best airforce. He was a good man and a wonderful father, and I miss him every day.
Great work as always the Lancaster is one of my favourite aircraft. There are at least 2 that I know of here in Australia. One in Perth at the Bullcreek museum which is an ex French Navy aircraft repainted in RAAF colours. The other is at The Australian War Memorial in Canberra. I believe it an actual survivor from combat. It is set up so it appears to be on a raid and the various crew positions light up when they talk to each other.
Fantastic! I actually had the pleasure of witnessing one in flight here in Canada. Are war museums are a bit lackluster but I'm very happy we have a Lancaster!
I enjoyed the video and commentary - a splendid effort! My father, Sqn. Ldr. Geoffrey Hall, DFC & Bar, flew Lancasters on his second tour of operations with 61 Sqn in 1943 and knew many of the chaps on the Dams raid, including Guy Gibson. My father flew the Manchester during his first tour, but only completed two successful bombing raids due to engine failures and groundings for modifications. The Vulture engines were a real problem, often suffering from big end failures, something he experienced first-hand. He filled in with sorties flying Hampdens to complete his first tour. He said that the Lanc was a better aircraft in all respects and handled beautifully. He survived the war and never lost any crew, despite regular damage from nightfighters and flak. I am relieved that he was no longer flying operationally by the time of the Dresden raid. I still have much of my father's flying kit and uniform, including his Irvin jacket, plus his silk escape maps, even some 'Window' foil that was dropped to blind enemy radar. My father was a very lucky pilot, but it is sad that so many crews failed to return. They were all volunteers - no-one could be ordered to be aircrew. We owe them a great debt.
My mother as a teenager in Bremen experienced all the air raids. She often spoke of all the misery and torment in the air raid shelter. But she never spoke badly about the bomber crews. She always said "the poor boys"!
One of my family members was an experienced Lancaster pilot in the RAF. 2 and half tours. A staggering amount. He was there at Dresden and countless other harrowing nights. He became a Squadron Leader. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar. He was tasked with flying the first Lancaster all the way to Australia after the war. He met the King after the war and returned home to Australia as a farmer. He lived until 99. Retiring only at 94 after farming for 70 years. He then met the Queen and was a special guest for the opening of the RAF bomber memorial in England in 2012. Before he died he was probably the most experienced RAF Lancaster pilot alive in the world. The stories he had were incredible. Including 'permanently borrowing' a Mustang from Papua New Guinea after the war and flying it home.
One reason the British night bombers suffered high losses was a tactic the Germans night fighter crews developed of flying under the bomber and shooting it down with a pair of guns pointed upward. The English translation for the name of the system was Jazz Music. I don't think the British figured out what was going on until late in the war, if then. Granted it was dark, but I wonder if having a belly turret on the bombers would have allowed a gunner a chance to see the approaching fighter and made a close approach impossible, increasing the chances for the fighter to miss. Of course, on a Lanc, a belly turret might have been impossible with that big bomb bay.
The irony was that the RAF had developed the same tactic for attacking bombers earlier in the war, during their dalliance with turret fighters such as the Boulton Paul Defiant. Given the losses to Bomber Command (nearly as high as the US death toll in the ENTIRE Vietnam War) one has to wonder if news of Schrägemusik was suppressed for reasons of morale. In a similar vein, there was the persistent myth of German ‘scarecrow’ AA projectiles which were claimed to mimic exploding bombers -ostensibly to attack aircrew morale. There’s no evidence that such projectiles existed…yet there were no attempts by Bomber Command to bust the myth, as the truth - they WERE exploding bombers - was far more unpalatable.
I was wrong in my original comment in that they planned for a belly turret originally, but it was of the type that had the gunner inside the fuesilage and used mirrors for fire control. Did not work, much like that planned for the B-17. I forget which TH-cam video I saw with that info, but it was well documented. Apologies to the creator of that video for not remembering.
The actor at 9.37 playing the mechanic on the engine is Sam Kydd...He came to open an event in the late 70's in my home town Heanor with his wife 'Pinkie' Barnes who was a table tennis champion...I was 10 or 11 years old...I didn't know who he was until my dad pointed him out in every movie after that day...Sam was wearing a brown tweed suit and he was drunk for the entire opening...
My Grandad was an RAF navigator in a Lancaster, he died on the 23rd December 1950 of blood poisoning from a misdiagnosed stomach ulcer that ruptured and killed him. My mum was born 6 months later, she never knew her dad other than what her mum (My Grandmother) told her about him as she grew up. When my Grandmother died we had to clear her house, we found my Gradads flight logbook and diary. In them was every flight he went on, the types of aircraft that escorted them including the rangefinders. He even logged the intended targets and the ordanance dropped, and there perceived success. He also recorded the numbers that sadly didn't make it back, of which there were many. He took part in most of the big raids over occupied France bombing the submarine pens in Brest, Lorient, and Saint-Nazaire., and into the towns and cities of Germany. I am sorry that I never had the chance to talk to him about his time in the war, but more sorry for my mum never knowing the father and the hero that he was. I live about 5 minutes away from Bletchley Park where they did all the enigma code breaking during the war, every year there is a momorial flight with a Spitfire, a Hurricane and a Lancaster. The sound of those Merlin engines is like nothing else in the world, whenever I see the Lancaster I like to think that it is my Grandad just checking up on me.
Good one Johnny! Americans love their radial engine bombers but nothing beats the sound of those four sweet Merlins. That sole UK based Lancaster was part of the flypast for the Queen's Jubilee.
My grandfather flew the Lanc for the RAAF. Learned to fly the tiger moth in Australia.. then on the Canada to learn to fly the lanc. Flew over France and ended up with the DFC (amongst others). We thought he was satisfied with his war service until he had a heart operation; the general anaesthetic made him delirious for a few days and he thought he was back flying the lanc. It was heart breaking listening to him commanding the plane - We didn’t realise quite how much it traumatised him. He was my grandfather and I miss him every day
B.III Built concurrently with the B.I and indistinguishable apart from being fitted with Packard Merlin engines. The Packard Merlin used Bendix-Stromberg pressure-injection carburettors. B.III Special Developed for the (9,250 lb/4,200 kg) ‘Upkeep’ bouncing bomb as used for dam-busting Operation Chastise. A chain-driven hydraulic motor gave the bomb its ‘backspin’. Known at the time of modification as the Type 464 ‘Provisioning’ Avro Lancaster, 23 aircraft of this type were built. The bomb bay doors were removed and Vickers-built struts to carry the bomb were fitted in their place at Woodford Aerodrome. Lamps were fitted in the bomb bay and nose for the simple height measurement system which enabled the accurate control of low-flying altitude at night. The mid-upper turret was removed to save weight and the gunner moved to the front turret so that he could assist with map reading. BAE Lancaster page
I saw Vera and Thumper flying together several years ago when Vera came over from Canada. It was an awesome sight but the sound is the thing that really sticks in my memory.
Well done for discussing the value and moral rectitude of the raids the Lancasters carried out. It would be very easy to overlook those difficult questions.
Nice tribute to a famous aircraft. By the way, the opening of "The Guns Of Navarone" shows a model Lancaster landing and then the debrief of the crews, proving that the gun cave cannot be attacked from the air.
Richard Todd, who played Guy Gibson, 617 Squadrons commanding officer in the Dam Busters, played the officer commanding the glider troops who took Pegasus Bridge in the film The Longest Day which is shown in this video. Interestingly another actor played a junior officer who also took part in the capture of Pegasus Bridge and that officer was called Richard Todd. This is not a coincidence. Richard Todd the actor actually took part in the capture of the Pegasus Bridge on D-Day and went on to portray his commanding officer in the film. The problem with the engines on the Manchester was that several of them caught fire. So it was redesigned with four Merlin engines and became the Lancaster. Interestingly the Hawker Tornado, which used the same engines as the Manchester, was also cancelled as well, yet it never suffered from engine fire. This would suggest the problem lay elsewhere, possibly with the Manchester itself.
@@eamonnclabby7067 Vulture was under powered, for the Manchester to fly, they basically had to be run flat out for hours. Tornado was only airborne for a fraction of the time.
One detail worth mentioning, the Lancaster was notably hard to get out of. Only about 15% of crew managed to get out (the more-vulnerable Halifax had a bailout rate of 30%). Numbers like that explain the very heavy crew losses for comparatively small crews (about 8 per plane and only one pilot). Are there any mass-media depicting "jazz guns" on German Night fighters?
When I was a lad my Dad who was bomb by the Luftwaffe along with the rest of my family was always interested in the War, and afterwards would through his work get me to meet a wide number of old soldiers, on this one occasion I met a former Lancaster tail gunner, he did 13 mission over Germany. His plane was scheduled to fly the dam busters raid in 43, he came down with an illness, so he couldn't go, they found a replacement, they went out but never came back, he was a nice old chap. He told me you had more chance surveying in a concentration camp than either a u boat or air crew during the war.
I am happy to see the Lancaster, that resides in the UK, fly almost on a yearly base. The village I live in, and province (Flevoland, The Netherlands), was made after WW2, and a lot of airplanes were found here after the water was drained. One of the airplanes' props has been put in the Memorial statue. Our village tries to have the Lancaster fly over our village during Memorial Day every year, but proves to be difficult. I have a few videos of it flying over our townsquare, feel free to have a watch! We've connected with a squadron of the Brittish AirGunners and they show up every year for Memorial Day. Ever since I've lived over here, I have attended the memorial day. The first time I attended was stunning, to see so many of the veterans here. This year, only one surviving veteran showed up. Always very impressive to see him, and I will never not thank him for his service.
My great grandfather was a mid upper gunner on the Jolly Roger although he did fly 2 sorties in the G for George, the Lancaster on display in the Australian war memorial. It hard to describe the feelings seeing that bomber and knowing exactly where he was during those long sorties
The Lancaster was made 10 miles from where I live...they used a dam 30 miles from me to train the crews for the dambuster raid and finally my uncle Arnold got the DFC in ww2 as a navigator on Lancasters,thank you Johnny your vlogs are aleays interesting and never biasef
If anyone is looking for a good read about the Lancaster, i would thoroughly recommend ' the last navigator' by Paul Goodwin, the book is written from his fathers (Gordon Goodwin) memoirs, and follows hos story form the Australian bush, to a Lanc navigator in bomber command, to his later work as a civil navigator, and his work in computerizing navigation and effectively ending his own profession. If your looking for a thrilling read about the life of a Lanc crewmen and lots of information about the mighty Lanc itself, its weapons and payloads, how it was used, and the new bombing aids created throughout the war you'll love this book. Do be ware that their is some discussion about the British carpet bombing campaign, and being a airmen himself you have to take everything he says with a pinch of salt, that still doesn't detract from the book though.
There is a great Haynes Owners Manual on this aircraft which covers an amazing range of information and superb picture layouts and actual photos inside a Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Flight
The character of Wing Commander Tim Mason in Appointment in London is widely regarded as based upon Guy Gibson, who was Wooldridge's Squadron Commander when he was a Flight Commander in 106 Squadron in late '42 early '43.
Great video sir; and a fine tribute to the Lanc and her crews. I had the opportunity to view the Mynarski Lanc up close and watch her fly at the Hamilton airshow one year. There is not sound on earth quite like the roar of those 4 Merlin engines. It was and still is the star of the show. She is still on display at "The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum" . It was almost lost to a fire several years ago. The Dam Busters is an excellent film and is now available on Blu-Ray.
The still flying Lancaster in Canada is owned and operated by "The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum" in Hamilton Ontario. It's painted to look like the plane Pilot Officer Mynarski flew in and is the "Mynarski Memorial Lancaster". When I lived in Toronto I would occasionally see it flying over the city. In the 80s there was a lancaster painted in post war RCAF colours parked at Oshawa airport in Ontario. it sat there for years. I don't know what happened to it - maybe it became the Mynarski Memorial? There also used to be a Lanc mounted on a plinth In Toronto. I think that one went to the Bomber Command Museum in Alberta where it was restored for static display at the museum.
Not sure which one it was, but the Lancaster mounted outside of Toronto City Hall was disassembled and shipped out West to be restored to flying order by the British Columbia Aviation museum! Visitors can come by and have a look at it under restoration.
I had several great uncles who flew Lancs. Most as air gunners. Shockingly, they all survived. The one that I knew best told me that gunners often alternated between top and tail positions for each mission. He was the sole survivor of one crew and could have died in the tail but for the whim of a coin toss. He suffered horrific PTSD until his death only a few years ago. Italian General Douhet, who in 1927 had argued for the sustained bombing of civilians, predicted that they would become demoralized and force their leaders to surrender, was wrong. At no time did bombing civilians cause a population to demand capitulation. Not only is such a bombing campaign a war crime, but entirely ineffective as well. It is not at all defensible as an 'means to an end'.
Saw one flyover yesterday on its way back from a tourist flight over Niagara Falls. A seat on one of these is $3,600. I heard it was booked up for the Summer season. Will appear at Skyfest 50 on June 25 + June 26, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum
'Night Flight' staring Edward Woodward and Christopher Plummer is probably one of the best Lancaster films in my opinion, just a shame the BBC won't release it on DVD
Bit of a weird one that. There was another one with a "Sliding Doors" supernatural twist about a Bomber Crew starting William Franklyn called The Purple Twilight in which he is the pilot of a Lancaster returning to England with serious damage in 1944, that was an ITV playhouse production made in 1979. Lots of footage of the BBMF Lanc in that one. Also Pathfinders in 1972/73 a 13 Episode TV series about the RAF Pathfinder force. Most of the stories in it being loosely based on real events and people.
Also another interesting fact that I can't really confirm? British bombers generally didnt have a copilot because air command at the time believed that if the pilot was strafed, the odds are that the co-pilot would have been strafed too. So general policy was that all crew members would get some time behind the stick to at least be skilled enough to keep the plane stable and fly back to england to bail out.
there are 2 really good ficitional books(imo) about the RCAF and their bomber squadrons, "B for Buster" is about a halifax radio operator and "Flyboy" is about a 17 year old who lied about his age to join the RCAF, he wanted to be a pilot because of his dad, but he was assigned as a navigator instead. Both are fiction books but i found them fun to read either way if anyone wants to heck them out.
had lancaster fly over car ,low,bout 15 yr ago.. was near M62 junc 18 and lanc was heading east.. to an air show we assumed.. the brrrmmmmmmmmm of those engines is beyond awesome
My great uncle, Sgt Jack Harrison Maltby was mid-upper gunner on a Lancaster. His plane was shot down over France in 1944. I have a small piece of the plane that has passed down through my family before it came to me.
Great video.You correctly pointed out the big mistake in the film 'The Longest Day' which shows Lancs towing gilders. They were also shown dropping paratroops in the movie. One fault with that movie was that they didn't show any C-47s which was odd because when the movie was made there were thousands of these aircraft still flying. 'Force 10 From Navarone' also (incorrectly) shows a Lancaster flying from an Italian airbase ,which never happened.
@@eamonnclabby7067 For the British, Halifax's and Stirling's were used as tugs. Albermale's, Stirlings's and Dakota's carried the Paratroopers. The 6 Horsa's targeting the Bridges near Caen were towed by Halifax's.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq there's a great channel called Potential History which made a real good video about the subject: th-cam.com/video/clWVfASJ7dc/w-d-xo.html
Given that the war was almost at the end, don't think that such a target would've been so important, or perhaps the allies wanted to strike hard at Germany after the Battle of the Bulge, discouraging them from utter attacks.....
Had the absolute privilege and thrill of seeing one of these majestic beasts on a fly-past on Canada Day in the city of Ottawa, 1992. As a salute, it opened it's bomb bay doors as it was overhead. Woww..!
I don't know if anyone's mentioned this already in the comments but there's a free VR experience you can get on the oculus store and it takes you on a real Lancaster raid over Berlin that was remade using the audio from a reporter who flew along.
I always loved the Lancaster, more that the b17 for sure, and my grandma's uncle died as a Lancaster navigator over the north sea. she never told me his name as it would make her cry to think about it as war also took her cousin in the Malayan emergency
6:38 I would say Dresden was strategically important becuse of the railroad yard in the middle of the city making it a logistic hub for the war effort.
Made in 1971, shown in 1972/3. Most of the Flying footage was large scale models, though some footage of City of Lincoln was used while it was still missing its upper turret.
There is a documentary on the making of the Dam Buster's. Like the cinematographer who did the Aerial Filming, was working in aerial reconnaissance during the war . So many of the actors and crew served in the war. A other thing to listen to is a recording of RAF bomber crew on TH-cam. They are so calm, even when their plane gets hit, it's only a few minutes long. Such brave people
Great video on a great plane, thanks Johnny. Thanks for acknowledging First Nations people who served during WWII, not often one sees that. Would really like to see you cover Weather Station Kurt, what an unusual WWII story. Can't wait to see if you get to planes like the Short Sunderland, HP Halifax, or other workhorses of the Battle of the Atlantic (really liked the Catalina video).
"Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things"- Arthur "bomber" Harris
In theory, but the Red Army was 70km from Berlin. The war was lost. Killing those 25,000 civilians and crippling the city might have stopped a few thousand soldiers from being transferred to Berlin to aid in the fight against the 2,300,000 red army soldiers taking the city. Maybe.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq “Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect.” -Harris “The city area raids have left their mark on the German people as well as on their cities. Far more than any other military action that preceded the actual occupation of Germany itself, these attacks left the German people with a solid lesson in the disadvantages of war. It was a terrible lesson; conceivably that lesson, both in Germany and abroad, could be the most lasting single effect of the air war.” -US survey on strategic bombings The argument that Germany was going to lose anyway so any bombings weren’t strategically justified is equal to the argument Japan was going to lose so the Allies shouldn’t have done anything. Dresden was the biggest supply hub outside Berlin still in operation, the Soviets asked the allies to bomb it because it was straining their abilities to prepare the offensive on Berlin. If the Nazis didn’t want to be bombed, they shouldn’t have bombed everyone else.
@@bebedor_de_cafe3272 I don't see the comparison to the Japanese situation. The Soviets were 70km from Berlin. On the ground. I acknowledge that value of strategic bombing. What do you think the tactical advantage was after it was bombed? Did it change the outcome of any battles?
My father served in the later part of WW2 as an air gunner, luckily he served on Wellingtons, in Egypt. But during the 70,s I worked on the BBMF as ground crew, and often flew in The Lancaster PA474. Luckily one winters day I spent a morning inside the aircraft with my father, showing him around.
We have a Lancaster here at the Bomber command museum in Nanton Alberta. When they take her out of the hanger and run up her 4 Merlin engines everyone come out to see her. Fabulous Airplane!
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Anytime during the summer is best, check with the museum, they post the dates that they are going to do run ups. Love your content, keep up the great work! Eh?
My grandad was a navigator on the Lanc, but for some reason was never sent into combat, instead being shipped from one posting to another throughout what was then the British Empire. He never forgave the RAF for, as he put it, sending him on a holiday instead of letting him do his part. He did once admit to me that someone must have been watching over him because he knew he wouldn't have come back if they had sent him into combat. The survival rates in Bomber Command were astonishingly low.
Very good. So many interesting facts and accounts to learn. The Dresden sentiment was poignant and well done. For me, the Lancaster is a symbol of what total war looks like. The cemetery in our little English town has a separate corner with rows of graves for Canadian airmen. Trivial fact: 4:40 Tirpitz bombing craters are still visible today on Google Earth. Look for Håkøya island.
B.X There were to be some differences between the British Lancasters and the Canadian built versions (known as Mk X’s). The engines were to be manufactured by Packard in the United States and all instruments and radio equipment were to be of Canadian or American manufacture. Canada Bomber Command Museum Canadian Lancasters page
I grew up knowing many Bomber Command Aircrew. My science teacher Jim Newell was a flight engineer with 617 squadron in 1944, and a good friend Art Lobsinger who I lost 5 years ago was a R/G with 463 RAAF. Earl Porter was a belly gunner and sometimes R/G on Halifaxes. I don't know what squadron he was with. Sometimes on Hally's the H2X fairing had a .5 mounted instead, particularly in Canadian squadrons. Lots of films that I was unaware of that I need to check out. Thanks. Art bombed Politz, and Dresden. Both were very important raids for very different reasons. Politz is nor famous, but it destroyed German synthetic fuel production and was the most successful raid in destroying the Germans ability to produce fuel.
@kellybreen5526 Bomber Command had a major programme running in October 1943 to March 1944 of lashing up a .50 Cal under the all of the heavy bombers in the hole where original turret was (which was next to useless). Aircraft that didn't get H2S retained them to the end of the war. Some squadrons manned them, some didn't, Bomber Harris left it to the group and squadron commanders decide how they managed their force. The Bombers did all have tail radars by the end of 1943, with the H2S aircraft having a device called Fishpond which took the H2S radar returns and displayed a short range trace on a PPI display in the Wireless operators position. This device allowed the Wireless Operator to see what was happening under the aircraft from around 400 yards to a distance equal the altitude of the aircraft. Its main limitations were No IFF to work out what was another British Bomber in the Bomber Stream and what was a German Night Fighter. The Longish Minimum range (400 yards) which was the radar pulse length of the H2S radar, the fact that in certain Radar Navigation Mode's the H2S system stopped Fishpond from being useable and the fact that H2S was extremely unreliable and broke half the time, also taking out the Fishpond System. Once all of the bugs were ironed out in mid to late 1944 and the aircrew and Maintenance personnel knew how to use it and keep it working, the Fishpond equipped aircraft had a 50% less chance of being shot down than an aircraft not fitted with it. The other radar was Monica, fitted to the tail of the aircraft. The original Monica system was ordered in July 1941, wasn't ready for service until June 1943 and when the operational requirement was raised for the system in 1941, the decision was made to have a system that just gave an audio warning if an aircraft was approaching from behind by the radar producing a series of beeps in the crew's headset, getting more rapid the closer the other aircraft got. It worked extremely well if your aircraft was flying by itself,. But it went off all the time if you were flying in a Bomber Stream and the aircrew found it annoying and in a lot of cases turned it off. By October 1943, Bomber Command HQ had decided that Monica Mark 1 was a failure, but the Boffins came up with Monica Mk III (AKA Visual Monica) which had a CRT display mounted in the WIreless Operator's position and gave a range and bearing position of all of the targets in the Monica coverage. This kit worked extremely well when it wasn't going unserviceable, however again it had no IFF and the receivers and display units were from the ASV Mk II radar and only enough equipment for 650 sets were available. 450 sets were given to the Main Force and the other 200 were for Mosquitos intruders. The Squadrons with Monica III, did lose aircraft, but at nowhere near the rate of squadrons not fitted with it until April/may 1944 when losses of Monica equipped aircraft went up due to the German's fitting a Monica homing system called Flensburg into their night fighters in March 1944.
@@richardvernon317 I had another school teacher Harold Cotton who was ground crew and worked on the black boxes. He taught science and was a clever guy. We were friends outside of school and although I’m glad we became close friends loaning books back and forth I now have a lot of questions that I never thought to ask him. He would have worked on the systems that you described. I’m aware of them, but just on a very basic level. As for the ground mapping radar H2S /H2X I thought it went to pathfinders first, then worked its way to the squadrons first with leaders aircraft before becoming more available. I also was under the impression that 6 group was one of the last to receive it. I have read that this slowness to receive the sets was one of the reasons why 6 Group Halifaxes tended to have the belly gun. As usual it looks like there is more to the story. Thanks.
@@kellybreen5526 I had a teacher at my Secondary School who had also served in Bomber Command as a Navigator. We first found out about what he had done in the War during a General Studies lesson. This was basically a Life Skills course that everybody had to attend at least a 2 hour lesson a week on (there were actually 2 lessons a week, but you could choose to do an extra science or language subject during one of the lessons instead). In this particular lesson, he is covering the subject of Gangs and tells the story of how him and a load of mates were in an outfit, which had their own style of outfit, dress and mannerisms and at night they went out on their transport and did ultra violence to people and property. It was dangerous and they risked injury and death. If caught, they would end up in a prison. At this point we all think he was a right Ruffin and then he says "And we got Medal's for it!!!" Their Uniform was RAF blue, the service had its own customs and styles of dress, their mean machines were Lancaster's and the property they were smashing up was German!! I really wish I had asked him what Squadron he was on, I don't think he was Officer Aircrew or got a Gong as his name did not appear in the London Gazette which lists Commissions or Awards. Anyhow, the story of fitting protective equipment on the Bombers is actually very complicated. Harris could and did throw out memo's and go to meetings at the Air Ministry and Ministry of Aircraft Production all of the time to get better stuff into the aircraft and the usual reply was come back in a year or two and we will have something ready!! A year or two passes and they get something like Monica Mk 1 or the fuel tank nitrogen inert system to stop the tanks exploding when hit by cannon shells which were found to next to useless in operational use. Most equipment was developed by crash programs run outside of MAP control on the orders of Lindermann and production equipment for the whole force took a year to eighteen months to roll out across the whole force. There was never enough H2S equipment to fit to all of the heavies. 3 Group never got it, they were fitted with G-H. 5 Group never got it in any numbers, they got the American LORAN system. 8 Group got it, followed by 1 Group while limited numbers of Halifax's were fitted with it in 4 and 6 groups, mainly to provide a Group Marking Force. There are quite a lot of gaps in the Official histories, The main cause being Harris hated the Air Ministry and the felling was mutual. So Memo's and reports done by Harris which highlighted problems which the Air Ministry ignored were not included. .50 Cal rear turrets are a classic example, the only reason any RAF heavy bomber got them was because Harris and Rice at 1 Group found enough funds to get Rose Brothers at Gainsborough to design and build one. Unfortunately, the compony didn't have the production capacity to build them in any large numbers.
Question: I saw a film of the damn busters. Twas informative. Was it Landcasters that dropped the spinning drum skip bombs? OH, OK ITS ON! The mascot dog's name would have to be blipped out. Ya Know? Loved "MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART".
Interestingly the US were developing a version of Little Boy Nuclear Bomb that could never have fitted into a B-29 as they experimented with different designs, Little Boy being a gun type nuclear weapon, the "Thin Man" as it would have been called had it been developed fully and used would have had to have been dropped by an Avro Lancaster, this was ultimately before they went with the design used in "Fat Man" after the Nuclear Bombings of Japan.
Very comprehensive and measured. Glad to see the Dutch Hunger Winter isn't blamed on the Getmans (as The World At War TV series did) - the Dutch transport strike combined with the war's exigencies caused it. Maybe a miniseries of corrections of that series could be done - not to pillory it, but it's been 50 years since it was released and it's showing it's age due to so much new material coming to light. A corrective is needed as it's still being shown as set in stone canon.
One fun fact … from mark felton I think… as developing super forts was taking a while a flight of Lancs was being trained to drop fat man and little boy
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Felton’s story is a click bait crowd pleaser but just very wrong. Check out the much more authoritative and sober (some say boring, but not me) channel Greg’s Aircraft and Automobiles for a fascinating rebuttal.
I usually like Mark Felton's content, but that stuff about Lancs being trained to drop fat man has been well and truly debunked. Unfortunately it's become a stain on his well-earned reputation. 😒
I Know Little of the Avro Lancaster aside from it Being the Bombers Used in the Dresden Bombings, the Sinking of Tirpitz, and being the go to Bombers for Britain's Dam Busters.... But now I do! At Least I've Accumulated more Knowledge on the Aircraft Aside from the Basics, thanks Johnny! For Increasing my Knowledge on this Magnificent Product of British Engineering, and one of my Favorite British Bomber Aircraft of World War 2. Excellent and Informative Video as Alway Johnny! Keep up the Great Work with these Videos! Keep the Good Shit Rolling, my Friend!
Grandfather was a "Mooseman" of the RCAF 419th and was stuck in the tailgunner position because he was short. Great read on the subject is the book "Reap the Whirlwind" by Spencer Dunmore, shameless plug my grandpa made the front cover in a picture I grew up seeing on his mantlepiece.
Little known fact- Robert Clothier, who went on to become famous in Canada for his role as Relic on the popular Canadian TV show "The Beachcombers" actually survived two tours as a Lancaster and Halifax pilot in WW2 (408 'Goose' Squadron, RCAF). He was brought back to Canada and severely injured (paralyzed for two years) in a crash as a training pilot on a Mitchell bomber. His brother was also a Lanc/Halifax pilot, and was killed when his plane was shot down over England by friendly fire just a few weeks before VE day in 1945.
I live near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where one of the last flying Lancaster lives in the Canadian Warplane Museum. She's a beaut! You can even pay (a very hefty price!) to fly in her!
My grandfather used to have the tail gunner of a Lancaster's turret, it had the motor and everything, he later sold it to the Australian War Memorial mostly because it was too heavy and and was just a pain to have since he didnt have the whole plane.
Fun (?) fact - it was Lancaster that was initaly chosen as first nuclear boomer. During the development of atomic bomb it become obvious that device will be rather heavy ( and it was, bomb weight was almost 10k pounds ). Problem wasn't even weight itself, but rather that B-29 wasn;t simply designed to carry single large bomb, but scores of smaller ones in two separate bomb bays. Untill models with modified, single bomb bay was developed and produced, it would be Brits with Lancasters who would carry worlds first nuclear attack.
Another notable Lanc tail-gunner -- who survived a free-fall without a parachute, no less(!) -- was Flt. Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade
I've seen one flying over Southern Ontario. Must have been an air show somewhere. Honestly, squinted my eyes and tried to imagine hundreds at a time. Can't.
I was lucky enough to be working at a small seaside town in Essex England, when I was over flown by not one but two lancasters in formation with several spitfires and hurricanes. The British and Canadian aircraft flying together in close formation was a sight to see , but the sound… I’ll never forget it
Clacton air show in 2014. I wish I had not arranged with my mum to go to that show, because I could have instead gone to RAF Marham and seen 2 Lancasters flying in formation with a Vulcan!!!
My great uncle was a tail gunner on a Canadian Lancaster during ww2. He recalled that German fighters would stay outside of the range of his .303 caliber machine guns and use their cannons to out range him. He ended up being shot down, and he was the only surviving crew member. He landed in a field, broke his leg and was eventually captured. When he was being treated in the hospital, the pilot who shot him down came and talked to him, and according to him, apologized for the loss of his friends.
That's an amazing story. Glad he survived.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq indeed..amazing..
Without detracting from that WW2 was the closest to a just war I've not heard a story of bomber crew getting punched in the face for the estimated 350,000 to 500,000 German civilian fatalities caused by Allied intentional civilian bombing. Must have happened somewhere.
Quite the story
The myth, the story, the man...
My great grandfather served as a tail gunner on a Lancaster. He became ill with something and had to stay in the sick bay while his crew went up. That night, the plane was shot down and all of the crew were killed. My great grandfather carried a picture of his crew in his wallet until the day he died. I didn't get to meet him, but from what I heard he was a lovely person, and often talked about the places he'd been in the war to my mom when she was young. I have a picture of him and his crew which I keep a poppy pinned to.
Wow amazing story. You must Proud
I had the honour of watching the British and Canadian Lancasters fly together when the Canadian plane "Vera" came to visit us in 2014, a wonderful sight that nobody is likely to see again, thanks for posting this.
My father was a Canadian pilot attached to an RAF special duties squadron during the war. He returned from missions several times in a shot-up Lancaster with wounded crew members. On one particularly hazardous mission, his bomber was so badly damaged by flak, he had to drop out of formation, and was attacked by a Bf 109. He did his best to evade the fighter, but he couldn't get away and had to ditch in the North Sea, in darkness.
Bomber crews were warned to get out of a ditched aircraft as fast as they could, but he was trapped in the cockpit for a time. He told me he could hear water coming into the aircraft, and he thought he was going to drown. Eventually a crew member managed to free him, and everyone spent the night on a dinghy. In the morning, there was the Lancaster floating beside them! On the second day, a Scottish patrol boat picked them up.
Dad told me he often had nightmares about drowning in the Lanc, years afterwards. And I remember as a child seeing him turn his head this way and that occasionally while driving. When he saw me watching him, he just laughed and said, "Keep your eyes peeled for enemy fighters, son."
After the war, he made friends with some Luftwaffe fighter pilots--he told me they used to have friendly arguments about who had the best airforce.
He was a good man and a wonderful father, and I miss him every day.
It’s awful the trauma people had to live with after wars sorry to hear he had to go through that, good story and happy thanksgiving
@@bf3forevergreene165 Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you.
Great work as always the Lancaster is one of my favourite aircraft. There are at least 2 that I know of here in Australia. One in Perth at the Bullcreek museum which is an ex French Navy aircraft repainted in RAAF colours. The other is at The Australian War Memorial in Canberra. I believe it an actual survivor from combat. It is set up so it appears to be on a raid and the various crew positions light up when they talk to each other.
Fantastic! I actually had the pleasure of witnessing one in flight here in Canada. Are war museums are a bit lackluster but I'm very happy we have a Lancaster!
G for George survived 90 missions with various Australian crews aboard before being donated to Australia.
@@aaronleverton4221 Thanks for the info I thought it may have been G for George but couldn't be sure.
You know this is a legit coent due to the spelling of favourite (favorite) 🤣
@@societalnormality2268 I have no idea what you're talking about but in Australia that's how we spell favourite. We don't use American spelling.
I recently saw a Lancaster fly over my house, the sound is fantastic. And the iconic silhouette is unmistakable even up in the air!
I enjoyed the video and commentary - a splendid effort! My father, Sqn. Ldr. Geoffrey Hall, DFC & Bar, flew Lancasters on his second tour of operations with 61 Sqn in 1943 and knew many of the chaps on the Dams raid, including Guy Gibson. My father flew the Manchester during his first tour, but only completed two successful bombing raids due to engine failures and groundings for modifications. The Vulture engines were a real problem, often suffering from big end failures, something he experienced first-hand. He filled in with sorties flying Hampdens to complete his first tour. He said that the Lanc was a better aircraft in all respects and handled beautifully. He survived the war and never lost any crew, despite regular damage from nightfighters and flak. I am relieved that he was no longer flying operationally by the time of the Dresden raid. I still have much of my father's flying kit and uniform, including his Irvin jacket, plus his silk escape maps, even some 'Window' foil that was dropped to blind enemy radar. My father was a very lucky pilot, but it is sad that so many crews failed to return. They were all volunteers - no-one could be ordered to be aircrew. We owe them a great debt.
Thanks for sharing that Pete. Much respect to your father. Amazing to have all that kit to honor and remember his service.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq seconded
My mother as a teenager in Bremen experienced all the air raids. She often spoke of all the misery and torment in the air raid shelter. But she never spoke badly about the bomber crews. She always said "the poor boys"!
One of my family members was an experienced Lancaster pilot in the RAF.
2 and half tours. A staggering amount.
He was there at Dresden and countless other harrowing nights.
He became a Squadron Leader.
He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and Bar.
He was tasked with flying the first Lancaster all the way to Australia after the war.
He met the King after the war and returned home to Australia as a farmer.
He lived until 99. Retiring only at 94 after farming for 70 years.
He then met the Queen and was a special guest for the opening of the RAF bomber memorial in England in 2012.
Before he died he was probably the most experienced RAF Lancaster pilot alive in the world.
The stories he had were incredible. Including 'permanently borrowing' a Mustang from Papua New Guinea after the war and flying it home.
One reason the British night bombers suffered high losses was a tactic the Germans night fighter crews developed of flying under the bomber and shooting it down with a pair of guns pointed upward. The English translation for the name of the system was Jazz Music. I don't think the British figured out what was going on until late in the war, if then. Granted it was dark, but I wonder if having a belly turret on the bombers would have allowed a gunner a chance to see the approaching fighter and made a close approach impossible, increasing the chances for the fighter to miss. Of course, on a Lanc, a belly turret might have been impossible with that big bomb bay.
Some Lancasters were field modified with a ventral gun, but it wasn't very successful.
they were called shraegermusik cannons by the germans because they looked like the pipes on an organ
The irony was that the RAF had developed the same tactic for attacking bombers earlier in the war, during their dalliance with turret fighters such as the Boulton Paul Defiant.
Given the losses to Bomber Command (nearly as high as the US death toll in the ENTIRE Vietnam War) one has to wonder if news of Schrägemusik was suppressed for reasons of morale.
In a similar vein, there was the persistent myth of German ‘scarecrow’ AA projectiles which were claimed to mimic exploding bombers -ostensibly to attack aircrew morale. There’s no evidence that such projectiles existed…yet there were no attempts by Bomber Command to bust the myth, as the truth - they WERE exploding bombers - was far more unpalatable.
I was wrong in my original comment in that they planned for a belly turret originally, but it was of the type that had the gunner inside the fuesilage and used mirrors for fire control. Did not work, much like that planned for the B-17.
I forget which TH-cam video I saw with that info, but it was well documented. Apologies to the creator of that video for not remembering.
@@Plainview200 You're probably thinking of "Avro Lancaster - FN.64 Mid Lower Gun Turret" by UK Aircraft Explored. Cheers.
The actor at 9.37 playing the mechanic on the engine is Sam Kydd...He came to open an event in the late 70's in my home town Heanor with his wife 'Pinkie' Barnes who was a table tennis champion...I was 10 or 11 years old...I didn't know who he was until my dad pointed him out in every movie after that day...Sam was wearing a brown tweed suit and he was drunk for the entire opening...
My Grandad was an RAF navigator in a Lancaster, he died on the 23rd December 1950 of blood poisoning from a misdiagnosed stomach ulcer that ruptured and killed him. My mum was born 6 months later, she never knew her dad other than what her mum (My Grandmother) told her about him as she grew up. When my Grandmother died we had to clear her house, we found my Gradads flight logbook and diary. In them was every flight he went on, the types of aircraft that escorted them including the rangefinders. He even logged the intended targets and the ordanance dropped, and there perceived success. He also recorded the numbers that sadly didn't make it back, of which there were many. He took part in most of the big raids over occupied France bombing the submarine pens in Brest, Lorient, and Saint-Nazaire., and into the towns and cities of Germany.
I am sorry that I never had the chance to talk to him about his time in the war, but more sorry for my mum never knowing the father and the hero that he was.
I live about 5 minutes away from Bletchley Park where they did all the enigma code breaking during the war, every year there is a momorial flight with a Spitfire, a Hurricane and a Lancaster. The sound of those Merlin engines is like nothing else in the world, whenever I see the Lancaster I like to think that it is my Grandad just checking up on me.
Good one Johnny! Americans love their radial engine bombers but nothing beats the sound of those four sweet Merlins. That sole UK based Lancaster was part of the flypast for the Queen's Jubilee.
Fantastic! I've been watching it on TV. Was there for the 50th. Good times.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Only by chance ,Mrs C and I saw the Battle of Britain flight back in 2018...Brill..
Watched the Lancaster fly at the Manitoba airshow last weekend! Beautiful plane, privilege watching it fly.
My grandfather flew the Lanc for the RAAF. Learned to fly the tiger moth in Australia.. then on the Canada to learn to fly the lanc. Flew over France and ended up with the DFC (amongst others).
We thought he was satisfied with his war service until he had a heart operation; the general anaesthetic made him delirious for a few days and he thought he was back flying the lanc.
It was heart breaking listening to him commanding the plane - We didn’t realise quite how much it traumatised him.
He was my grandfather and I miss him every day
B.III Built concurrently with the B.I and indistinguishable apart from being fitted with Packard Merlin engines. The Packard Merlin used Bendix-Stromberg pressure-injection carburettors.
B.III Special Developed for the (9,250 lb/4,200 kg) ‘Upkeep’ bouncing bomb as used for dam-busting Operation Chastise. A chain-driven hydraulic motor gave the bomb its ‘backspin’. Known at the time of modification as the Type 464 ‘Provisioning’ Avro Lancaster, 23 aircraft of this type were built. The bomb bay doors were removed and Vickers-built struts to carry the bomb were fitted in their place at Woodford Aerodrome. Lamps were fitted in the bomb bay and nose for the simple height measurement system which enabled the accurate control of low-flying altitude at night. The mid-upper turret was removed to save weight and the gunner moved to the front turret so that he could assist with map reading.
BAE Lancaster page
I saw Vera and Thumper flying together several years ago when Vera came over from Canada. It was an awesome sight but the sound is the thing that really sticks in my memory.
Well done for discussing the value and moral rectitude of the raids the Lancasters carried out. It would be very easy to overlook those difficult questions.
Nice tribute to a famous aircraft. By the way, the opening of "The Guns Of Navarone" shows a model Lancaster landing and then the debrief of the crews, proving that the gun cave cannot be attacked from the air.
Richard Todd, who played Guy Gibson, 617 Squadrons commanding officer in the Dam Busters, played the officer commanding the glider troops who took Pegasus Bridge in the film The Longest Day which is shown in this video. Interestingly another actor played a junior officer who also took part in the capture of Pegasus Bridge and that officer was called Richard Todd. This is not a coincidence. Richard Todd the actor actually took part in the capture of the Pegasus Bridge on D-Day and went on to portray his commanding officer in the film.
The problem with the engines on the Manchester was that several of them caught fire. So it was redesigned with four Merlin engines and became the Lancaster. Interestingly the Hawker Tornado, which used the same engines as the Manchester, was also cancelled as well, yet it never suffered from engine fire. This would suggest the problem lay elsewhere, possibly with the Manchester itself.
True...
@@eamonnclabby7067 Vulture was under powered, for the Manchester to fly, they basically had to be run flat out for hours. Tornado was only airborne for a fraction of the time.
One detail worth mentioning, the Lancaster was notably hard to get out of. Only about 15% of crew managed to get out (the more-vulnerable Halifax had a bailout rate of 30%). Numbers like that explain the very heavy crew losses for comparatively small crews (about 8 per plane and only one pilot).
Are there any mass-media depicting "jazz guns" on German Night fighters?
hmm I can definteily have a look! Thanks for adding that stat you are right and it's worth noting. Such a dangerous job.
When I was a lad my Dad who was bomb by the Luftwaffe along with the rest of my family was always interested in the War, and afterwards would through his work get me to meet a wide number of old soldiers, on this one occasion I met a former Lancaster tail gunner, he did 13 mission over Germany. His plane was scheduled to fly the dam busters raid in 43, he came down with an illness, so he couldn't go, they found a replacement, they went out but never came back, he was a nice old chap.
He told me you had more chance surveying in a concentration camp than either a u boat or air crew during the war.
Not to forget that the 1955 Dambusters film was the direct inspiration for the 1977 Star Wars trench run attack. Almost taken scene for scene.
And dialogue! "How many guns do you think, Hoppy?" "Say about 20 guns, some on the dam, some in the fields."
"How many guns do you think, Gold Five?"
Which has copied the same concept in the new Top Gun ;Maverick movie
@@Rusty_Gold85 indeed..
I am happy to see the Lancaster, that resides in the UK, fly almost on a yearly base. The village I live in, and province (Flevoland, The Netherlands), was made after WW2, and a lot of airplanes were found here after the water was drained. One of the airplanes' props has been put in the Memorial statue. Our village tries to have the Lancaster fly over our village during Memorial Day every year, but proves to be difficult. I have a few videos of it flying over our townsquare, feel free to have a watch!
We've connected with a squadron of the Brittish AirGunners and they show up every year for Memorial Day. Ever since I've lived over here, I have attended the memorial day. The first time I attended was stunning, to see so many of the veterans here.
This year, only one surviving veteran showed up. Always very impressive to see him, and I will never not thank him for his service.
Mrs C,s uncle served in the East Lancashire regiment alongside the American paratroopers at Nijmegen,sadly succumbed to his wounds RIP..
My great grandfather was a mid upper gunner on the Jolly Roger although he did fly 2 sorties in the G for George, the Lancaster on display in the Australian war memorial. It hard to describe the feelings seeing that bomber and knowing exactly where he was during those long sorties
The Lancaster was made 10 miles from where I live...they used a dam 30 miles from me to train the crews for the dambuster raid and finally my uncle Arnold got the DFC in ww2 as a navigator on Lancasters,thank you Johnny your vlogs are aleays interesting and never biasef
Hi Vicky, was that the Ladybower reservoir in the Peak District..?? ...best wishes from the wirral..
If anyone is looking for a good read about the Lancaster, i would thoroughly recommend ' the last navigator' by Paul Goodwin, the book is written from his fathers (Gordon Goodwin) memoirs, and follows hos story form the Australian bush, to a Lanc navigator in bomber command, to his later work as a civil navigator, and his work in computerizing navigation and effectively ending his own profession. If your looking for a thrilling read about the life of a Lanc crewmen and lots of information about the mighty Lanc itself, its weapons and payloads, how it was used, and the new bombing aids created throughout the war you'll love this book. Do be ware that their is some discussion about the British carpet bombing campaign, and being a airmen himself you have to take everything he says with a pinch of salt, that still doesn't detract from the book though.
Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson also.
Seen two up close
Will do..sir..
I saw the UK Lancaster recently at a flyover in London, it was beautiful
very lucky from where I am . I Have seen jack shit fly over
I live beside the Lancaster that is in Canada. I always hear the thing fly over my house.
There is a great Haynes Owners Manual on this aircraft which covers an amazing range of information and superb picture layouts and actual photos inside a Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Flight
As a proud Brit, I think it's a crime that only two of these amazing bombers are still airworthy!
The character of Wing Commander Tim Mason in Appointment in London is widely regarded as based upon Guy Gibson, who was Wooldridge's Squadron Commander when he was a Flight Commander in 106 Squadron in late '42 early '43.
Agreed. I just wrote a similar comment before I saw yours.
Tim Mason was the Real Deal.
Great video sir; and a fine tribute to the Lanc and her crews. I had the opportunity to view the Mynarski Lanc up close and watch her fly at the Hamilton airshow one year. There is not sound on earth quite like the roar of those 4 Merlin engines. It was and still is the star of the show. She is still on display at "The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum" . It was almost lost to a fire several years ago. The Dam Busters is an excellent film and is now available on Blu-Ray.
Totally agree
One of my favorite aircraft. I always enjoy seeing the one in Hamilton, Ontario whenever I visit the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.
The still flying Lancaster in Canada is owned and operated by "The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum" in Hamilton Ontario. It's painted to look like the plane Pilot Officer Mynarski flew in and is the "Mynarski Memorial Lancaster". When I lived in Toronto I would occasionally see it flying over the city.
In the 80s there was a lancaster painted in post war RCAF colours parked at Oshawa airport in Ontario. it sat there for years. I don't know what happened to it - maybe it became the Mynarski Memorial?
There also used to be a Lanc mounted on a plinth In Toronto. I think that one went to the Bomber Command Museum in Alberta where it was restored for static display at the museum.
Not sure which one it was, but the Lancaster mounted outside of Toronto City Hall was disassembled and shipped out West to be restored to flying order by the British Columbia Aviation museum! Visitors can come by and have a look at it under restoration.
The Lanc at Nanton was actually found in a field outside Vulcan, Alberta and towed to Nanton.
@@PolarizedMechs That's pretty cool, gotta wonder how it got to Vulcan.
I had several great uncles who flew Lancs. Most as air gunners. Shockingly, they all survived. The one that I knew best told me that gunners often alternated between top and tail positions for each mission. He was the sole survivor of one crew and could have died in the tail but for the whim of a coin toss. He suffered horrific PTSD until his death only a few years ago.
Italian General Douhet, who in 1927 had argued for the sustained bombing of civilians, predicted that they would become demoralized and force their leaders to surrender, was wrong. At no time did bombing civilians cause a population to demand capitulation. Not only is such a bombing campaign a war crime, but entirely ineffective as well. It is not at all defensible as an 'means to an end'.
Saw one flyover yesterday on its way back from a tourist flight over Niagara Falls. A seat on one of these is $3,600. I heard it was booked up for the Summer season. Will appear at Skyfest 50 on June 25 + June 26, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum
Another outstanding piece Johnny! The Lancaster was a top notch bomber. As iconic as the B17. Thanks brother.
'Night Flight' staring Edward Woodward and Christopher Plummer is probably one of the best Lancaster films in my opinion, just a shame the BBC won't release it on DVD
Bit of a weird one that. There was another one with a "Sliding Doors" supernatural twist about a Bomber Crew starting William Franklyn called The Purple Twilight in which he is the pilot of a Lancaster returning to England with serious damage in 1944, that was an ITV playhouse production made in 1979. Lots of footage of the BBMF Lanc in that one. Also Pathfinders in 1972/73 a 13 Episode TV series about the RAF Pathfinder force. Most of the stories in it being loosely based on real events and people.
Also another interesting fact that I can't really confirm? British bombers generally didnt have a copilot because air command at the time believed that if the pilot was strafed, the odds are that the co-pilot would have been strafed too. So general policy was that all crew members would get some time behind the stick to at least be skilled enough to keep the plane stable and fly back to england to bail out.
there are 2 really good ficitional books(imo) about the RCAF and their bomber squadrons, "B for Buster" is about a halifax radio operator and "Flyboy" is about a 17 year old who lied about his age to join the RCAF, he wanted to be a pilot because of his dad, but he was assigned as a navigator instead. Both are fiction books but i found them fun to read either way if anyone wants to heck them out.
had lancaster fly over car ,low,bout 15 yr ago.. was near M62 junc 18 and lanc was heading east.. to an air show we assumed.. the brrrmmmmmmmmm of those engines is beyond awesome
My great uncle, Sgt Jack Harrison Maltby was mid-upper gunner on a Lancaster. His plane was shot down over France in 1944. I have a small piece of the plane that has passed down through my family before it came to me.
Great video.You correctly pointed out the big mistake in the film 'The Longest Day' which shows Lancs towing gilders. They were also shown dropping paratroops in the movie. One fault with that movie was that they didn't show any C-47s which was odd because when the movie was made there were thousands of these aircraft still flying. 'Force 10 From Navarone' also (incorrectly) shows a Lancaster flying from an Italian airbase ,which never happened.
I found the lack of C47s strange too. Maybe they just loved the look of the Lancaster over authenticity. I can't fully blame them 🙂
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Was it Short Stirlings used as Tugs..??
@@eamonnclabby7067 For the British, Halifax's and Stirling's were used as tugs. Albermale's, Stirlings's and Dakota's carried the Paratroopers. The 6 Horsa's targeting the Bridges near Caen were towed by Halifax's.
Thanks a lot for including the names of the movies, I've watched several of them again and a few for the first time. Good on you!
6:38 Dresden was a key junction in Germany's railway system, it was not "relatively non strategic."
Dresden was a military target.
Yes it did have a railway system but you still have to balance its worth relative against the civilians killed. In my opinion anyway.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq there's a great channel called Potential History which made a real good video about the subject: th-cam.com/video/clWVfASJ7dc/w-d-xo.html
Thanks man I like his channel I'll definitely check it out
Given that the war was almost at the end, don't think that such a target would've been so important, or perhaps the allies wanted to strike hard at Germany after the Battle of the Bulge, discouraging them from utter attacks.....
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq indeed...I guess in Biblical terms they reaped the whirlwind in Dresden, poor sods
Had the absolute privilege and thrill of seeing one of these majestic beasts on a fly-past on Canada Day in the city of Ottawa, 1992. As a salute, it opened it's bomb bay doors as it was overhead. Woww..!
Yet another well documented video from you. Rare to see what are obviously such well researched videos, with so much correct information. Well done!
this plane reminds me of Bomber Crew
It's a fun game!
I loved that game!
That game is Based as shit
I still play it today, it’s so fun !!
@@GriffonVoid will have to get my son onto it
I don't know if anyone's mentioned this already in the comments but there's a free VR experience you can get on the oculus store and it takes you on a real Lancaster raid over Berlin that was remade using the audio from a reporter who flew along.
I always loved the Lancaster, more that the b17 for sure, and my grandma's uncle died as a Lancaster navigator over the north sea. she never told me his name as it would make her cry to think about it as war also took her cousin in the Malayan emergency
6:38 I would say Dresden was strategically important becuse of the railroad yard in the middle of the city making it a logistic hub for the war effort.
There is also a dramatic tv serie, made in the 60s(?) Made by ITV called Patfinders. It contains loads of real colour and postwar made footage.
Made in 1971, shown in 1972/3. Most of the Flying footage was large scale models, though some footage of City of Lincoln was used while it was still missing its upper turret.
There is a documentary on the making of the Dam Buster's. Like the cinematographer who did the Aerial Filming, was working in aerial reconnaissance during the war . So many of the actors and crew served in the war. A other thing to listen to is a recording of RAF bomber crew on TH-cam. They are so calm, even when their plane gets hit, it's only a few minutes long. Such brave people
Dam Busters* (plural, no apostrophe)
Great video on a great plane, thanks Johnny. Thanks for acknowledging First Nations people who served during WWII, not often one sees that. Would really like to see you cover Weather Station Kurt, what an unusual WWII story. Can't wait to see if you get to planes like the Short Sunderland, HP Halifax, or other workhorses of the Battle of the Atlantic (really liked the Catalina video).
The Cherokee nation made a donation to my ancestors in County Derry and Donegal during the great famine...
"Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things"- Arthur "bomber" Harris
In theory, but the Red Army was 70km from Berlin. The war was lost. Killing those 25,000 civilians and crippling the city might have stopped a few thousand soldiers from being transferred to Berlin to aid in the fight against the 2,300,000 red army soldiers taking the city. Maybe.
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq “Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect.” -Harris
“The city area raids have left their mark on the German people as well as on their cities. Far more than any other military action that preceded the actual occupation of Germany itself, these attacks left the German people with a solid lesson in the disadvantages of war. It was a terrible lesson; conceivably that lesson, both in Germany and abroad, could be the most lasting single effect of the air war.” -US survey on strategic bombings
The argument that Germany was going to lose anyway so any bombings weren’t strategically justified is equal to the argument Japan was going to lose so the Allies shouldn’t have done anything. Dresden was the biggest supply hub outside Berlin still in operation, the Soviets asked the allies to bomb it because it was straining their abilities to prepare the offensive on Berlin. If the Nazis didn’t want to be bombed, they shouldn’t have bombed everyone else.
@@bebedor_de_cafe3272 I don't see the comparison to the Japanese situation. The Soviets were 70km from Berlin. On the ground. I acknowledge that value of strategic bombing. What do you think the tactical advantage was after it was bombed? Did it change the outcome of any battles?
0:15 😮 oooh
5:55 😳 that’s nearly 45% loss
Love these videos it would be amazing if you could do a vid on the kar98k or just any of the bolt actions used in ww2
Johnnie: ....and models of varying quality
The Avengers: hold my beer...
My father served in the later part of WW2 as an air gunner, luckily he served on Wellingtons, in Egypt. But during the 70,s I worked on the BBMF as ground crew, and often flew in The Lancaster PA474. Luckily one winters day I spent a morning inside the aircraft with my father, showing him around.
We have a Lancaster here at the Bomber command museum in Nanton Alberta.
When they take her out of the hanger and run up her 4 Merlin engines everyone come out to see her.
Fabulous Airplane!
I will have to visit the museum next time I visit Calgary!
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Anytime during the summer is best, check with the museum, they post the dates that they are going to do run ups.
Love your content, keep up the great work! Eh?
@@albertawildcat3164 next time Mrs C and I visit Canada we will visit...
@@eamonnclabby7067 Welcome anytime, but summer is better...too cold for non Canucks otherwise!
Seen her many times. What a beautiful bird. Lady Orchid in Calgary is easy on the eyes too ( in more ways than one).
The Avro Lancaster also appeared in an episode of New Captain Scarlet.
Great airplane. One crashed in '44 on a field in my village. Iron pieces still can be found (with a metaaldetector)
Where is your village?
got to see the One in Canada fly at and air show. I was staying at an AIrBNB and got to watch it come in for a landing so cool
One of the most beautiful looking aircraft ever made
My grandad was a navigator on the Lanc, but for some reason was never sent into combat, instead being shipped from one posting to another throughout what was then the British Empire. He never forgave the RAF for, as he put it, sending him on a holiday instead of letting him do his part. He did once admit to me that someone must have been watching over him because he knew he wouldn't have come back if they had sent him into combat. The survival rates in Bomber Command were astonishingly low.
Beauty video as always Johnny, I forgot about that heritage moment but I knew the story. Trip down memory lane
Love those old heritage moments. I completely forgot about this one until making this video.
Very good. So many interesting facts and accounts to learn. The Dresden sentiment was poignant and well done. For me, the Lancaster is a symbol of what total war looks like. The cemetery in our little English town has a separate corner with rows of graves for Canadian airmen. Trivial fact: 4:40 Tirpitz bombing craters are still visible today on Google Earth. Look for Håkøya island.
Hey Johnny I'm starting to become more interested in WW2 aviation, after mostly studying tanks. Perfect timing!
Right on man! I am over due for a tank video though so hopefully in the next few weeks.
B.X There were to be some differences between the British Lancasters and the Canadian built versions (known as Mk X’s). The engines were to be manufactured by Packard in the United States and all instruments and radio equipment were to be of Canadian or American manufacture.
Canada Bomber Command Museum Canadian Lancasters page
Shoutout to the footage of the Bomber Crew game! Love that.
I grew up knowing many Bomber Command Aircrew. My science teacher Jim Newell was a flight engineer with 617 squadron in 1944, and a good friend Art Lobsinger who I lost 5 years ago was a R/G with 463 RAAF. Earl Porter was a belly gunner and sometimes R/G on Halifaxes. I don't know what squadron he was with. Sometimes on Hally's the H2X fairing had a .5 mounted instead, particularly in Canadian squadrons.
Lots of films that I was unaware of that I need to check out.
Thanks.
Art bombed Politz, and Dresden. Both were very important raids for very different reasons. Politz is nor famous, but it destroyed German synthetic fuel production and was the most successful raid in destroying the Germans ability to produce fuel.
@kellybreen5526 Bomber Command had a major programme running in October 1943 to March 1944 of lashing up a .50 Cal under the all of the heavy bombers in the hole where original turret was (which was next to useless). Aircraft that didn't get H2S retained them to the end of the war. Some squadrons manned them, some didn't, Bomber Harris left it to the group and squadron commanders decide how they managed their force. The Bombers did all have tail radars by the end of 1943, with the H2S aircraft having a device called Fishpond which took the H2S radar returns and displayed a short range trace on a PPI display in the Wireless operators position. This device allowed the Wireless Operator to see what was happening under the aircraft from around 400 yards to a distance equal the altitude of the aircraft. Its main limitations were No IFF to work out what was another British Bomber in the Bomber Stream and what was a German Night Fighter. The Longish Minimum range (400 yards) which was the radar pulse length of the H2S radar, the fact that in certain Radar Navigation Mode's the H2S system stopped Fishpond from being useable and the fact that H2S was extremely unreliable and broke half the time, also taking out the Fishpond System. Once all of the bugs were ironed out in mid to late 1944 and the aircrew and Maintenance personnel knew how to use it and keep it working, the Fishpond equipped aircraft had a 50% less chance of being shot down than an aircraft not fitted with it. The other radar was Monica, fitted to the tail of the aircraft. The original Monica system was ordered in July 1941, wasn't ready for service until June 1943 and when the operational requirement was raised for the system in 1941, the decision was made to have a system that just gave an audio warning if an aircraft was approaching from behind by the radar producing a series of beeps in the crew's headset, getting more rapid the closer the other aircraft got. It worked extremely well if your aircraft was flying by itself,. But it went off all the time if you were flying in a Bomber Stream and the aircrew found it annoying and in a lot of cases turned it off. By October 1943, Bomber Command HQ had decided that Monica Mark 1 was a failure, but the Boffins came up with Monica Mk III (AKA Visual Monica) which had a CRT display mounted in the WIreless Operator's position and gave a range and bearing position of all of the targets in the Monica coverage. This kit worked extremely well when it wasn't going unserviceable, however again it had no IFF and the receivers and display units were from the ASV Mk II radar and only enough equipment for 650 sets were available. 450 sets were given to the Main Force and the other 200 were for Mosquitos intruders. The Squadrons with Monica III, did lose aircraft, but at nowhere near the rate of squadrons not fitted with it until April/may 1944 when losses of Monica equipped aircraft went up due to the German's fitting a Monica homing system called Flensburg into their night fighters in March 1944.
@@richardvernon317
I had another school teacher Harold Cotton who was ground crew and worked on the black boxes. He taught science and was a clever guy. We were friends outside of school and although I’m glad we became close friends loaning books back and forth I now have a lot of questions that I never thought to ask him.
He would have worked on the systems that you described.
I’m aware of them, but just on a very basic level.
As for the ground mapping radar H2S /H2X I thought it went to pathfinders first, then worked its way to the squadrons first with leaders aircraft before becoming more available.
I also was under the impression that 6 group was one of the last to receive it.
I have read that this slowness to receive the sets was one of the reasons why 6 Group Halifaxes tended to have the belly gun.
As usual it looks like there is more to the story.
Thanks.
@@kellybreen5526 I had a teacher at my Secondary School who had also served in Bomber Command as a Navigator. We first found out about what he had done in the War during a General Studies lesson. This was basically a Life Skills course that everybody had to attend at least a 2 hour lesson a week on (there were actually 2 lessons a week, but you could choose to do an extra science or language subject during one of the lessons instead). In this particular lesson, he is covering the subject of Gangs and tells the story of how him and a load of mates were in an outfit, which had their own style of outfit, dress and mannerisms and at night they went out on their transport and did ultra violence to people and property. It was dangerous and they risked injury and death. If caught, they would end up in a prison. At this point we all think he was a right Ruffin and then he says "And we got Medal's for it!!!" Their Uniform was RAF blue, the service had its own customs and styles of dress, their mean machines were Lancaster's and the property they were smashing up was German!!
I really wish I had asked him what Squadron he was on, I don't think he was Officer Aircrew or got a Gong as his name did not appear in the London Gazette which lists Commissions or Awards.
Anyhow, the story of fitting protective equipment on the Bombers is actually very complicated. Harris could and did throw out memo's and go to meetings at the Air Ministry and Ministry of Aircraft Production all of the time to get better stuff into the aircraft and the usual reply was come back in a year or two and we will have something ready!! A year or two passes and they get something like Monica Mk 1 or the fuel tank nitrogen inert system to stop the tanks exploding when hit by cannon shells which were found to next to useless in operational use. Most equipment was developed by crash programs run outside of MAP control on the orders of Lindermann and production equipment for the whole force took a year to eighteen months to roll out across the whole force.
There was never enough H2S equipment to fit to all of the heavies. 3 Group never got it, they were fitted with G-H. 5 Group never got it in any numbers, they got the American LORAN system. 8 Group got it, followed by 1 Group while limited numbers of Halifax's were fitted with it in 4 and 6 groups, mainly to provide a Group Marking Force.
There are quite a lot of gaps in the Official histories, The main cause being Harris hated the Air Ministry and the felling was mutual. So Memo's and reports done by Harris which highlighted problems which the Air Ministry ignored were not included.
.50 Cal rear turrets are a classic example, the only reason any RAF heavy bomber got them was because Harris and Rice at 1 Group found enough funds to get Rose Brothers at Gainsborough to design and build one. Unfortunately, the compony didn't have the production capacity to build them in any large numbers.
Question: I saw a film of the damn busters. Twas informative. Was it Landcasters that dropped the spinning drum skip bombs? OH, OK ITS ON! The mascot dog's name would have to be blipped out. Ya Know? Loved "MAP OF THE HUMAN HEART".
Interestingly the US were developing a version of Little Boy Nuclear Bomb that could never have fitted into a B-29 as they experimented with different designs, Little Boy being a gun type nuclear weapon, the "Thin Man" as it would have been called had it been developed fully and used would have had to have been dropped by an Avro Lancaster, this was ultimately before they went with the design used in "Fat Man" after the Nuclear Bombings of Japan.
Very comprehensive and measured.
Glad to see the Dutch Hunger Winter isn't blamed on the Getmans (as The World At War TV series did) - the Dutch transport strike combined with the war's exigencies caused it. Maybe a miniseries of corrections of that series could be done - not to pillory it, but it's been 50 years since it was released and it's showing it's age due to so much new material coming to light. A corrective is needed as it's still being shown as set in stone canon.
The Lancaster Bomber was also equipped with the Tall Boy and the Grand Slam was used during the Allied Bombing Campaign in Europe and the Pacific
One fun fact … from mark felton I think… as developing super forts was taking a while a flight of Lancs was being trained to drop fat man and little boy
I heard that! I'll have to check his video out
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq Felton’s story is a click bait crowd pleaser but just very wrong. Check out the much more authoritative and sober (some say boring, but not me) channel Greg’s Aircraft and Automobiles for a fascinating rebuttal.
Nah, Felton’s story is bogus and not based on the facts. His channel is entertaining but crafted for teenage clicks. No offence intended.
Thanks for the recommendation I'll definitely check it out
I usually like Mark Felton's content, but that stuff about Lancs being trained to drop fat man has been well and truly debunked. Unfortunately it's become a stain on his well-earned reputation. 😒
Man as a Canadian I wish canada would be more forthcoming about their rolls in ww2 and British military. great video thanks
My English grandfather was a navigator in a Lancaster
Brave man. Much respect.
i live a 30min drive from the canadian Lancaster. i see it flying over a lot
Im lucky, the last in the Uk flew over my house on my birthday like 8 years ago.
I love the poetry of b-17. But this just sings like music on a midsummer nights dream
I Know Little of the Avro Lancaster aside from it Being the Bombers Used in the Dresden Bombings, the Sinking of Tirpitz, and being the go to Bombers for Britain's Dam Busters.... But now I do! At Least I've Accumulated more Knowledge on the Aircraft Aside from the Basics, thanks Johnny!
For Increasing my Knowledge on this Magnificent Product of British Engineering, and one of my Favorite British Bomber Aircraft of World War 2.
Excellent and Informative Video as Alway Johnny!
Keep up the Great Work with these Videos!
Keep the Good Shit Rolling, my Friend!
There is only one way to see, and that is through the knowledge of one's own eyes - Rogal Dorn
@@JohnnyJohnsonEsq "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
- Socrates
OOoOooooooOh, a WH40K quote from Johnny Himself, *NICE!*
Grandfather was a "Mooseman" of the RCAF 419th and was stuck in the tailgunner position because he was short. Great read on the subject is the book "Reap the Whirlwind" by Spencer Dunmore, shameless plug my grandpa made the front cover in a picture I grew up seeing on his mantlepiece.
My late grandad absoultely loved the Lancaster so this is for you, Grandad
Little known fact- Robert Clothier, who went on to become famous in Canada for his role as Relic on the popular Canadian TV show "The Beachcombers" actually survived two tours as a Lancaster and Halifax pilot in WW2 (408 'Goose' Squadron, RCAF). He was brought back to Canada and severely injured (paralyzed for two years) in a crash as a training pilot on a Mitchell bomber. His brother was also a Lanc/Halifax pilot, and was killed when his plane was shot down over England by friendly fire just a few weeks before VE day in 1945.
This is my favourite World War II bomber plane
I live near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, where one of the last flying Lancaster lives in the Canadian Warplane Museum. She's a beaut! You can even pay (a very hefty price!) to fly in her!
The Dresden raid will always be controversial I think. Personally I believe it was totally unnecessary and uncalled for.
The old TV mini series 'Winds of War' featured a Lancaster bomber raid scene.
My grandfather used to have the tail gunner of a Lancaster's turret, it had the motor and everything, he later sold it to the Australian War Memorial mostly because it was too heavy and and was just a pain to have since he didnt have the whole plane.
Fun (?) fact - it was Lancaster that was initaly chosen as first nuclear boomer. During the development of atomic bomb it become obvious that device will be rather heavy ( and it was, bomb weight was almost 10k pounds ). Problem wasn't even weight itself, but rather that B-29 wasn;t simply designed to carry single large bomb, but scores of smaller ones in two separate bomb bays. Untill models with modified, single bomb bay was developed and produced, it would be Brits with Lancasters who would carry worlds first nuclear attack.
The Lancaster and Atomic Bombs, My Response to Mark Felton
th-cam.com/video/gKB-oqdoduw/w-d-xo.html
... nuclear bomber* ... / ... it became* obvious ...
3:10
Cut right before the golden scene ;)
lol true
my grandfather flew that! my grandfather actually rode that into battle! Im so proud of him. Knowing he did that fills me with confidence and bravery.
A-4e Skyhawk next maybe?
Another notable Lanc tail-gunner -- who survived a free-fall without a parachute, no less(!) -- was Flt. Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade
U should do the b-29 sometime
I've seen one flying over Southern Ontario. Must have been an air show somewhere. Honestly, squinted my eyes and tried to imagine hundreds at a time. Can't.
I was lucky enough to be working at a small seaside town in Essex England, when I was over flown by not one but two lancasters in formation with several spitfires and hurricanes. The British and Canadian aircraft flying together in close formation was a sight to see , but the sound… I’ll never forget it
Clacton air show in 2014. I wish I had not arranged with my mum to go to that show, because I could have instead gone to RAF Marham and seen 2 Lancasters flying in formation with a Vulcan!!!
Please do a video on the Gloster Meteor