Only post Lancaster pictures here.

Nice one Kev. Taught me something about bombs I never knew before.

Great pic too Owen.

cheers

 

This one is my screen saver.

 

Ok what you looking at here ion ther left is chaff. Foil strips to reflect a lot of radar energy and hide aircraft. Im not well up on the subject but the lenght of the strips is vital and related to the wavelenght of the offending rader. Something to do with reflecting back the carrier signal out of phase and ruining the radar return. Still used today.

THe shot on the right is I think a 4000lb blockbuster and a large drop of incenderries. The incenderies buirn very hot and cause fires whereby the blockbuster is a huge thinly cased blast bomb designed not bury itself like a conventional cased bomb but to explode on impact, blasting the fire into a great storm, that caused so much damage to Dresden and Hamburg.

Bombs normally dont explode untill they are armed, that is usually done by some sort of mechncial device that places the detonator into a postion it can explode the man charge, This is normally a little propeler on the front of the case, so the bomb must be falling straight for some degree of time before it is armed , once all the bombs are armed and pressumably falling stright then the chances of hitting each other very small. This is some evidence that the bombs may have hit other aircraft on some occaisions.
if the bomb is dropped to low the propellor wont fully arm the bomb and it does not explode.

Hope this helps.

Kev

The preferred load for Lancasters in the fire raising of German cities tended to be a 4000lb cookie (blast bomb) and the rest of the load made up by 8lb incendiaries dropped in containers as shown in the RH photograph.Until later in the war the 4000lb cookie was more available than the 8000lb cookie and therefore made up the blast bomb feature of the load.

Surprisingly, the raid on Lubeck on the night of 28/29 March 1942 was carried out, as far as I can see, without a Lancaster taking part, the reason being that Bomber Command was in progress of converting to this type had only started to convert in earnest from the New Year, although the there were two squadrons who received their new aicraft before Christmas 1941.

Window, which the Americans referred to as chaff was a secret passed to them after scientists in the British TRE had developed it to combat the German radar defences.It was the prime reason why the large raid on Hamburg on the night of 24/25 July 1943 was successful. It reduced RAF losses on the night to 1.5%.The Lufwaffe air defence system involving ground and air radar was severely disabled during this raid and was the first time that Window was used by the RAF.

 

YouTube - Avro Lancaster in action=

 

RF 325, the last Lancaster in R.A.F. service. Picture taken on its last flight to the breakers yard.

Found this on U Tube about this flight.

YouTube - Goodbye to the Lancaster=

 

Lancasters tour America.

YouTube - 16 Avro Lancasters tour US July 1946

 

A couple of pictures of Lancasters today,the stripped down BBF's Lancaster before its new paint job & a close up of the Lanc in Perth W.Australia.

 

Aurther Gidden's crew of 207 Squadron RAF

 

Phillip Goymer who's father crewed ED 855 sent me this picture.

Several Lancaster, operated by both 50 and 61 Squadrons, became veterans of more than 100 operational sorties. Two of them, VN-G, ED 855 and QR-N, ED 860, are seen together on the airfield at Skellingthorpe. ED 588 went on to complete 126 operations before failing to returnfrom Koenigsberg on August 30th 1944 while ED 860 did 130 missions before being damaged beyond repair in October 1944.

 

The plinth seems to be quite popular in Canada to present the Lancaster.But which Lancaster is it?

Is it "VN.N", FM 136 as displayed at Calgary International Airport?

Or is it "CF.S", FM 212 as displayed at Windsor, Ontario?

Or is it FM 104 as displayed in the Toronto Exhibition grounds?

Are there other Lancasters in Canada mounted on plinths?

 

British former prisoners of war prepare to board an Avro Lancaster B Mark I, PB934, of No. 582 Squadron RAF at Lubeck, Germany, for repatriation.

Lubeck was a Luftwaffe night fighter airfield.A small runway and bear in mind these Lancasters brought the bulk of ex POWS back to Britain with up to 33 crew and passengers with few fatal crashes.The airfield is at Blankensee which is the name that it operated under in its Luftwaffe days.It is easy to find nowadays as it is beside the new motorway to Rostock.Having flown into the place and out, I would think that a Lancaster would have little trouble with its human cargo but fully loaded it would have been a different story.However,the airfield did handle cargo to relieve Berlin in the Berlin airlift in 1948.

 

Owen.From the detailed notes, there is no reference to F 212 ever bearing the letters CF.S

I will get round to posting the suspects.

 

Lubeck was a Luftwaffe night fighter airfield.A small runway and bear in mind these Lancasters brought the bulk of ex POWS back to Britain with up to 33 crew and passengers with few fatal crashes.The airfield is at Blankensee which is the name that it operated under in its Luftwaffe days.It is easy to find nowadays as it is beside the new motorway to Rostock.Having flown into the place and out, I would think that a Lancaster would have little trouble with its human cargo but fully loaded it would have been a different story.However,the airfield did handle cargo to relieve Berlin in the Berlin airlift in 1948.

This picture really puzzles me. My father was relieved by the British Army near Lubeck on May 2nd. 1945. He then travelled across Germany by lorry to Rheine airfield which is close to the Dutch border and about 20 kms. west of Osnabruck. He was then flown home on May 8th.

Is there a possibility that the picture is wrongly titled?

 

This picture really puzzles me. My father was relieved by the British Army near Lubeck on May 2nd. 1945. He then travelled across Germany by lorry to Rheine airfield which is close to the Dutch border and about 20 kms. west of Osnabruck. He was then flown home on May 8th.

Is there a possibility that the picture is wrongly titled?

A friend sent me these accounts of R.A.F. personnel being evacuated via Lubeck.

BBC - WW2 People's War - From capture to release. POW in Poland — Part2
BBC - WW2 People's War - Opperation Exodus


This of course begs the question why did my Dad have to travel across Germany to Rheine to be evacuated. So many questions!

Anyway this thread has got off topic so I will have to find another Lanc picture to get it on track!

 

This picture is taken from my father's P.O.W. "Wartime Log". I find it amazing that someone could produce a painting of this quality with what had to be limited supplies and no subject to copy from.

 

Brilliant painting David.