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THE AVRO LANCASTER
Lancaster B Mk.1 Specifications.
Length: 69ft 4in (21.08m)
Wingspan: 102ft 0in (31.00m)
Height: 20ft 6in (6.23m)
Maximum Speed: 287mph (462km/h)
Cruising Speed: 200mph (322km/h)
Ceiling: 19,000ft (5,793m)
Range: 2,530 miles (4,072km) with 7,000lb (3,178kg) bomb load.
Power plant: Four Rolls Royce Merlin XX, 22 or 24 of 1,280hp each.
Payload:
Up to 13,000lb bombs carried internally. Later versions modified to carry a variety of single high explosive bombs of 8,000lb (3,632kg), 12,000lb (5,448kg) or 22,000lb (9,988kg) for special missions.
Defensive Armament:
2 x ·303 Browning machine guns in nose turret, 2 x ·303 Browning machine guns in mid-upper turret and 4 x ·303 Browning machine guns in tail turret. Early models also had ventral turret with a single ·303 machine gun
This is the aircraft used by the aircrew's that flew from Fiskerton. Designed by Roy Chadwick, the Avro Lancaster was developed from the disastrous Manchester. The Lancaster entered operational service in 1942.They had a crew of seven: Pilot, Flight Engineer, Radio Operator,
Air Bombardier /front Gunner, Navigator, Mid Upper Gunner and Rear Gunner. It was powered by four superbly British engineered Rolls Royce Merlin engines and was able to carry heavy bomb loads over long distances during flights lasting up to eight hours and at very reasonable airspeeds.
A total of 7,377 were built in the UK and Canada. The Castle Bromwich factory alone employed 12,000 persons on Lancaster production. The Canadian built Lancasters being ferried over via Iceland using female ferry pilots. Fifty nine squadrons operated the Lancaster, flying some 156,000 sorties. Flying mostly at night, losses to aircraft and crew's was very high. Facing appalling dangers and hardships, the crew's took off not knowing if they would ever see their bases again.
Many more would die in training accidents. 15% of aircrew losses occurred in training accidents. Many would die returning to their bases after a long and terrifying sortie with battle damaged aircraft and dead or injured men at the controls. Bad weather and the dreaded fog would take its toll on tired crew's many becoming lost and crashing into the freezing wastes of the North Sea.
A Lancaster crew was expected to survive for three weeks only. A crew could fly one night and be lost on the next night. Luck played a huge part. Of the total number of Lancasters built, half were lost by the end of the war. In one month alone-when the losses were at their highest, of sixteen 49 Squadron crew's based at Fiskerton, 3 completed their tour of 30 operations, 1 crew were listed as prisoners of war, 1 crew was listed as killed in action and 10 crew's were listed as failing to return, a staggering loss rate of 80%. Confined crew positions and bulky flying gear made it almost impossible to escape a crashing Lancaster.
If operational life was bad-life on the ground wasn't much better. Tin hut accommodation on hastily built airfields was freezing cold in winter and baking hot in summer. The accommodation sites could be miles from the messes and dining halls. Never enough food, he crew's took pills to keep them awake when on ops and pills to make them sleep if they returned.
And when it was all over, some of those who survived stayed in the RAF. Most went back to the routine of civilian life. How strange it must have been for former aircrew after their wartime life. Over the years, some would revisit their former wartime homes but many would not. A veteran told me that he still looks up into the night sky and checks the weather forecast even after all these years bad weather meant an even more hellish night than usual.
The serial number of every Lancaster produced is available and is listed together with its eventual fate. Many are listed as lost with the date and target. Many are listed as simply missing. At the end of hostilities, the Lancasters which survived were simply broken up for scrap.
Lancasters operating from Fiskerton were involved in many important operations during the bombing campaign. These include: the "Shuttle" raids, targets in the heavily defended Ruhr valley, the heart of Nazi Germany's war production, the long cold dangerous flights to Berlin in the winter of 1943/4 when the losses to aircraft and crews was the highest of the war, the daring raid on the Schneider factory at Le Creusot when 49 Squadron were given the honour of leading the attack , the vitally important and top-secret raid on the Nazi rocket development facility at Peenemunde and the last raid of the war on the diehard SS stronghold at Berchtesgaden. Immediately after the end of hostilities, 576 Squadron began Operation Manna, the Arial supply of food to starving Dutch civilians and the repatriation of Allied prisoners of war.
Courtesy: Garry R. Fenton,Aviation Design Studio