After its maiden flight on 5th January 1941, Lancaster chief test pilot Sam Browne said, 'Oh boy, oh boy. What an aircraft!' With a maximum weight of over thirty tons, far heavier than the RAF's previous generation of bomber, the standard version could lift, on average, 14,000lbs of bombs. Britain was ready to take the aerial war to Nazi Germany in a deadly fashion.
During the course of the Second World War, 7,377 Lancaster bombers were built, flying a total of 156,000 sorties and dropped 618,378 tonnes of bombs on German cities such as Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, and, of course, Dresden. Only thirty-five Lancasters completed more than 100 operations, and 3,249 were lost in action. The most successful, which completed 139 operations, was sent for scrap in 1947. One seventh of all deaths suffered by the British during WWII were incurred by Bomber Command. Over 50,000 aircrew were lost over the skies of Europe.
Now, John Nichol, Gulf War veteran, ex-POW in Iraq and Sunday Times bestselling author of Spitfire: A Very British Love Story reveals the true cost of flying this iconic and deadly airplane - through the few authentic voices of the RAF veterans who are left to us.
