One other 100-plus Lancaster to fly from Waltham was EE139 ‘Phantom of The Ruhr’. It was delivered to 100 Squadron in May 1943 and was transferred to 550 Squadron when it was formed there in November before moving with 550 to North Killingholme where it went on to complete 121 operations. Its ghoulish nose art depicted a skeletal figure clasping a bomb and was the work of Sgt Harold ‘Ben’ Bennett, its first flight engineer in Ron Clarke’s crew. Earlier in the war he had been on the receiving end of German bombing raids and was perhaps inspired after he and other crew members saw the film Phantom of the Opera at a cinema in Grimsby. Clarke and his crew flew their first 20 ops in the Phantom before it was damaged, the crew completing their tour in another aircraft. Phantom was to fly its 100th operation to Le Havre in September 1944 and was retired after its 121st to Aschaffenburg in November. Phantom of The Ruhr finished the war at 1656 HCU at Lindholme and was scrapped early in 1946. Its artwork and codes were later to be worn by the Lincolnshire-based Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s sole remaining flying Lancaster. Another 550 Squadron veteran Lancaster sporting garish nose-art was PA995, ‘The Vulture Strikes!’ which was lost in March 1945 on its 101st operation. It had arrived at North Killingholme the previous May and had a near trouble-free life, completing its 100th operation in the raid on Chemnitz on the night of March 5-6, 1945. On its return most of B Flight congregated for a photograph in front of The Vulture to celebrate its 100th operation and the completion of F/O George Blackler’s crew. Thirty-six hours later The Vulture left North Killingholme on another long-distance operation to Dessau with the new crew of F/O Cyril Jones. It is believed to have been shot down by a night fighter, four of the crew surviving to become, briefly, prisoners of war.
JB603 Take It Easy of 100 Squadron, pictured at Waltham in early October 1944 after its 85th operation. (Author’s collection)
The Vulture Strikes of 550 Squadron pictured with the squadron’s aircrew on its return from its 100th operation to Chemnitz on March 6, 1945. The following day it left North Killingholme on its 101st and failed to return from a raid on Dessau. (Roland Hardy)
Two Lancasters which completed a similar number of operations were a pair of 101 Squadron veterans, DV245 ‘The Saint’ and DV302 ‘Harry’, both of which were delivered to Ludford within a few days of each other at the end of September 1943. The Saint first flew operationally early in October 1943 and was to be lost on its 122nd sortie along with its pilot, F/O Ralph Little RCAF and two of its crew, in a daylight attack on Bremen in March 1945. Harry first flew operationally three weeks after The Saint and survived the war, flying its last of 121 ops to Heligoland in April 1945.
The only Lancaster flying from Wickenby to make it to the 100 mark was 12 Squadron’s ME758, ‘Nan’ which completed its 106th on the Heligoland raid on April 18, 1945 with F/Lt Tom McPherson and crew on board. On its return an impromptu ceremony was held at Wickenby when the aircraft was ‘awarded’ a DSO and DFC. Nan was to fly another two bombing operations with 12 Squadron plus six Manna and two Exodus flights before being retired and scrapped within weeks of leaving Wickenby.
576 Squadron, which had ED888 on its strength for some time during 1944, had three other Lancasters which achieved 100-plus operations flying with the squadron from Elsham and Fiskerton. LM227 ‘I-Item’ completed its 100th on the final operations to bring home PoWs, having flown 93 bombing operations. LM594 ‘A-Able’ completed 95 bombing operations plus five Manna and two Exodus while ME801, yet another ‘N-Nan’, recorded its 100th bombing operation in March and ended the war with 109 plus four Manna and Exodus sorties. It was scrapped after a crash-landing in the late summer of 1945.
This display board can be found in the Australian War Museum listing the pilots and them operations flown by 1 Group’s only surviving Lancaster, G-George of 460 Squadron. (Fred Bury)
F/Lt Jack Playford shakes hands with Sgt Bill Hearn, ground crew chief for 100 Squadron’s Able Mabel after it completed its 100th operation following an attack of Ludwigshaven on February 1, 1945. (Author’s collection)
Yorkshireman Les Brown flew as a wireless operator in both A-Able and N-Nan, in the latter on its 99th operation to Essen in March, 1945 and on A-Able’s 105th on a Manna drop over Holland. He recalled that the number of operations a particular aircraft had done meant little to crews at the time. ‘As long as a particular aircraft flew all right we were happy with it,’ he said. He does remember the Manna drop well, not particularly because of their veteran Lancaster, but because of the ‘scary’ sight of looking down on German anti-aircraft gunners as they flew at a few hundred feet over Holland.
‘At first it did seem like a scary op,’ he recalled. ‘We were told the Germans had agreed not to fire at us but, at the same time, were told the Yanks weren’t going because of the danger to their aircraft. On our last Manna drop the rear gunner said he did see flashes from the ground as though someone was firing a rifle at us’Their other concern was avoiding injuring Dutch civilians. Relief supplies were dropped in either bags suspended inside the bomb bay or from SBC canisters, designed to scatter incendiary bombs. ‘So many people turned out that we were worried we were going to hit them.’ He flew as a flight sergeant in P/O Bill Holmes’ crew. They had joined 576 late in 1944 and were to complete 32 operations before the war ended.
Three of the 100-plus Lancasters flew with 166 Squadron, although only one would serve exclusively at Kirmington. This was ME746 ‘Roger-Squared’, which first flew with 1 Group when F/Sgt Fred Mander and crew took the aircraft to Cologne in April 1944 and topped the 100 mark 11 months later with a daylight attack on Essen. Roger-Squared went on to complete 116 bombing operations plus another nine Manna and Exodus trips. Two of its contemporaries at Kirmington were LM550 ‘Let’s Have Another’ B-Beer and ME812 ‘Fair Fighter’s Revenge’, both of which finished the war with 153 Squadron at Scampton. Both arrived at Kirmington in May 1944. B-Beer was the aircraft in which gunner Sgt Stan Parrish flew his record 122nd operation. 153’s new CO, W/Cmdr G.F. Rodney, took B-Beer (which now had the 153 codes P4-C on its fuselage) on the final major bombing operation of the war to Berchtesgarden, its 101st. The aircraft completed four Manna and two Exodus flights and was finally scrapped in 1947. Fair Fighter’s Revenge was allocated to F/Sgt Sid Coole and his crew at Kirmington in June 1944 as a replacement for their previous aircraft, ‘Fair Fighter’, which had been written off after a crash. As ME812 also bore the codes AS-F the crew decided it would be Fair Fighter’s Revenge and that was the name it bore for 105 bombing operations with 166 and 153 plus five Manna and Exodus trips.
ED905 was another real 1 Group veteran, having first been issued to 103 Squadron in April 1943 and was first flown by the squadron’s legendary Belgian pilot F/O Vincent Van Rolleghem. Belgian and British flags were painted on the nose by a member of the ground crew, John Lamming, one of the many Lincolnshire men serving at Elsham. Its codes were PM-X but it was to have a troubled time at Elsham, suffering battle damage and numerous engine problems and was out of action for several lengthy periods. After a major overhaul in the spring of 1944 it was allocated to 550 Squadron at North Killingholme where it became the squadron’s F-Fox. It completed its 100th operation in November and was then retired and ended its days at 1656 HCU at Lindholme where it was written off in a heavy landing in 1945.
The Saint of C Flight, 101 Squadron pictured at Ludford in the spring of 1945 being prepared for operations. It was lost in a daylight attack on Bremen, March 1945. (Vic Redfern)
Ninety-nine to go. I-Item of 576 Squadron leaves Elsham Wolds on its first operation on July 4, 1944. It completed its one hundredth with the squadron at Fiskerton. (Mike Stedman)
1 Group’s final Lancaster official centenarian was PB150 which flew with 625 Squadron at Kelstern as CV-V. It first flew with 625 in June 1944 but Norman Franks casts some doubt on claims that it reached its 100th sortie with a Manna drop near The Hague in May 1945 and suggests the true total may have been nearer 92.
Between the end of 1942 and
May 1945 1 Group was to lose 1,016 Lancasters on operations and another 199 in crashes. Of those that survived almost all had been reduced to scrap within two years of the war ending. Just one survives to this day and, remarkably, it was one of the very first to fly on operations with 1 Group back in November 1942.
Lancaster W4783 was built at the Metro Vickers factory at Manchester and then taken by road to Woodford in Cheshire, not far from what is now Manchester Airport. There, it was assembled alongside other Lancasters before being test flown and signed off as a finished aircraft. On October 22, 1942 it was flown by a pilot of the Air Transport Auxiliary from Woodford to Breighton, one of the first to be delivered to 460 Squadron, which was still in the process of converting to Lancasters after flying Wellingtons and then briefly beginning to convert to Halifaxes.
At Breighton, W7483 was given the squadron codes AS-G, G-George, and assigned to the crew of F/Sgt J.A. Saint-Smith, who were mid-way through their tour of operations. The aircraft was also, crucially, in the care of F/Sgt Harry Tickle and his ground crew. They had already established something of a record in not losing a Wellington or a Halifax with the ‘G’ code and Harry was to take very great care of his new charge.
On the night of December 6-7 G-George was part of a force of 101 Lancasters involved in an attack on Mannheim. With the target covered in clouds most of the force bombed on dead reckoning and virtually every bomb dropped by the 272 aircraft on the raid missed Mannheim altogether. On his return to Breighton, F/Sgt Saint-Smith asked his ground crew to paint a bomb symbol on the fuselage just below the cockpit and to add a touch of his own, a tiny figure with a halo, showing ‘the Saint’ had been at the controls. Fourteen of the next 15 sorties flown by G-George were accompanied by the tiny figure with the halo before the Lancaster passed to another crew.
The Phantom of the Ruhr of 550 Squadron being bombed up at North Killingholme in readiness for its 100th operation to Le Havre in September 1944. (Les Browning)
460 Squadron lost aircraft regularly during that winter and the following spring but each time G-George returned safely to Breighton, once showing the scars of incendiaries which had struck the aircraft’s tail. When the squadron left Breighton for Binbrook G-George was among the first aircraft to arrive at the big North Lincolnshire airfield where new concrete runways had recently been laid. The bomb tallies on the fuselage continued to mount up. One, curiously, was accompanied by a small red flag complete with hammer and sickle. It later transpired that the George’s pilot at the time, F/Sgt Jack Murray, was fond of saying ‘All for Joe’, a reference to Joe Stalin, each time the aircraft dropped its bombs over Germany. When his tour ended the ground crew added the tiny flag to mark his crew’s achievement.
During the winter of 1943-44 G-George was to fly to Berlin no fewer than 10 times. Once, the bomb-aimer wasn’t satisfied with the bomb run and the Lancaster flew a wide circuit of the city before going over the target area a second time and, despite being the first to take off, was the last to land at Binbrook. There, standing at the end of the runway as it touched down, was Harry Tickle, worried that ‘his’ Lancaster had come to some harm. The closest it did was on the night of December 16-17, 1943 when it was attacked by a night fighter over Berlin but, despite being holed several times, made it safely back to Lincolnshire, landing safely despite the foggy conditions.
On April 20, 1944, G-George flew its 90th operation to Cologne. When the aircraft returned it was taken off operations, in need of a major overhaul before it would be fit to fly again. Soon afterward Binbrook was visited by the Australian Prime Minister, Mr John Curtin, as part of his tour of Australian forces in Britain. 460 was the RAAF’s premier squadron in Bomber Command and, at the end of the tour, he was officially presented with Lancaster W4783 G-George by the RAF as a gift to the Australian people and arrangements were made for it to be flown back to Australia where it would be used to raise funds for the Victory War Loans scheme.
That summer G-George underwent a major overhaul at Binbrook including fitting four new engines, all under the watchful eye of Harry Tickle. A tour-expired crew of highly-experienced and decorated Australians, led by F/Lt Eddie Hudson DFC, was selected for the 12,000-mile flight from Binbrook to its destination, Amberley in Queensland. Added to their strength was, appropriately, F/Sgt Tickle, the man who had cared for G-George for the past two years. The aircraft left Binbrook a few days short of its second anniversary with 460 Squadron for Prestwick in Scotland where further modifications were carried out and then, on October 10, left to fly the Atlantic, landing on Canada’s eastern seaboard. Then it was on via Montreal, San Francisco, Hawaii, Fiji and New Caledonia before arriving in Australia on November 10.
Over the next few months G-George visited most of the major cities in Australia and, among the passengers it carried during that time was one of the most remarkable men to have served with 460 Squadron at Binbrook, F/O Roberts Dunstan DSO, the one-legged gunner whose story is told in an earlier chapter.
F-Fox of 550 Squadron is waved off by ground staff at North Killingholme. It completed 100 operations with 103, 166 and 550 Squadrons. (Roland Hardy)
Its job done, G-George ended the war parked on the edge of an airfield near Canberra and there it remained for the next 10 years. There were moves to reduce the aircraft to scrap but, thankfully, it was decided that G-George should have pride of place in a new museum then being planned for the city to commemorate Australia’s role in the Second World War. In 2003 G-George underwent another major overhaul as the museum was revamped and is now the centre-piece of a display entitled Striking By Night, set around a night raid on Berlin in December 1943. G-George was also to figure in the lives of thousands of schoolboys in the post-war years as it was chosen as the one of the bombers depicted in the Airfix plastic model kit.
G-George is not the oldest surviving Lancaster. That honour belongs to R5868 Q-Queenie of 83 Squadron and S-Sugar of 467 Squadron, another Australian unit, which flew from Scampton, Bottesford and Waddington with 5 Group, completing 136 operations. Unlike Elsham’s Mike-Squared, which recorded even more operations, it was saved from the scrap dealers, spent some time as the ‘gate guardian’ at Scampton and now resides in the RAF Museum at Hendon. The only other surviving Lancasters to see operational service are five Canadian-built Mk X aircraft which served very briefly in 1945 with the all-Canadian 6 Group in North Yorkshire before being returned to Canada where, it seemed, there was more a sense of history than existed in Britain at the time, or perhaps less of a need for scrap metal.
Chapter 23
Aftermath
Manna, Exodus and Disbandment
There were no more bombs to drop, at least in anger, but the work of 1 Group’s Lancasters wasn’t quite over yet. Earlier in April the group’s squadrons had been warned that they may be required to carry out food drops over Holland. Part of the country had been by-passed by the war and the civilian population, and quite a few of the German occupiers, were nearing starvation. An unofficial agreement had been made between the British and Canadian armies and the Germans that if the drops were carried out they would not be opposed.
No doubt there were many Lancaster crews sceptical about the arrangement but towards the end of the month they began carrying out dummy drops on their own airfields and, on April 29, Operation Manna began. Over the next eight days Lancasters from 1 and 3 Groups dropped 6,672 tons of supplies in four designated areas in western Holland.
Waltham airfield was used as one of the collection points for the supplies of tea, sugar, dried milk and eggs, peas, flour, powdered potatoes, chocolate, and bacon. The large sacks were suspended from hooks in the bombs bays while others were packed into canisters designed for incendiary bombs. Once the bomb doors were closed the bags were gently released and then, over the ‘target’, dropped from as low at 200ft.
300 Squadron Lancasters in formation over Lincolnshire. (Peter Green Collection)
550 Squadron’s ‘The Stalker’ low over Holland during a Manna drop on May 5,
1945. This remarkable photograph was taken by a Dutch civilian at Puttershoek, near Rotterdam and was supplied by John Carson, who was ‘The Stalker’s’ navigator.
The dropping zones were marked with large white crosses and Pathfinder Mosquitoes used red target indicators to help the accuracy of the drops.
Once the word got around in Holland large crowds turned out to watch the food drops and white stones were laid, spelling in English: ‘Thank You Boys’, ‘Thank You RAF’ and ‘God Bless You’.
Operation Manna concluded with the German surrender and then another happy task befell the Lancaster crews of 1 Group, flying home British PoWs in what became known as Operation Exodus. The aircraft were used to fly 24 men at a time, mainly from the airfield at Melsbroek, near Brussels, to airfields in the south of England. Many of those who returned in the Lancasters were Bomber Command crews, some of whom had been captured long before the Avro Lancaster came into service. Exodus was a major undertaking and the 40 Lancasters supplied by 12 and 626 Squadrons at Wickenby, for instance, ferried 960 men back to England in a single day. Later in the summer some aircraft were used in Operation Dodge, flying soldiers back from Italy. 300 Squadron at Faldingworth was given the job of flying supplies to the Polish Red Cross, initially in Belgium and later in Germany itself, a task they undertook with some relish. For the Polish airmen the end of the war was not greeted with the same unbridled enthusiasm as it was by neighbouring squadrons. Their country was not free and many would never return to Poland, choosing to stay in England.
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