![]() ![]() He didn't have anything to protect him except a little piece of Perspex and towards the end of the war the piece of Perspex in front of his turret was taken out to help his field of view. ![]() ![]() The loneliest and most vulnerable position of a Lancaster's crew. Down all the way at the bottom there: the tail turret gunner. That for crew protection is just about it. Here and behind the pilot's head are the only pieces of armour plating on the entire airplane. The turret is made by Martin in the United States as opposed to the earlier Fraser Nash ones with 303 British guns. On this particular turret there are two 50 calibre machine guns. Coming further back now and over the main wing spa which is very difficult to get up and over you have three: the first one covering the controls the secondary spa and then the third one that you have to climb up over and through to get over there. Coming further back now behind the pilot on the left you would have had the navigator, next to the navigator, the wireless operator for communications. Down below and further forward there would have been the bomb aimer laid on his tummy and also doubling up as a front gunner two 303 machine guns in the front turret. No co-pilot on the Lancaster in the wartime not like a B-17 you just had the pilot on the left and his flight engineer on the right. So, from the top you would have had on the right hand side the flight engineer in charge of looking after the engines. Graham Rodgers: "We are now inside the Imperial War Museum's Canadian built Lancaster KB889.So positions: you would have had stereotypically seven men, eight if there's an intelligence man on board. More comfortable, warmer, more room in the cockpit, much better equipment, faster of course." It's just like an overgrown tiger moth almost, you know, lovely little thing. Peter Huggins: "Oh beautiful, beautiful, it’s almost faultless I think. Interviewer: "What did you think of the Lancaster to fly after the Wellington?" Graham Rodgers: "With an extended wingspan of 102 feet, a wing spa to take the weight of the bomb load and four very powerful engines, Mr Chadwick ended up with an airplane within excess of five and a half thousand horsepower, capable of carrying the heaviest bomb load in the European theatre of operation, up to 20 plus thousand feet and 240 miles an hour." Reporter: "Liquid cooled Rolls-Royce Merlins - as good an aircraft engine as the world can produce." Mr Chadwick got rid of the Rolls-Royce Vulture engines, replaced them with four, tried tested very reliable 27 litre v12s called the Merlin." So, he altered the wing spa, altered the tail slightly, and replaced the two inboard engines which were made by Rolls Royce but they were neither that reliable nor that powerful - they were called the Vulture. Graham Rodgers: "Now Mr Chadwick basically went back to his drawing board with the Manchester and decided he could do a lot better. Here was the machine that should bring to fruition Winston Churchill's promise that Germany would be subjected to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by any country." Reporter: "The greatest and most powerful of the RAF's mighty fleet of bombers, Lancaster's electrified the world with their spectacular debut in the epic daylight raid on Augsburg. Avro, the company that made the Manchester, went back to the drawing board with a designer, a gentleman called Roy Chadwick and ended up with this: the Lancaster." An Avro Manchester with a full crew of seven guys usually were struggling to get up to ten thousand feet and 200 miles an hour and also struggling to get off the ground with a full bomb load sometimes. Those early aeroplanes - twin-engined aeroplanes, such as the Wellington, the Blenheim, the Hanley Page Hamden and the Whitley - very brave guys going around in quite antiquated airplanes. Graham Rodgers: “In the early parts of the Second World War from 1939 to 1941 some statistics say that only one in 10 RAF bombers in Bomber Command was getting to within five miles of its target. ![]()
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