Books online: The Crew: The Story of a Lancaster Bomber Crew, 2021. The Crew: The Story of a Lancaster Bomber Crew.

The drama and anxiety of individual missions-to Kassel, Munich and Augsburg as well as Berlin-is evoked with thrilling immediacy while the military events and strategic decisions are interwoven deftly with the narrative of the crew’s operational careers. Fishpond Fiji, The Crew: The Story of a Lancaster Bomber Crew by David PriceBuy. From their earliest beginnings through training in North America and the danger of the 45 bombing raids they flew with 97 Squadron, David Price describes the crew’s wartime experiences with human sympathy allied to a technical understanding of one of the RAF’s most iconic aircraft. Gloucestershire-born bomb aimer Ken Cook, Australian pilot Jim Comans, Navigator Don Bowes, Upper Gunner George Widdis, Tail Gunner 'Jock' Bolland, Flight Engineer Ken Randle and Radio Operator Roy Woollford were seven ordinary young men risking their lives in the dark skies above Hitler’s Reich. Here is the what we know of their final mission aboard Lancaster bomber ED559 and what may have happened over France that winter night in 1943.The Crew, based on interviews with Ken Cook, the crew’s sole surviving member, recounts the wartime exploits of the members of an Avro Lancaster crew between 1942 and the war’s end. They’d faced the terrors and dangers of flak and night fighters over the well-defended cities of Germany the previous year. Six months previously, four of the seven had baled out over Wiltshire from a crippled Wellington bomber which had been heavily damaged by flak over Essen. noted individuals associated with the Lancaster story are also contained. The crew were a mix of Aussies and Brits and some had already seen action together. The Comans crew flew 45 hazardous bombing missions - mostly deep into Germany.

III ED559 JA-D her crew of seven took off from an aerodrome in northern Lincolnshire, and flew into danger over occupied Europe never to return. And a bomber that never returned.Īboard Lancaster B Mk. This operational sortie is now but an all-too-brief footnote in the history of the RAF during the Second World War. What little official information exists tells a relatively simple story an operation to drop sea mines in the Gironde estuary in western France. It is one mission amongst the hundreds of thousands that happened. It tells the story of Lancaster bomber ED559 and its crew of seven. The Avro Lancaster rained terror on Germany but never attained the B-17’s fame, even though it could carry twice the bombload over an equal distance. 207 Squadron, Royal Air Force, strike Berlin in late 1943. This site tells the story of a single Lancaster bomber operation in March 1943. The Crew, based on interviews with Ken Cook, the crews sole surviving member, recounts the wartime exploits of the members of an Avro Lancaster crew. Avro Lancaster: The Night Raider by Stephan Wilkinson Avro Lancaster Mark IIIs of No. Alas, many of the incidents are now forgotten or being lost as those that were there sadly pass away.Īmong these stories are those of Bomber Command and the Allied air offensive against Nazi Germany and the countries occupied by the Nazis. The Second World War generated millions of stories some are well known, others much less so. The intimate telling of the life of an Avro Lancaster crew during World War Two, bringing together the story of this iconic RAF bomber and its service with the. gloucestershire-born bomb aimer ken cook, hard-bitten australian pilot jim comans, navigator don bowes, upper gunner george widdis, tail gunner 'jock' bolland, flight engineer ken randle and radio.

Lancaster bomber crew stories