Ton-Up Lancs

Book excerpt: An updated and expanded photographic history of the famed military aircraft—and the men who flew them. Aviation historian Norman Franks updates his classic book, The Lancaster, with new information and photos. The Avro Lancaster was a four-engine heavy bomber that played a crucial role in World War II, and this illustrated volume records the history of thirty-five of them, supported by stories from aircrew members. The most famous of the bombers is “Queenie” (W5868), the only one of these Lancasters that survives, now in the Bomber Command Hall at the Royal Air Force Museum in London. Ton-Up Lancs delves into some of the controversies surrounding Queenie and other Lancasters, and also includes detailed listings of each raid these thirty-five Lancasters flew during from 1942 through 1945, together with the names of the pilot and crew that took them on sorties all over Hitler’s Third Reich and Northern Italy, on support missions before and after D-Day in June 1944, and attacks on V1 rocket launch sites situated in Northern France. The book also offers a view from one of the Lancaster’s former skippers on what it was like to fly a bomber tour of operations in Bomber Command.