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Burn Down Their Hanging Trees (1/72 Airfix Lancaster B.III)


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5 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’d never seen that film before; fascinating.  

the bits that look like genuine wartime film, the perimeter tracsk, bombing up, refuelling, are all from the Nightbombers film

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nightbombers-DVD-H-I-Cozens/dp/B0001GNJK6

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The wartime colour film of Lancasters used in in this now re-mastered DVD is the only known to exist. It was de-classified under the "Thirty Year's Rule" in 1978 and so was not available for use in earlier documentary programmes such as "The World At War". Since release, parts of the film have appeared in other Video/DVD's and used on TV. For example, footage was shown by BBC TV last December in their "RAF at 90" programme.

Viewed as a whole, the film reflects a full day of activity at a front line RAF Bomber Base. It shows ground crew changing a Merlin engine, replacement of a rear turret with twin 0.50 inch machine guns rather than four 0.303 inch guns and then the fuelling and bombing up of aircraft. Bombs of various sizes are shown being manhandled on to trolleys then moved by tractor from the bomb dump to have fuses attached before being taken to aircraft and winched up into the bomb bay. Aircrew are shown being fully briefed and getting into flying gear prior to taking off "for a mission to Berlin". The latter section appears "staged" but still reveals what it was like to be in a Lancaster and the near impossibility of getting out if an aircraft was hit by shell or cannon fire from anti aircraft guns or night fighters.

The quality of the footage is astonishing given that the bulk was filmed using a 16mm camera. The interior shots of a fully operational Lancaster (and perhaps the reason for the ban on release until 1978) show the use of all the electronics that became available later in the war for navigation and early warning of night fighter attack.

The commentary is informative and the DVD also has some wonderful extra's that highlight the life of the late Air Commodore H I Cozens who made the film at his own initiative in 1944. In doing so, a moment of history was preserved for those involved and for future generations.

Essential viewing for those seeking to better comprehend the sheer scale of effort and resources behind the RAF's bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in World War Two.

 

 

 

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Air Commodore Cozens seems like an interesting guy. Commanded 19 Squadron when they got the Spitfire, part of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition, lived to be 91.

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22 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’d never seen that film before; fascinating.   They weren’t joking about the number of airfields in Lincolnshire; I was brought up in the Notts/Lincs border and walked the dog on many a peri track.  

 

Not sure I have seen you tackle anything with more than 1 engine before, PC.  Position duly taken up somewhere near the bar.

I built some Blenheims last year with Jon, and almost exactly four years ago, I did another Airfix Lanc, so it's not quite my first rodeo, but I rarely do big aircraft because it always seems to take so much longer. 

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True - I’d forgotten the Blenheims.  4 years ago there was so much bad stuff going on in my life that I’ve rather chosen to forget the lot!

 

And thanks, @Troy Smith - I don’t think I realised there was any real colour footage of Bomber Command

 

 

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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1 minute ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

True - I’d forgotten the Blenheims.  4 years ago there was so much bad stuff going on in my life that I’ve rather chosen to forget the lot!

 

 

Four years ago I had no children and I was thin. Life was pretty good! 

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I would definitely replace the gun barrels PC. The kit offerings are quite good to be fair as you've noted, and it is possible to fix the rear turret guns on last. However, the forward turret barrels have to fixed in situ and consequently there is a high risk of busting them off (I think you already know that there's no need to ask how I know this!). Also being right at the front of the aircraft they are quite noticeable (a bit like making a pig's ear of wall papering around a light switch which everyone will notice). Not suggesting for one moment that you will or would bust them off or make a hash of gluing them back on again, but prevention is the best cure :winkgrin: 

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2 minutes ago, Tomoshenko said:

I would definitely replace the gun barrels PC. The kit offerings are quite good to be fair as you've noted, and it is possible to fix the rear turret guns on last. However, the forward turret barrels have to fixed in situ and consequently there is a high risk of busting them off (I think you already know that there's no need to ask how I know this!). Also being right at the front of the aircraft they are quite noticeable (a bit like making a pig's ear of wall papering around a light switch which everyone will notice). Not suggesting for one moment that you will or would bust them off or make a hash of gluing them back on again, but prevention is the best cure :winkgrin: 

Oh, I've done it too, plus Winston is fascinated by "the plane with the mouths" that is my prior Lancaster, and makes grabs for it whenever he's in the grotto.

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52 minutes ago, Procopius said:

I built some Blenheims last year with Jon, and almost exactly four years ago, I did another Airfix Lanc, so it's not quite my first rodeo, but I rarely do big aircraft because it always seems to take so much longer. 

To be fair you just built 3 hurri’s and a 109, that’s 4 engines.... this will be a sinch 

 

also was ropey really 4 years ago! Doesn’t time fly!

 

rob

Edited by rob85
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1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

the bits that look like genuine wartime film, the perimeter tracks, bombing up, refuelling, are all from the Nightbombers film

Filmed half a mile up the road from my house.

RAF Hemswell. :poppy:

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4 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

Essential viewing for those seeking to better comprehend the sheer scale of effort and resources behind the RAF's bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in World War Two.

Jon Sumida, the naval historian (who obliterated me in a brief phone conversation when I was trying and failing miserably to get into grad school) once pointed out that the only endeavour to rival keeping Bomber Command  in the war was probably the provisioning and maintaining of the Grand Fleet's thirty-plus dreadnoughts in World War I.

 

24 minutes ago, CedB said:

Another moving and poignant introduction PC - we need to go to Lincolnshire, don't we?

I'd certainly like to! And Runnymede, of course. 

 

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15 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Another moving & thought provoking intro Edward, they're always appreciated. I've long thought that apart from the direct results of Bomber Commands campaign on individual targets, an equal contribution was the resources that campaign tied down which the German leadership would far rather have diverted to more offensive tasks.

I'll sign in for this one too please.

Steve.

Totally agree, Steve. Funnily enough I recently watched the episode of the seminal TV series The World at War on You Tube about the Allied bombing offensive. In it Albert Speer clearly states that, as far as he was concerned, the huge diversion of men and materiel from the Eastern Front to the defence of the Reich in effect produced a second front long before any troops landed at Normandy. 

 

Anyway, Edward, looking forward to following this.  Your opening comments help remind one, should it be needed, of why so many young men of Bomber Command made the ultimate sacrifice.  I have quiet a stash of Bomber Command kits that I've accumulated in the last year or so including two Lancs, one Airfix and one Revell, so I'll be keen to see how you approach this kit.

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8 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

the bits that look like genuine wartime film, the perimeter tracsk, bombing up, refuelling, are all from the Nightbombers film

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nightbombers-DVD-H-I-Cozens/dp/B0001GNJK6

 

 

 

I remember when it was screened on the BBC back in the 70s, along with The Memphis Belle as a kind of double bill.  Being about 10 years old and obsessed with the RAF and Airfix it was TV heaven for me.  It even made the front cover of the Radio Times if I recall correctly.

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 I'm not terribly confident about the green so far forward. Certainly the Lancaster Jack Curry walks through in the 1980 documentary The Lancaster Legend seems to show a black interior forward of the main spar, although of course it's hard to know what is or isn't a postwar restoration. However, a photo of a w/op at his station on page 52 of Lancaster at War 1 also seems to show black rather than green, though it's hard to say with a black and white photo. (Of course, then again, on page 54 of same, there's a photo of the bomb aimer's panel and the nose interior there seems to be green, so go figure.) 

 

Hi,

 

While doing research for the Lanc we are restoring in France, we found out that black cockpit was in fact a postwar modification (from 1947 or 1948), and since most of the surviving Lancs served postwar, that's why you find this color in the cockpits. For a wartime Lanc, only the bomb aimer position was black.

 

HTH,

 

Laurent

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1 hour ago, Meatbox8 said:

Anyway, Edward, looking forward to following this.  Your opening comments help remind one, should it be needed, of why so many young men of Bomber Command made the ultimate sacrifice.  

I think the opening of The World At War is as eloquent an argument as any. I often think of what Marguerite Rouffanche, the only survivor from the church burned down by the "Das Reich" division in Ouradour-sur-Glane in 1944 said: 

 

"I ask that justice be done with God's help. I came out alive from the crematory oven; I am the sacred witness from the church. I am a mother who has lost everything."

 

Her daughter was killed in the church.

 

1 hour ago, Meatbox8 said:

I remember when it was screened on the BBC back in the 70s, along with The Memphis Belle as a kind of double bill.  Being about 10 years old and obsessed with the RAF and Airfix it was TV heaven for me.  It even made the front cover of the Radio Times if I recall correctly.

Both are excellent. Memphis Belle is one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. No ra-ra propaganda, no histrionics, just a matter-of-fact depiction of the war, and all the more powerful for it.

 

1 hour ago, silberpferd said:

While doing research for the Lanc we are restoring in France, we found out that black cockpit was in fact a postwar modification (from 1947 or 1948), and since most of the surviving Lancs served postwar, that's why you find this color in the cockpits. For a wartime Lanc, only the bomb aimer position was black.

Ack! If only I'd seen this two hours ago. Was this true for all Lancasters? 

 

In any case, I spent most of the day cleaning prefatory to getting Mrs P and our children from O'Hare far too early tomorrow morning, cleaning and shoveling snow, and let me just say (and I only use a big, big "D" because I can't use the word beginning with a letter two down from it on here) that I HATE THIS DAMNED WINTER AND ALL THIS DAMN SNOW AND I GODDAM HATE SHOVELING. Ahem. I've had to shovel twice today and will have to dig the car out in the morning, so my nerves may be a little shot. Anyway, Mrs P will've spent a week with the kids by the time she gets home, so I fully expect her to need to "run an errand" and take three hours to buy groceries or go upstairs to put away laundry in her mind, while she sleeps for as long as she can get away with before I allow the boys to find her, and more power to her, but expect little progress tomorrow. 

 

Tonight I faffed about with photoetch, which won't be visible when the aircraft is closed up, but by god I paid for it.

 

IMG_20190217_221103

 

IMG_20190217_221119

 

IMG_20190217_220655

 

I found all of this extremely relaxing, though you might not've believed that had you heard me doing it. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Yes, that opening is about as powerful as it gets for a TV documentary series.  Unfortunately TV producers don't seem to want to make programmes like that any more.  Nothing too challenging these days. 

 

Indeed,the Memphis Belle is excellent for all the reasons you mention.  Can't really say the same about the feature film of the same name made in the 80s.  A bit cliched and sentimental, although it does have its moments.  Some nice 'real' aeroplanes at least and none of that George Lucas Red Tails nonsense.   

 

Anyway, looking good so far.  Those etched parts look great.  I don't really get on with etch but ordered an Eduard set for my Airfix Lancaster from Hannants.   Unfortunately they sent me the set for the Hasegawa kit and I never got around to returning it.  I had always assumed that the cockpit from the navigator's position forward was black so I am already reaping the benefits of following your build. 

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6 hours ago, Procopius said:

Tonight I faffed about with photoetch, which won't be visible when the aircraft is closed up, but by god I paid for it. 

You did good investment in both money and time, in fact, a lot of forward interior will be seen especially instrument panel and cockpit sides. I regret I did not do it on my B.II I did couple of years ago.

As always I enjoy watching the progress and reading your threads.

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19 hours ago, Procopius said:

Yes, I've been thinking about that quite a bit. The .303s look amazingly puny in photos of real Lancasters, but the Airfix barrels (which are surprisingly nicely detailed) are almost big enough to be Bofors guns. Anyone who's had experience of either, I welcome your input on the relative merit and sizes of Quickboost or those teeny tiny metal barrels.o at Newton Heath in early 1943. 

I recently had the good taste to try out teeny tiny metal barrels from Master on my Whitley

41467906050_c99771dd98_o.jpg

Now I cannot live without some turned brass guns on my models.

Now, lets go back and read the thread properly this time.  A very moving introduction as everyone else has said, and you do have a superb grasp of wording!

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That photo of the rear turret is very sobering; I think this every time I see one close up.  Just how terrifying must it have been to sit in there, totally freezing, for hours at a time, knowing that your chances of getting out in the event of major problems were significantly lower than your mates’ (& let’s face it, theirs weren’t high)?  Oh, and your survival might depend on how alert you could remain.  And then you had to go and do it again a night or two later.

 

Most of the guys who flew in those beasts were little more than kids.  But they deserve every ounce of respect we can give them.   

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33 minutes ago, isaneng said:

Procopious, 

 

I sent Johnny 'The Spadgent' some interior pics of our BBMF Lanc B1. You are welcome to the same if you wish. Our cockpit is mostly black, with some interior green towards floor level. 

Cheers, Isaneng.

Yes please!

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1 hour ago, isaneng said:

Our cockpit is mostly black, with some interior green towards floor level. 

 

12 hours ago, silberpferd said:

While doing research for the Lanc we are restoring in France, we found out that black cockpit was in fact a postwar modification (from 1947 or 1948), and since most of the surviving Lancs served postwar, that's why you find this color in the cockpits. For a wartime Lanc, only the bomb aimer position was black.

 

again,  this, unrestored.   

detail_lanc_04.jpg&key=1ce0210a6e28e9a0c

 

this is a link to a 360 panorama of the Lanc cockpit at Duxford

https://www.pan3sixty.co.uk/blog/portfolio/avro-lancaster-kb889-at-duxford/

 

again, mostly grey-green, with that green leather,  one for perhaps young Winston @Procopius  ? 

 

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