G For George Lancaster Bomber

• Conor Hyssett, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2008

“G for George” Lancaster Bomber
The Australian Lancaster Bomber “G for George” was delivered to No.460 RAAF squadron on the 27th October 1942 (where it became “G for George”) to assist with the squadrons night bombing operations over enemy territory. W4783 (George) was stationed at Binbrook one of the areas command bases. The immense bomber itself is 21.18m long which is as long as half the size of an Olympic swimming pool and its wingspan is 31.09m which is even longer than the body!
Seventy-four hundred Lancasters were hurriedly built to keep up with the loses of the bombers destroyed in action. “George” was one of an early order for 200 Lancasters from Metropolitan Vickers. These were given serial numbers in the range fromW4761 to W5012. From this number, apart from “George” (W4783) only 13 operated long enough to be sent to training units and survive the war.
George flew 90 missions sandwiched between 1943 to 1944 over Germany and occupied Europe. It went on the first of its ninety missions on the night of December 5/6th, 1942 to Mannheim. Throughout its sixteen months which seemed as long as sixteen years of operations, it was flown by 29 different pilots and tallying the various crews, some 200 men mostly Australians flew in this overwhelming Lancaster during its 664 flying hours with the Squadron. Its first pilot was Flight Sergeant J.A. Saint Smith and alongside one of the bombs was inscribed "Saint". On the night of January 13/17th George operated against Berlin taking a war correspondent as a passenger and returned with 13 flak (anti-aircraft) holes for him to write about!
Some abnormal incidents occurred on the night of October 22/23 in an electrical storm on the way both to and from the target - Kassel. Balls of fire were observed and blue flames of St. Elmo's fire appeared to dance on the propellers. The most peculiar of all, a lump of ice hurtled through the side window and struck the flight engineer on the head causing minor injuries.
George was as dangerous as a Spitfire with 100 machine-guns. It carried a normal bomb load of one 4,000-lb “cookie” blast bombs, 48 x 30-lb incendiaries (bombs that create fires) and 840 x 4-lb incendiaries.
In night raids George and the rest of the squadron would quickly creep up on their targets as quietly as mice and then they would unleash their bomb loads and destroy the targets.
In the air "G" for George was damaged over twenty times by enemy action. On April 22nd, 1944, after its 90th and last operation the previous day, it was officially retired from operations.
“George” is the aircraft that was presented to Australia in mid-1944 for display in the War Museum at Canberra. It was fully repaired and the bomb silhouettes remained together with a small "G" on the nose.
G' for George Avro Lancaster Bomber is now on display in the ANZAC Hall at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, ACT, Australia.