The Lancaster: Britain's Flying Past

This is going to be big.

Really, really big.

It's about the plane that won the war...

After you had flown in it, you had faith in it.

It's about men who flew into the darkness...

We were just schoolboys.

..and rained down fire.

Above all, it's about the thousands who gave their lives flying in it...

You didn't see dead bodies, you just saw empty beds.

..and the people they were prepared to die for.

I often wish I could go back in time

just to see him once more.

And Dad.

This is not a love-letter.

It's not as simple as that.

But it is a tribute.

To a hell raiser...

a life-saver...

a dambuster...

..and the most Magnificent Seven Britain has ever had.

This is the Lancaster.

'I've come to Lincolnshire to see one of my boyhood heroes.

'A British heavyweight champion of the skies.'

'As a child, I would have given anything to see it up close.'

'But as I get nearer to it now, I feel almost apprehensive.'

Deep breath.

Here we go.

There it is.

The Lancaster.

It really takes your breath away.

156,000 times, Lancaster bombers like this one

flew into occupied Europe

to break the Nazi's stranglehold on the continent.

From 1942 to the bitter end,

more than half a million tonnes of Lancaster bombs

kept tens of thousands of German troops and pilots tied up at home.

While the Russians advanced from the East,

D-Day was being planned in the West.

But nearly half of the crews who took part in these raids

never came home.

Over 20,000 young men paid for the Lancaster's success

with their lives.

Lancaster crews led raid after raid on Germany's industrial heartland.

Railways, factories, shipyards and dams were targeted.

And Germany's great cities were destroyed.

It was brutal, hard to stomach and incredibly effective.

After the war, in a letter to the people who built the plane,

Marshal of the RAF, Sir Arthur Harris, said,

"This aircraft was the greatest single factor in winning the war."

But the origins of the plane

gave no indication of how important it would become.

Strangely, this one-in-a-million aircraft

started life as an entirely different plane.

A two-engine bomber called the Avro Manchester.

But there was one problem with the Manc.

It was absolutely useless.

The MoD were so unimpressed they considered scrapping it entirely.

But Avro's chief engineer, Roy Chadwick,

wasn't going to let his new bomber go down without a fight.

He argued that the Manchester should be upgraded, not scrapped.

The solution, just make it bigger.

It needed longer wings, a new tail unit

and four mighty Merlin engines.

Then there was the vast bomb bay,

stretching two thirds of the length of the aircraft.

By the end of the war,

this 33-foot long cavern would carry the Grand Slam.

A ten-ton bomb.

No other bomber came close.

The new aircraft needed a new name.

The Manchester became the Lancaster.

'And here's a sight become increasingly routine.

'A Lancaster leaving the sheds for its test flight.'

Now we're going back to the 1940s, to a time in Britain

when hundreds of Lancaster bombers flying past gave hope.

At last, we could hit back.

We're going to meet the people who built them, cherished them,

even found love through them.

This is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

We'll be going wing-tip to wing-tip

with Britain's very last flying Lancaster bomber.

Captain Roger Nichols will have the pleasure of flying the old Lanc,

while I will get to see the plane in all its glory alongside,

with my old friend and ace pilot, Bill Giles.

A top speed of over 300mph, it could fly at 24,500 feet

and had a range of over 2,500 miles.

It was the best bomber of the Second World War.

Watching it take off now, and what a great moment.

Just seeing this big plane lift off as if it's just a bird in the sky.

You can just see it now in the corner. It's banking.

It's going just a little bit slower than we are.

But we're still going to have to catch her up.

That's terrific. We are now about 100 yards from the Lancaster.

We're in formation flying

with, I have to say, the most beautiful aircraft I've ever seen.

It looks beautiful, but also, when you get closer

and you can see the machine guns, it looks rather sinister.

It's that combination of style, beauty

and also "I'm going to get you! You're in trouble if you see this!"

You wouldn't want to be on the receiving end, would you?

ENGINE ROARS

This is the sound of my childhood dream, really.

These big engines coming over our village in Oxfordshire

and you thought, "That's life, that's excitement. If only I could be part of it."

And here I am - years later - and I am part of it.

MUSIC: "Nimrod" from Enigma Variations by Elgar

The Lancaster is now right underneath us.

Now, that's not what you'd expect to see.

This great big plane as if it's a little model aircraft

with a patchwork of England underneath.

This was a dangerous position for the Lancaster

because they were often hit by the bombs falling on them from above.

You could be hit by friendly fire.

The average age of a Lancaster crewmember was just 22.

Life expectancy for a new recruit was just two weeks -

about the same as in the trenches during the First World War.

To try to understand what it was like to fly in Lancasters,

we've gathered together an extraordinary group of men.

They are the secret of the plane's success.

The seven men it took to fly it.

This is a very special moment.

Our very own 2014 World War II Lancaster bomber crew.

Each man carried out one of the seven essential roles on a Lancaster.

Pilot Rusty Waughman,

navigator Paul Bland,

bomb aimer John Bell,

flight engineer Frank Tilley,

wireless operator John De Hoop,

mid gunner Harry Irons

and the man in the tail, rear gunner Dave Fellowes.

These seven men flew hundreds of sorties into enemy territory,

and nearly 70 years later are still here to tell me all about it.

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

-Ah, hello, sir.

-I'm very pleased to see you.

I've met a few special people over the years, but I'm not sure

any one of them has made me feel quite like I do right now.

-Now, you're the pilot, aren't you?

-That's right. The pilot, yes.

-So it's your job to tell me about all the crew.

-Oh, God.

A lot of the pilots didn't know left from right, did they?

THEY LAUGH

Rusty and the rest of our crew never flew together in the 1940s.

But, back then, finding out who you were going to fly with

was a bit of a lottery.

You've got the pilots, the navigator, the bomb aimer, wireless operator.

Put them all in a big room

and said, "Sort yourself out into crews."

And how did that work, though?

Because you wouldn't know each other.

Nope, no idea. No idea at all.

In my case, I was lucky.

I got on the train at Crewe to go to Stafford.

In walked three Australian flight sergeant pilots. We got chatting.

And one of them, who came from Sydney, his mother knew my aunt.

So he said to me, "Well, come on, we have something in common.

"Come fly with me." And I did.

So the whole thing was by chance?

-Sheer chance, yes.

-And then you acted as a family. The seven of you.

You bonded. You bonded together.

And you knew exactly what each other was going to say and what he was going to do.

-You depended on each other.

-Absolutely.

That's the thing that bonded you together.

I can honestly say, though, that we were convinced we were going to survive.

Everybody probably went out on an operation with that thought in mind.

-Some were unlucky.

-If you didn't have luck, you never had a chance.

No.

'They make light of it now, but each one of these men were putting

'their lives on the line every time they stepped on board a Lancaster.

'And the loneliest job of all, the rear gunner.'

-So this is where you'd be?

-Yes, this was my office!

This is where I used to sit

for anything up to perhaps ten hours at a time.

But did you feel very isolated? You're right at the back.

Well, I preferred it that way.

It was my choice. It was cosy!

-Until the anti-aircraft fire came.

-Well... It was part of the job.

'Even in their 90s, these men are clearly tough.

'The gunners in particular haven't lost the self-confidence that

'allowed them to carry out their dangerous mission in such

'an exposed position. But ultimately the Lancaster crew had one goal.

'To drop bombs. And that responsibility fell to John Bell.'

-Is this where you are?

-Yes, that's my office.

The front of the plane.

You're looking... Do you look through this thing?

I'm looking through that piece of Perspex there, yes.

-The bomb site is within that.

-Is this a hard job?

-What do the rest of you think?

-No, easy job.

-Really?

He just lay there and went to sleep and just pressed the tip.

-I bet that's not what you think!

-No, it's not what I think, no.

'Our veteran Lancaster crew give us an incredible insight

'into life inside this extraordinary weapon during the war.

'And I could listen to my new friends' stories all day.

'But I wouldn't be doing the Lancaster justice

'if I didn't try and learn a little bit more

'about some of the boys who never came home.

'And that means going East, into Germany.'

What's the actual plan?

Right, well, we're going to be starting off in Kent here.

And then we'll follow this line up through into the Netherlands

and then our final destination

-is here.

-Right up there?

-Yeah.

-OK.

'Unfortunately, I can't bring the old Lancaster with me on this trip.

'Its raids into Germany are long over, thank goodness.'

Right. We're off then. You'd better keep them,

cos it's important that you know where we're going.

'So, it's time to climb back on board Bill's six-seater for what

'might just be the most romantic chapter of my Lancaster adventure.'

We're off!

Clear prop!

Off up into the clouds,

following the vapour trails of the historic Lancasters.

It's the stuff of my childhood dreams.

And it's not half bad as an adult.

But before we leave British shores, I want to learn

more about the people who built these incredible aircraft.

'The Lancasters are being built in several factories in Britain and Canada.

'The RAF has depended on them for Lancasters, more Lancasters

'and yet more Lancasters.'

Today in Yeadon, there's not much evidence of the wartime factory

that employed thousands of men and women from all over the north.

But if you look closely,

there are still clues to the old Lancaster plant.

# There'll be bluebirds over

# The White Cliffs of Dover

# Tomorrow

# Just you wait and see. #

Back then, the factory was camouflaged.

It's said they put fake cows on the green roof

to make it look like a farmer's field.

To confuse German aerial reconnaissance,

a sloped roof was built so no shadow would fall around the building.

Inside, hundreds of people were putting the finishing touches

to the aircraft they hoped would swing the war in Britain's favour.

Kathleen Rockliff was just 20-years-old

when she started work at Yeadon.

# There'll be bluebirds over

# The White Cliffs of Dover

# Tomorrow

# Just you wait and see. #

SHE CHUCKLES Good Lord!

'Let's say it again.

'The finest bomber in the world,

'built in British factories by British Labour.'

'Kathleen's job was to inspect the aircrafts' giant bomb bays.'

It was absolutely damned unbelievable, to be honest.

Because the thing, it was so big.

And I think at first I was overawed with it all.

And I felt quite hopeless at the start

because I was never a worldly girl, you know what I mean?

Brought up to just sort of just do fairly quiet stuff.

'Meet a few of the ordinary hard-working people

'devoted to this important task.

'Angela Roberts, a capstan operator.

'Maisie Rafferty at a press.

'Little Billy, drilling.

'Let there be no doubt or argument about it,

'the skill and application of the workers in the aircraft factories

'is a great source of strength in our progress towards victory.'

We had these huge torches

and then you had to look around everything there was,

all the things that were screwed on to the bomb bay that had to be there.

You know, numbers, figures, bits of appliances.

We had to learn what was done correctly and what wasn't.

I just sometimes think when I look at it in the sky,

well, you never know, just maybe, just maybe,

I might have been in there.

Just in that bit.

And it might have been one of the ones that I had worked on.

You see, at the time, you don't feel it as much.

Because you're busy working.

But then, as you get older,

and time goes on,

you realise that

everything certainly did matter. You know?

The war had been going on for two and a half years before

the first Lancaster bombers came into service.

By then, our cities had been blitzed,

Hitler held sway over most of continental Europe,

and the Americans had only just come into the war.

The bald fact was...we were losing.

'The first part of the war

'was particularly disappointing for Bomber Command.

'In 1941, an investigation found that only 30% of bombers

'who claimed to have landed their bombs accurately

'were within five miles of their target.'

The arrival of the Lancaster would signal a major change.

And, at night, under cover of darkness,

it would come into its own.

You searched the skies for something perhaps you didn't want to see.

Your job was to look out for a fighter,

maybe wanting to make an attack on you.

The raids were terrible.

We were very much aware of being shot down.

You cannot describe the horrendous barrage the Germans put up.

We saw aircraft being shot down, going down in flames.

Or being caught in searchlights, not being able to escape.

A couple of minutes from the target, really, the bomb aimer took over.

Left, left, right. Left, left, right.

Until you know that the bomb site is directly on the target.

Steady, steady...

I was on the front of the aeroplane

looking at the whole of this mass of exploding shells and thinking,

"How are we going to get through it?"

I didn't feel very happy when we were on operations,

but you never say anything to anybody else.

We'd volunteered for this.

A lot of people think we were mad, but we knew what we were going into.

One of the most significant bombing missions of the war took place

on the night of August 17th, 1943.

It involved nearly 600 planes, most of them Lancasters.

The target was a small fishing village on the Baltic coast.

Its name - Peenemunde.

The attack came in three waves.

First in were the pathfinders, whose target flares lit up the scene.

We arrived and there wasn't much happening

because I think they thought we were going to Berlin.

They knew the people on the ground weren't expecting an attack

on Peenemunde. Surprise was the key.

Scientist Botho Stuwe was in Peenemunde

as the Lancasters and the rest of the bomber stream approached.

Left, left. Steady.

Right a bit. Steady.

WHISTLE BLOWS

EXPLOSIONS

The raid on Peenemunde followed a similar pattern

to many other Lancaster sorties.

It was ambitious, daring, and ultimately successful,

but as ever, it came with a very high price for the crews involved.

There was more to this obscure German outpost than met the eye.

This small fishing village held a dark secret.

Peenemunde was the home of the Germans' secret missile programme,

the birthplace of the astonishing V1 and V2 rockets which

terrorised the British mainland.

By destroying it, the entire course of the war could be altered.

And there ahead of us is Peenemunde.

I've known that name since I was a kid.

Right, and now we can see right down there,

in front of that main building,

there is a V2 rocket now.

This was an amazingly important site.

Peenemunde is a remarkable place.

Everywhere I look, another ghostly reminder of the war.

This abandoned Nazi barracks

was built for the thousands of soldiers and scientists

stationed here during the '30s and '40s.

It had every possible convenience -

even a theatre to entertain the troops.

I've got the official plan of the Lancaster attack,

Dated "4th July, 1943."

"Description - the target is the experimental rocket projectile

"establishment at Peenemunde.

"The whole complex includes experimental station,

"assembly plant, living quarters, etc, as follows.

"Power plant situated to the west of the complex."

I can honestly say I have never seen anything quite like this.

50 years behind the Iron Curtain

seems to have preserved this building perfectly.

It's now part of an excellent museum.

What an amazing place, isn't it?

'It's still quite frightening but also thrilling.

'Historian Nick Jackson is an expert on wartime Germany.'

This is the prime target.

This is exactly what Bomber Command were looking for.

And this is the power station.

Exactly. It's from here that the entire power supply

for the whole missile development complex originates.

And it's so Germanic, isn't it?

These are people who are very confident.

This is not like a factory in the North of England,

this is not a British Victorian factory,

it's the "We're going to do this,

"we are going to be the biggest and the best in the world."

There's a sort of James Bond element, isn't there?

There is, the evil empire.

Hmm. "We are going to run the world from this secret factory."

There's a bit of that too.

You have to remember, there would have been another huge boiler complex

sitting on these foundations here.

-What, so this would have been over this great big pit?

-That's right.

I can imagine Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe,

great, big man, standing here,

just thinking, "We've got this right. We'll win the war with this."

But Goering and his Luftwaffe didn't win the war

and the raid on Peenemunde proved a vital step

on the road to Allied victory.

Bomber Command's plan of attack

reveals how much intelligence had been gathered in advance of the raid

and lays out in stark terms what the real target was.

The most chilling bit comes at the end.

"The living and sleeping quarters,

"with the object of killing or incapacitating

"as many of the scientific and technical personnel as possible."

So, from up here, John, you can see how enormous the complex is.

It actually started over there in 1936

and a huge wave of over 7,000 technicians and staff and soldiers

pour into the peninsula and create this enormous complex.

Over here there was the airport and the V1 testing areas,

further to the right the main missile launch areas and engine test stands,

a huge settlement complex lying along the Baltic coast

for the staff themselves, and then of course, here,

the port for the delivery of coal

for the power station that we're standing on now,

so absolutely enormous.

So on 17th August, the night of 17th August,

the bombers in their hundreds are coming right across here.

That must have been frightening for those people here.

Can you imagine the sound?

And that number of bombers, you would have been able to feel them.

ENGINES DRONE

This raid was the first to use a master bomber,

who co-ordinated the attack from the air.

One by one, key sites were obliterated.

But the greatest loss of life was not among German scientists

or technical staff.

So most of the people who were killed in the Lancaster raid

-were prisoners.

-That's right, kept in flimsy wooden barracks,

guarded and surrounded by barbed wire. For them, there was no escape.

And these barracks, these are some of them that remain from that time.

Some still survive.

And there were concentration camp victims too, brought here.

There were many, in total around 1,500,

some from concentration camps, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen,

others from Poland, the majority,

Dutch, French, Russian prisoners of war.

And the irony was that they would have thought that the British force

would have been on their side or would have been their allies,

but in that awful modern phrase, they were caught in friendly fire.

-I'm afraid so.

-Yeah.

The loss of life was not all on the ground.

Inevitably, many of the bomber boys paid the ultimate price.

By the time the third wave of bombers reached Peenemunde,

the German response was well under way.

Hundreds of Messerschmitt 110s arrived

with their new twin upward-firing cannons.

All they had to do was fly straight and level underneath you

and just give you a little squirt in the petrol tank, up you went.

In total, Bomber Command lost 40 aircraft that night.

23 were Lancasters.

Not one was recovered.

243 aircrew lost their lives.

45 were captured.

180 Germans were killed.

Between 500 and 600 Polish workers died.

The raid set back Hitler's missile programme

by between three and six months.

The V1 and V2 rockets still went on to cause devastation

on the British mainland, but the delay was critical.

President Eisenhower said, "If the Germans had succeeded

"in perfecting and using these new weapons earlier,

"our invasion of Europe would have proved exceedingly difficult,

"perhaps impossible."

It was a landmark moment for the Lancaster,

a brilliantly co-ordinated,

daring raid which took the enemy completely by surprise.

It meant from now on, nowhere in Germany would be safe.

It should have made heroes of Bomber Command.

But in wartime, nothing is as simple as that.

The Lancaster was instrumental in all major bombing raids

from 1942 until the end of the war.

Most, like Peenemunde, were successful, even celebrated -

most, but certainly but not all.

On the 14th of February 1945, three months before VE Day,

Allied aircraft destroyed the East German city of Dresden.

800 RAF bombers, mostly Lancasters,

pummelled the city with high explosives and incendiaries.

Around 20,000 civilians were killed.

The bombers faced little in the way of resistance.

And the total destruction of Dresden was completed

when over 300 American bombers struck the following day.

It caused international outrage.

But many of those from Bomber Command still believe

Dresden was a legitimate target.

The war wasn't over until the German generals signed the treaty.

People were still being killed. V2s were still being fired into London.

Winston Churchill had urged Bomber Command to attack East German cities

but he tried to disassociate himself from this raid.

What he done to us was terrible, Churchill, what he done.

He completely ignored us, and it was him that told us to go.

The Dresden attack still divides opinion.

I agree with Churchill. It was unnecessary.

After all this sacrifice,

the courage of the men and women of Bomber Command

still went unheralded after the war.

Eventually, nearly 70 years later, a fitting memorial was erected,

right in the heart of the capital they helped to save.

But even then, they had to raise most of the money themselves

for it to be built.

APPLAUSE

Whatever they got, the bomber boys never got it easy.

Dresden didn't signal the end of the Lancaster's war.

In April 1945, the versatile bomber took on a humanitarian role,

dropping food packages to the starving people of northern Holland.

We all sailed in, 500 feet, lovely,

dropped our food, and there was the Dutch, waving to us.

CHEERING

During Operation Exodus,

the Lanc became synonymous with victory and escape.

Thousands of POWs found their way home thanks to the big heavy.

Ten years after the war, the Lancaster crews found themselves

thrust into the limelight in a somewhat surprising way.

A film about the exploits of 617 Squadron,

bombing the great German dams in the Ruhr Valley,

made Hollywood heroes of a scientist called Barnes Wallace

and a remarkable group of men - the Dam Busters.

MUSIC: "Dam Busters March"

On the 16th of May 1943, even those closest to the plan

had no idea how Operation Chastise would transform their lives.

19 bombers were used on the raid. All were Lancasters.

133 airmen took part.

Flight Sergeant George "Johnny" Johnson was a bomb aimer.

His target was the Sorpe Dam.

Today he is Britain's last surviving Dam Buster.

So after the briefing, into the mess for the good old operational meal,

egg and bacon, which was regular,

then eventually out to the aircraft.

Lancaster pilot Stevie Stevens,

part of 57 Squadron, also based at Scampton,

remembers watching the Dam Busters prepare for take-off.

Certainly I had noticed the difference in armoury

on these aircraft because they had

these curious things like large dustbins mounted laterally.

21-year-old Maureen Miller was one of the first female radio operators

of the war. She was on duty

the day Johnny and the rest of 617 Squadron prepared for their mission.

There was an awful lot of secrecy

surrounding the airfield that particular day.

Of course, nobody really knew the reason why.

As each plane took off,

the pilot's name, the letter of the aircraft

and the time of take-off was put up on a board.

And that would remain, of course, until they came back.

My perception was, well,

they'd taken off, good luck, chaps,

and I hope get back safely. And that was it.

Eventually, we found the Sorpe.

Barnes Wallis had estimated that

it would take at least six bombs to crack that dam.

"If you can crack it," he said,

"the water pressure will do the rest."

My real feelings at that stage were concentration on the job that

I had got to do and making sure that I got that

bomb as near as I possibly could to the target.

If I wasn't satisfied,

I'd call "Dummy run."

And, after the sixth or seventh dummy run,

a voice from the rear turret,

"Won't somebody get that bomb out of here?"

On the 10th run, we were down to 30 feet

and when I said, "Bomb, bomb,"

"Thank Christ!" came from the rear turret.

I didn't see the explosion. Dave did, in the rear turret.

And he estimated that the tower of water went up to about 1,000 feet.

And when we circled, we found that

we had just crumbled the top of the dam.

And so we set course for home from there.

And, I suppose,

the most satisfying part of that trip

was that our course home took us over what had been the Mohne,

by which time, it had been breached.

There was water everywhere. It was just like an inland sea.

And it was still coming out of the dam.

And so we had the satisfaction

of seeing something had really been achieved.

I think the Dambusters came back

in the early hours, perhaps four-ish.

When they returned, it was lovely to hear their voices.

I think they were extremely glad to hear ours.

Nearly half the Lancs that took part in the raid were destroyed

and 53 of the airmen involved were killed.

Mary Wallis was at boarding school

when news of the famous raid reached her.

Mary and her father Barnes Wallis had

tested his theory of bouncing bombs using marbles.

She was so excited,

she wrote to him immediately.

Today, Britain's last Dambuster and I

'are privileged to hear what she wrote.'

I wrote him the most excited letter

I think I must ever have written in my life

on 20th May, 1943.

"My darling Daddy,

"Hooray, hooray, hooray!

"Wonderful marbles, up the marbles!

"Cheers, cheers, cheers.

"Oh, well done, Daddy.

"I've been bouncing around and leaping up and downstairs

"and beaming at all the staff and hugging all my little friends

"with exuberance ever since I got Mummy's card

"proclaiming the great news.

"Everybody thinks I'm a bit potty because I am so pleased,

"but won't say why.

"But I sincerely hope that you will have a little bit of rest

"now and then and the dear people will stop bothering you.

"I am overflowing with excitement and admiration.

"Excuse the paper, no more to hand.

"With very much love, congratulations and pride, Wiggy.

"PS, a special congratulations."

-What a lovely letter.

-Wonderful.

-And he kept that.

He must have been proud of you as well as you being proud of him.

I think he was probably pleased, yes.

But it's an extraordinary example of how you at that stage were

right in on it, weren't you? You knew all about what was happening.

Oh, I knew what was happening.

But was he secretive? This was a top-secret mission.

-No, he was never secretive.

-Really?

-No, indeed not.

He never told us, "Don't tell.

"You mustn't say anything about that."

Because the minute that you say that to a young person or indeed to

some rather older people, they immediately tell their

best friends over a pint in the pub or in the dormitory.

And what did he think about the raid? What did he say about that?

Well, of course, he was proud, glad, grateful to the Lord.

He was always grateful to the Lord.

He never took much praise for himself.

But, what shattered him and really bit into his soul

was the loss of life, which he never got over. Never.

-He said, "I've killed all those young men."

-Yes, he did.

And I understand that he cried, actually in the briefing room.

And although Gibson tried to allay it a little,

by explaining that

"Without you, that raid could never have taken place.

"We would never have had that success that we've had this night."

And, whenever we took off on any of those raids,

we knew there was always a chance that we wouldn't come back.

It was no different on this raid from any other.

I don't think that consoled him.

But I think it may have just taken the edge off it a little bit.

-To you, he was always a great man.

-Yes.

-Always.

-And that was the feeling of the squadron generally.

-He was extremely popular with the squadron...

-That meant a lot to him.

It really did.

It was the sort of thing which...

They found that he had done something for them,

which they couldn't possibly have done without him.

He'd really made a difference to their work.

The Dambusters' story became one of the best-known of the war.

But there was another story developing on the night

Johnny and his fellow Dambusters returned from Germany.

And this one, too, has a very Hollywood ending.

At RAF Scampton, Lancaster pilot Steve Stevens had begun to take

a more than professional interest in one of the ladies on the base.

The problem was, he had never laid eyes on her.

-Hello.

-Hello, John!

How very nice to see you!

-Do come in!

-Thank you.

The call sign of the station was Biddy.

So I called out, "Hello, Biddy!" and whatever my call sign was.

"Lounger Easy, over."

"And she said "Hello, Lounger Easy. Pancake?"

And that was the first conversation we'd had.

Pancake meant the runway was clear and you could land.

It was so unusual, because I have never heard a woman's voice

transmitting before, not even in America.

So, when I got here, I heard this voice, I thought, "Crikey! A girl!

"I'll go see what she looks like."

Well, of course, I went up to flight control, but it was so busy

and I was a sprog around the place, so I came away again.

-You were a bit shy, were you?

-More than a bit. Terrified!

Why, what did she look like?

Well, just like she looks now, really, to me.

She's a striking blonde, actually.

That's why she was surrounded by so many men, I suspect.

And then, 70 years later, you look back on that,

and what do you think about it?

-What do you think about the whole thing?

-I'm delighted!

-Yes.

'The lady in question was Maureen Miller.

'But, for the last 70 years, she has been Maureen Stevens.'

-Hello.

-Hello.

Now, I've been talking to Steve and he's been telling me

-all about the first time that he saw you.

-Yes.

-And he was very impressed.

-Yes.

He thought he would never be able to go out with you.

-Do you remember that?

-I remember him coming in.

I don't know why he actually came up to the control tower.

He wanted to see you!

Yes, I think it was purely curiosity.

And I remembered, whilst he was talking, I thought,

"Now, that young man would make a girl a very good husband."

I honestly never, ever dreamed he would be my husband.

Isn't that extraordinary?

I don't think I've ever told Stevie that before,

but it's absolutely true.

So, at that stage, you did think, "Hmm..."

That was my secret for years. But, yes.

And then, I got posted to Scampton,

just before the Dambusters raid.

And I went off duty and walked down the road

and there was Stevie waiting on the path opposite.

Whether he found out what time I was on duty... I suppose he had.

He might well have been flying at some time.

Now, he told me that he'd been waiting there

-for half an hour for you.

-Oh, did he?

Oh, there you are. You can't wait too long for a good thing, can you?

But also, if you look at this picture,

-you look a perfect couple, don't you?

-Yes.

He did have rather lovely dark brown curly hair.

But I don't think it was even that that attracted me.

It was the person himself. It was the brave man.

I thought, "He's doing a very, very wonderful job

"going to battle every night."

Probably that was it.

You start going out in May, but by the end of the year,

you're married, aren't you?

Yeah, married on the 4th December 1943.

That's pretty quick, isn't it?

Well, I suppose it was, really. Yes.

Did you feel that both of you were serving the country?

-Absolutely.

-And that was vital?

-That was absolutely vital.

It was... In fact, I think it was the war that held us together.

It's something even now, when I look back after 70 years,

that, you know, just one of those things.

-Well, here's the man himself. Hello, Steve.

-A cup of tea.

Could you bring me a coaster, dear, please?

Of course.

Right, we've got that here.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Stevie.

Bless you, that's lovely.

-Are you going to sit there, Steve?

-Of course, yes.

-Right.

Well...

Right, that's fine.

We were talking about how much the war mattered

in terms of both of you getting together.

We just had a matter of weeks,

maybe, if we were lucky.

It could even be days, of course, really, I suppose.

Now, Steve told me that you were the first person he kissed.

He wasn't the first person I kissed, not by a long shot.

-No, no.

-I loved the odd bit of romance. Yes, of course.

-And he was romantic, wasn't he?

-He still is.

And what is the secret, then? What do you think the secret is?

We keep holding hands! We hold hands when we go out, don't we?

-Yes, indeed.

-We hold hands, we go all over the place.

Because, if we don't hold hands, we'd fall down.

LAUGHTER

We have this, I suppose, symbiotic relationship, really.

We depend totally on each other.

-And that's terrific.

-We still do.

She's got the brains and the memory and, of course, the hearing.

Not quite sure what I've got!

-LAUGHTER

-'Who would have thought it?

'Steve and Maureen, the Lancaster lovers,

'a perfect love story.'

Britain's Lancaster generation.

There are just so many great tales.

But, at the beginning, I said we must pay tribute

to those boys who didn't come home.

Men like rear gunner Stan Shaw and his crew.

Stan's daughter, Elaine, now in her 80s,

remembers her father and his Lancaster, DV202.

We had some nice times together. Really did.

They were only boys.

Two or three of them were only 19, I think.

I know my dad was the old man of the crew, because he was 31.

Well, he was 31 when he died.

And they were very close, I think, all of them.

Elaine last saw her father at her grandmother's house.

It was an unexpected visit.

Stan only had a few short hours before his next raid.

I often wish, you know, that I could go back in time,

just to see him once more.

Impossible.

Absolutely impossible.

I loved him to bits.

I still remember what he looked like

and he'll never change, he'll never get old.

He'll always be my dad as I saw him last.

I was proud of him.

I've always been proud of him, I always will be proud of him.

But I wish he hadn't have gone.

Stan Shaw and the crew of DV202

were just seven from tens of thousands of British service men

and women recorded as lost without trace

after the Second World War.

All are remembered by the memorial at Runnymede.

DV202's last flight took off from Dunholme Lodge

in Lincolnshire at 9:40pm on August 17, 1943.

'They were headed for Peenemunde.'

Most of the Lancasters that were lost

went down in the sea or crashed into these woods.

All of them have disappeared -

all but one.

This is Lake Kolpinsee, just a few hundred yards from

the missile base at Peenemunde.

During the raid, Botho Stuwe

watched as a Lancaster Mark III was shot down by German

night fighters and crashed into the lake.

TRANSLATION:

There were 40 aircraft lost during the raid on Peenemunde.

Not one is recorded as crashing into a lake.

After the war, a special team was set up to search for those lost.

They'd heard the rumours of a Lancaster in the lake.

It was never found.

But it is here.

A Lancaster Mark III,

part of the third and final wave.

And here, in Peenemunde, they have no doubt who the rear gunner was.

He was worried, I think,

because he'd got to go and he couldn't see my mum.

And he'd got his uniform on.

I didn't have time to clean his buttons that time.

And...

I ran to the bottom of the street and waved.

It was the last time Elaine saw her father.

She tries to go to the Runneymede memorial every year

to pay respect to her dad.

But she's never been here, to Peenemunde,

until now.

-Hello, Elaine.

-Hello.

-Thanks for coming.

-Your hands are cold.

-They are, I'm sorry.

-Are you all right?

-Yes.

-OK.

'One of Elaine's sons, Russell, has come to support his mother.'

-Hello.

-Hello, John.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Pleased to meet you too. Russell.

Now, we've just got to go down here. It's the little jetty.

So a very desolate sort of area, isn't it?

It is. It is desolate.

We are, now, finally on the side of the lake.

Now, can you see over there?

Can you see that sort of little white thing?

-Yeah.

-Now, that is part of the Lancaster.

I've been waiting a long time,

I really have, to see this.

I didn't think I'd ever see it.

This is very likely where your father died.

But it's good that you're here, isn't it?

Yes, very good.

It's wonderful that I can say goodbye.

And not just my dad, the rest of the crew.

They used to come home with Dad, sometimes.

And I got to know them quite well.

And they used to bring us sweeties.

You just can't imagine it when you're that age.

You don't understand it.

I knew that something had happened.

We didn't know where he was going, because he wasn't allowed to tell us.

But it was in one of the letters that we got,

to say that he'd lost his life while on a raid to Peenemunde.

Look at the sun coming through the clouds. That's amazing, isn't it?

Yes, it is. Like two searchlights.

Oh, yes, it's a lovely place. It really is.

In 1948, Elaine's mother Elsie received

'a letter from the Red Cross.

'By then, the Russian army controlled Peenemunde.

'They had received information from local people that all of the

'crew from the Lancaster in the lake

'had been removed from the wreck.

'All were dead.

'Four of the airmen were buried on the lake's shore.

'One of them was named as Flight Sergeant Stanley Shaw.

'No evidence of the graves exists.'

That's all that's left, that little bit of metal...

of seven men's lives.

-It's still here.

-Are you glad you came?

Yes, I am, very glad.

I wish my sister was here, too.

I've tried to do what he asked me to do the last time I saw him.

I saw him last, Mum didn't.

He asked me to give Mum my love and a kiss and look after her

and look after Pam.

That was my baby sister. She was only a year and a half.

For you, it's not the war,

it's a personal tragedy, isn't it?

Yeah.

It's very moving, isn't it?

Very moving, and I never thought I'd do it.

I never thought I'd see it.

And do you feel closer to him now?

Yeah, I do. I do.

If there's such a thing as...

I don't know whether there is or not.

He'll be watching.

And he'll know.

-I think he will. Don't you?

-Mm-hmm.

SHE CRIES

We don't know where he is,

but we know that he was here

at some point.

I shall never, never do anything like this again.

It's once in a lifetime.

Once in a lifetime.

I genuinely believe that this is my grandfather's plane

and I know that I'm not alone in that.

But the official sources will neither confirm or deny that.

But I think, for my mother...

I'm not sure it really matters,

because Grandfather was here at some point.

And we know that he lost his life here.

And that's important to us, to have closure for my mother.

I'm so glad she came.

So am I. So am I.

That's Reg.

Billy.

Peter.

Mac.

Les.

Tom.

And Dad.

'History records that the Second World War started in 1939

'and lasted until 1945.

But, for some, that doesn't tell the whole story.

'Elaine's war ended this morning on a lake in Peenemunde.'

PLANE ENGINE RUMBLES

There is only one British Lancaster bomber left flying today.

And that's poignant,

because the Lanc was never about one of anything.

It was about a team, maybe the bravest we've ever had.

We had no common bond

Save that of youth

No shared ambition

Except to venture and survive...

It carries so many memories and a great chunk of our history.

This is the last of the many.

And, for me,

it's been a great honour to tell the Lancaster's story.

To those who chronicled the great events

We flew in Lancasters.

# If I ventured in the slipstream

# Between the viaducts of your dream

# Where immobile steel rims crack

# And the ditch in the back roads stop

# Could you find me?

# Would you kiss my eyes?

# To lay me down

# In silence easy

# To be born again

# To be born again... #