Making of the Movie, Lancaster

STORY SYNOPSIS

The Avro Lancaster was one of the most effective Allied bombers of the Second World War. But Britain had to endure a sustained assault on its existence before the aircraft became available and could take the fight back to Germany.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, anyone aged between 18 and 40 faced the prospect of being called up into the services. For many, the opportunity to volunteer for the RAF was far better than being drafted into the army, and so they signed up in their tens of thousands at the recruiting stations. Only men were selected for aircrew, but women took on vital support roles, often including engineering and maintenance. Volunteers came not just from the British Isles, but also her allied Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India and the West Indies.

Meanwhile, the war wasn’t going the Allies way, and in 1940 the Nazis had taken control of most of Europe. Britain and those Commonwealth countries were all that stood against total defeat.

After the Spitfires and Hurricanes of Fighter Command had successfully countered the Luftwaffe’s assault during the Battle of Britain, a sustained bombing campaign – The Blitz – was launched against British cities. Bombs fell every night for 8 months and it brought the reality of modern war directly to the population. 43,000 people were killed.

The only way the country could take the war directly back to Germany was through bombing. But Bomber Command’s aircraft were slow and out of date. They flew at night and most failed to even find, let alone hit their targets. Losses were high, although new aircrew were being trained (often in Canada, the US or South Africa) and sent to the squadrons at an ever increasing rate.

Behind the scenes, engineers were working on new designs. Four-engine bombers such as the Stirling and Halifax entered service. At aircraft manufacturers A.V.Roe, Chief Designer Roy Chadwick was working on a twin-engine bomber called the Manchester. Unfortunately, its Rolls-Royce Vulture engines were proving troublesome. Threatened with the cancellation of the entire programme, Chadwick suggested swapping the two Vultures for four Rolls-Royce Merlins – the same engine that powered the Spitfire. The effect was transformative and the Lancaster was born.

Its development coincided with changes at Bomber Command. A new commander was appointed – the pugnacious Arthur Harris – and he immediately changed the tempo and methods of the RAF’s tactics. In 1942, he sent over 1000 bombers to attack Cologne, 73 of which were Lancasters – their first major use on operations. The targets were no longer just factories but the cities in which the factories stood. It was called Area Bombing and remains controversial to this day.

One of the key moments in the aircrew’s often brief lives, was the formation of their crews. Each of the four-engine bombers had a crew of 7. The way they were selected appears amateurish in its simplicity, but was brilliant in its execution. Hundreds of young men who’d completed their training were assembled in a hangar and told to choose their own crews. Like forming football teams in the playground, they picked each other based on little more than first impressions and the brevet (crew position badge) on their uniforms. Many realised that the choices they made that day would determine whether or not they would survive the war.

And so, eventually, came the first operation – or ‘Op’ in Bomber Command parlance. All of their training, all their education, all their hopes and fears built to the moment when the target would be revealed in the briefing room. A theatrical sweep of the curtain would uncover a huge map on the wall, on which a red ribbon marked the way from their bomber station all the way to the target in Germany. But the route was never straight. In order to disguise the destination, it would twist and turn across the map, the ribbon indicating the course that the bomber stream would follow. Sometimes it would sweep north over Denmark before plunging down onto a port city like Hamburg, Kiel or Bremen. Other times, a small deviation would lead it to the industrial cities of the River Ruhr – Happy Valley as the aircrew called it. Or the ribbon would head south before dramatically turning north for The Big City – Berlin. Everyone dreaded that one and it would elicit groans from the assembled crews.

News of these Ops came to the squadrons via teleprinter messages from headquarters. These signals used an army of ‘Air Women’ or WAAF’s, who greased the wheels of Bomber Command and kept the show on the road. They lived on and around the hundreds of bomber stations in their thousands and romance often blossomed amidst the tragedy of war.

At dusk, the dispersal points and perimeter tracks of the airfields came to life, as the bombers started their engines. On just one station there might be two or three squadrons, each of around 20 aircraft. These had to be fuelled, armed and sent on their way to the target, all whilst working to a strict schedule. As the heavily laden bombers thundered down the runway and disappeared into the gloaming, their crews could only wonder about what lay ahead.

The Nazi air defences got stronger as the war progressed. By 1943 there was a sophisticated network of radar stations from Denmark to Cherbourg, which linked to belts of searchlights, anti-aircraft (Flak) guns and deadly radar-equipped night-fighter aircraft. The enemy could track the progress of the bomber stream as it formed over the North Sea and fighters were scrambled to wait at holding points until they knew the target. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse, and as the war continued, it became ever more sophisticated. Each Op was in effect a major set-piece battle involving tens of thousands of combatants.

The bombers flew 5 miles up, packed together in the bomber stream like fish in a linear shoal that stretched 60 miles long and 4 miles wide. But in the night sky, it was rare to see another aircraft. As battle was joined, it was truly terrifying.  Approaching the targets, the darkness was lit up by searchlight beams that hunted the bombers and held them in their glare for the flak guns or fighters to find. The entire sky – so it seemed – was filled with exploding shells that seemed to form an impenetrable barrier of shrapnel that the aircraft would have to fly through. And all the time, the night-fighters picked off the stragglers and strays with incredibly swift acts of violence that would end seven lives in a flash.

Yet the Lancs kept on and bomb aimers peered through their bombsights to try and identify the targets. Ahead, the Pathfinders – specially chosen experienced crews – were dropping Target Indicators to identify the dropping point for the main force. These raids often consisted of 600-800 aircraft, and they would drop their bombs sometimes in less than an hour. For the people below, it must have been terrifying.

The attacks on the cities and towns of the Ruhr, including the famous Dambusters raid, were part of a strategic bombing campaign that – it was hoped – would bring Germany to its knees – and it almost did. The attacks on Hamburg killed 40,000 people and were so devastating they sent shock waves to the very top of the Nazi leadership.

B-17s and B-24’s of the US Eighth Air Force were also now bombing by day whilst the RAF attacked at night. The pressure was truly round the clock and the tide of war started to turn.

By 1944, on the Eastern Front, the Soviets were pushing the Germans out of Ukraine and into Poland. In June, the Allies landed in Normandy and for Bomber Command came the opportunity to fly again in daylight. The crews started to show what they could really achieve and the Lancaster, with its incredible lifting capability, could carry more and bigger bombs than the other bombers and drop them with great accuracy,

But the war was not over and the Ardennes offensive proved that the Nazis were not about to capitulate. The bombing of cities continued in a bid to wear down morale and break the enemy’s will to fight. In February 1945, with the Russians poised on the German borders came an opportunity to show what the force was capable of. Churchill wanted to demonstrate the effectiveness of Bomber Command, and when the Red Army requested that Dresden, as an important transport hub, be bombed, 796 Lancasters were dispatched to attack the city. None of the aircrew briefed felt that there was anything out of the ordinary about the Op and everything on the night went right – except for the people in the city below. The following day, the US Army Air Force bombed the still smoking target. It was not the war’s most devastating raid, but it was the most notorious, partly because the Nazis inflated the casualty figures from 20,000 to 200,000. This was the figure that stuck for over 50 years.

After the war, politicians including Churchill disassociated themselves from the bombing campaign and many former aircrew felt shunned and even criticised for the part they played in the war. It wasn’t until 2012, with the opening of the Bomber Command Memorial in London, that there was finally a public acknowledgment of their role in bringing down the Nazi regime. Chiselled into the wall of the memorial is the stark figure of 55,573 – the number of aircrew who died. Now, those surviving veterans – all in their late 90’s – still live with the consequences of what it took to fight and win that terrible war.

FILMMAKER’S STATEMENT – WHY LANCASTER NOW?

In 2018, we released SPITFIRE, a documentary about the iconic WWII fighter plane. Except it wasn’t. Turns out it was actually a film about the amazing men and women who flew the plane in the defence of freedom against tyranny.

Before that film had even been completed, we began working on its follow-up. A different, darker and much more difficult film. A film about what it takes to win a war.

If SPITFIRE was a machine with a soul, we soon discovered that LANCASTER was a machine with seven souls. Courageous aircrews who flew night after night against targets in distant Nazi Germany, knowing they had little chance of survival – over half of all Bomber Command aircrew were killed. And yet – they overcame the odds.

LANCASTER has been a labour of love. During its five years of development and painstaking production, we have filmed the very personal testimonies of 38 surviving aircrew veterans and many eye-witnesses to the monumental events of World War II. The youngest contributor was 95, the oldest 100. Since the completion of filming, we have lost 14 of those wise souls. In 5 years time, it’s likely none will be left.Which is just one of the many reasons why we believe their story should be told now. So that these heroes and their surviving contemporaries may at last see their testimonies and sacrifice writ large.

The fact that our film’s release has coincided with a moment in European history considered by many to be the most tumultuous since WWII is both telling and apt. We believe there’s never been a more pertinent time to tell the story of those who flew the Lancaster in its battle against a voracious tyranny. Creating a legacy that they carry with them to this day.

Our film is their film. Those now frail characters who took the fight to the enemy and helped end the Nazi regime.

LANCASTER is a story of there and back. To and from. The heroes of our film give searing first-hand accounts of how an extraordinary aeroplane flew them into the burning heart of a World War. And returned them home, seemingly intact, but carrying the psychological burden of their actions and the horror of combat.

Our film explores the futility and moral ambiguities of war. It is the story of lessons learned, sacrifices made and how the power of good can and will ultimately win through. We believe that NOW is the right time to address these challenging themes and honour those who put their young lives on the line night after night in the fight against unswerving fascism.

Their victory was and is OUR victory. And the time is right for them to take us back there. To witness for ourselves the whys, wherefores, rights, wrongs, justifications and otherwise of war.

To quote 98 year-old veteran Bill Gould: ‘War is a dirty business.’