The aircraft and crew were lost during this training flight. As the training flight was local to RAF Waddington, the Navigator was not required and was stood down.
They were then tasked with undertaking a 'Flight Affiliation' training flight with a Spitfire from RAF Digby (the only Battle of Britain airfield in Lincolnshire). On the day of the crash, they had been briefed for a raid on the German U-Boat pens at Lorient in France, but bad weather along the route and over the target meant that the mission was scrubbed. The crew had been posted to 9 Sqn at RAF Waddington just two days before the crash. The aircraft was almost brand new, it had been delivered 6 days earlier from A.V.Roe (AVRO), and had only been in the air for a total of 85 minutes. The Sibsey Lancaster Memorial Trust which maintains the memorial and holds an annual Memorial Service there, has a very active Facebook group and they deserve your support. 9 Squadron which crashed at Sibsey Northlands in January 1943 killing all members of the crew. The photo below shows the Sibsey Lancaster Memorial, commemorating the crew of Lancaster ED503 from Nr. Reading all the names on the wall panels is a reminder that they were not just numbers, but people with parents, wives, children and loved ones that never came home. The Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre, home of "Just Jane" and former RAF bomber station East Kirkby, has a beautiful Memorial Chapel that's part of this virtual tour. Bomber command crews had a death rate of 44.4% and 55,573 were killed during the war. However, as it was built as a weapon of war, it could also be lethal to its own crews. The Lancaster is certainly an iconic and most interesting British aircraft. Photo copyright © 2014 Martin Keen, Silksheen Photography Aircraft Virtual Tour Avro Lancaster Bomber "Just Jane" (NX611)
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