Just south of Red Deer back in the days of a two lane highway linking
Calgary and Edmonton, a service station had a real Lancaster bomber parked
beside the station. I am not sure how it got there; it is now restored and
in Canada’s Air Museum in Ottawa.,
As an airplane nut early in my life, I lived be that airplane and always
demanded we stop so I could touch it.
Back then, *in the *50s, we were celebrating victory with black and white
British films on the War. I call this decade the Time of Heros. Most of
those of my age will remember Reach for the Sky, The Dambusters. sink the
Bismarck and other movies retelling the stories of the bold men who
performed miracles. No protestors back then.
The director Peter Jackson plans to do a remake of that film. To that end,
he has had made in China at least one full scale models and 12 much smaller
ones. For many years some of the small models were parked outside in a
meadow.
The film has experienced years of delay. One problem was Guy Gibson’s
dog. It was named the N word. Save that I have no idea of what has
delayed the movie for so long. But the Lancaster’s are still in New
Zealand.
I think most Brothers of my generation will remember the original movie.
Most of the later generations probably have no knowledge of the most
fantastic aircraft. In summary, A Brit had invented a massive bomb. He
tried and tried to get approval to modify a Lancaster or two to carry this
bomb, only one could be carried. Tests showed the bomb had to be dropped
from feet so it would bounce across water to hit a target. The pilots had
to do that under fire from the Germans. To fly at exactly 60 feet, for
practice they use two search light lights facing downward to the water.
The two lights were configured to merge when the aircraft was at 60 feel.
The pilot had to hold the plane at that precised.level and keep his
Lancaster on a straight line.
Why this special bomb? Churchill wanted to breech four dams which provided
electricity to plants that manufactured military equipment. By breaking
the dams, many factories would be out of business for a time.
Four Lancaster took off one night when the weather was right. They were
able to bre ch the four Dans but in turn incurred many losses. Roughly
1800 downstream civilians were killed.
In short, that is the tale that Jackson wants to tell.
Attached beLow is an interview which tells a bit about this future movie...
Of the 7000+ built only a few remain and most of those are in Canada.
https://dambustersblog.com/category/peter-jackson/
