Classic British Aircraft The Avro Anson

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Күн бұрын

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@DornAndGrant Жыл бұрын

Working in a care home 4 years back I met a gent who I got in well with. He flew ansons in Egypt as a transport pilot during the war. He was so pleased when I actually knew what and Avro anson was. A very nice memory for me.

@petesheppard1709 Жыл бұрын

I'm American, and the Anson made an early impression on me in a war movie I saw as a lad, where the heroes took one aloft in the movie's climax and successfully completed a heroic bombing sortie! The sort of thing that sticks in a young mind.

@docnelson2008 Жыл бұрын

I have fond memories of the Anson. Back in the fifties, when I was in the Air Training Corps, I remember flying in an Anson from RAF Leuchars to RAF Euston, flying over the Firth Bridge on the way.I swear i could hear the rivets popping as we flew in gusty winds at quite a low level. A wonderful aircraft.

@allanpickering6939 Жыл бұрын

My dad was a radio operator air gunner on Lancasters with thirty one ops over Germany and France and he was trained on Ansons .

@shaunallen5678 Жыл бұрын

My father was in one as a gunner. It crashed near Boscombe Down. No survivors, including 2 scientists working on new forms of radar. The Anson burst into flames and my father managed to pull everyone out but unfortunately they all died of burns or injuries incurred by the crash. Sgt. D.F. Allen (later Wing Commander, 156 Pathfinder Sqd) was awarded the GM.

@television1066 Жыл бұрын

A very sad story. Your father sounds like an extraordinary chap. From what I know of Pathfinder Squadrons he must have been something rather special.

@mikecrees159 Жыл бұрын

As a young boy i use to see these aircraft at White Waltham we only lived about half mile a mile away from the aerodrome and they used to fly over our house on finals

@johnjephcote7636 Жыл бұрын

We had these a/c all around us, living between Bovingdon and Northolt. I was once treated to a low fly-past of a dozen from some special occasion c.1959/60. I also had a just-above-stalling speed demonstarted at an Elstree air display. I read too, that post-war, as a reward for a local band playing, the members were taken up in an Anson 'somewhere'. The manual undercart was somehow stuck in the semi-up position. On approach, the engines were cut and the props positioned horizontally so it could still carefully land; then discreetly, it was taken to a hangar, jacked up and the recalcitrant wheels lowered.

@youwhatnow Жыл бұрын

My Dad trained in an Anson before flying in Lancasters as a rear gunner. He had the job of winding up the Anson undercarriage by hand!

@television1066 Жыл бұрын

I wish we could hear more about the role of rear gunners. Whilst filming in 'The City Of Lincoln' we learnt about their evacuation procedure. As if their role wasn't dangerous enough. Utmost respect.

@youwhatnow Жыл бұрын

@@television1066 My Dad was born in Dublin in 1922, the year after the Irish Free State was created. The struggle for independence from Britain had been brutal and my grandparents sent him to a Gaelic school as a celebration of their new freedom. Unfortunately since none of the family knew how to speak Gaelic my Dad could barely understand what was being taught and concentrated instead on sport, playing for both junior and adult teams at the Bohemian Football Club. Driven by both poverty and a sense of moral duty he chose to become an Irish volunteer fighting for Britain despite the objections of my Irish grandparents. He applied to join the Royal Navy but the response was thrown on the fire without him knowing. Assuming he had been rejected by the Navy, my Dad then applied to join the RAF. This time, by good or bad fortune, he saw the post arrive before my grandparents could destroy the letter. On his assessment week everyone was destined to be a rear-gunner because the loss rate was so high. German night fighters would usually approach from behind firing 20mm cannons that easily outmatched the 0.303-inch (7.7mm) calibre defensive machine guns. According to my Dad, if the bomber survived a strafing, the ground crew would often have to hose the remains of the rear gunner out of his turret. He soon realised an exchange of fire was usually no-contest and the defensive gunners were mostly on board to support morale for the rest of the crew. Average life expectancy was ten missions. It was very difficult to get him to speak about the war but these are all the stories I recall: He once spotted a Junker 88 night fighter approaching but instead of closing in for the kill it kept out of range and followed them for a long time. The Lancaster pilot tried many violent ‘corkscrew’ manoeuvres to shake it off but nothing worked. Despite feeling airsick, my dad kept reporting to the pilot ‘still there’ giving the distance and position as they tried to out-turn the fighter or force it to overshoot. After many miles, and for no apparent reason, the Ju-88 turned away without firing a shot and left them. Of all the possible explanations for survival my Dad liked to think the German pilot was tired of the killing and just wanted a quiet night. Dad also believed he had a good guardian angel watching over him. He once caught a cold on leave and was deemed unfit to fly when he returned to base. His crew, the six best friends he shared a Nissen hut with, took another rear-gunner but none of them ever returned. In 1944 a rumour that around 100 Lancasters from other squadrons had been lost on a disastrous long-range mission to Nuremburg was officially suppressed as exaggeration, but later turned out to be true. They had been sent under a bright full moon, with a cloudless sky and no fighter escort. It was almost like flying in daylight. 96 bombers were shot down and another ten damaged beyond repair. 545 bomber crew were killed and 160 taken prisoner. In one night Bomber Command lost more men than Fighter Command lost in the entire Battle of Britain. When I asked my Dad why they’d been sent in those almost suicidal circumstances he shouted with exasperation ‘because Butcher Harris was a psychopath’ (Arthur Bomber/Butcher Harris was the Commander in Chief). After reading a book about Scott of the Antarctic he flew a high altitude mission and the electrical contact to his heated flying suit accidentally became unplugged. For some reason he didn’t think to check the connections and instead thought he was going to freeze to death like the men on the Antarctic trek. He made it home, but said he’d never been so cold in all his life as on that flight. The bomb aimer in his crew always set the bombsight crosshairs on the biggest landmark in a city, which was usually a cathedral or church spire. Raised as a strict Catholic my Dad didn’t like the idea. The bomb aimer explained he didn’t expect to hit anything on-target because night bombing from high altitude was notoriously inaccurate, but at least they might hit something in the right city. The Ruhr was heavily defended by thousands of anti-aircraft guns. One night he saw a teenage member of the crew die from shrapnel wounds after they landed. Dad cried a bit when he told me about him. The best day he remembered was when several US B-17 Flying Fortresses made emergency landings at his RAF base after a terrible mauling on a daylight raid into Germany. He said the Americans were so glad to be back alive they were full of enthusiasm and positive energy. They inspected each other’s bombers and were amazed how many more bombs the RAF planes could carry. The RAF crews were impressed with how many more guns the US planes had. They spent the night getting drunk and forgot about the war for a while. By the Spring of 1945 the Allies had established air supremacy. Dad said he started to relax a little and think he might survive the war. Almost everyone on both sides knew Germany was defeated yet still they fought on. Just a few weeks before total defeat, some night fighters crewed by Hitler Youth boys managed to infiltrate a bomber stream and followed the RAF all the way back to their airfields in East Anglia. Just as the bombers were landing the night fighters pounced. A lot of damage was done but that was never going to change the inevitable outcome of the war in Europe by even one day. On the rare occasions we saw Germany appearing to lose a football match on TV, my Dad would say ‘the Germans never give up until the very end’. In May 1945 Dad took part in flying prisoners of war home from Italy. He heard that returning troops and freed prisoners who took the slower route across Europe by train were stunned into silence as they passed through cities that had been smashed into rubble and dust. Centuries of European culture was blowing away in the wind. He then trained with the Tiger Force which was planning to conduct around the clock bombing of Japan in collaboration with the Americans flying B-29s prior to an invasion. It was expected to be easier than fighting Germany because the Japanese had less experience of defending against night attacks. Suddenly it was all off and the war in Asia was over. He knew a Lancaster could just about carry a ten-ton ‘grand slam’ earthquake bomb but was shocked to hear the Americans could flatten an entire city with a single atomic bomb. The Lancaster bombers on route to Okinawa were scrapped in Canada for $50 each. Today there are two airworthy Lancasters, one in Canada and one in England. They are both priceless. After Tiger Force it was just training exercises flying around the coast of England in the new Lincoln bomber. Seeing Chichester from the rear turret he dreamed of starting a new peacetime life there. After demobilisation he joined a training course to become a State Registered Nurse at St. Richards hospital in Chichester. While there he met my Mum-to-be who was also training to be a nurse in the new NHS. They married and she gave birth to me in St. Richards in 1960. Two decades later Dad collected me from a pub for a lift home and overheard an old soldier telling people the war had been the best time of his life. My Dad swung around and said “Then you must be a fucking idiot”.

@television1066 Жыл бұрын

Thank you so much for posting this. As the retelling of the Second World War becomes ever more reduced and formulaic it is so important to keep such personal accounts alive. @@youwhatnow

@jimmyboomsemtex9735 3 ай бұрын

fantastic aeroplane love the annie. like the 19 written in letters avro nineteen. just so cool. the airliner version looks very modern i think with the individual cabin windows yet i do prefer the greenhouse side version military trainer. a classic. on a sad note i went to several anson plane crashes in the uk in the 80s. the plane climbed badly and when lost (remember at night with trainee navigators often in bad weather) they flew into mountains. the rate of climb would not let them escape the peak if quite low level and in they went. i remember one crash half way up a steep yet scenic peak in wales. rip the crews. a superb classic aeroplane. nothing like this in 2024 except well an avro anson... and to add the airliner version reminds me of my fave boeing plane the model 247.

@television1066 3 ай бұрын

Very interesting and poignant post. I was watching the 1949 film Landfall the other night in which the Anson features heavily. Such an important aircraft and those who flew them are so often overlooked.

@davidmurphy8190 Жыл бұрын

What a crime that so few ANSONs survived.

@mothmagic1 Жыл бұрын

I loved this series and wish they had made more programmes as we are not short of classic aircraft still airworthy. How true it is I don't know but I've heard or read a story of a 109 falling prey to the single forward firing Vickers machine gun. Out there making noises and dripping oil on the grass. as all preserved aircraft should be and long may they continue to do so. With Shuttleworth collection a lot of their aircraft are not just the only flying example but in some cases the only one.

@television1066 Жыл бұрын

We would have loved to have made more.

@user-tyton78 Жыл бұрын

There is a flying Anson in war time form, flying in New Zealand

@paul-we2gf Жыл бұрын

I had a chance to see one at BC Aviation Museum in 1992 in RCAF training command yellow. Would have to take flight in her

@DSK123 Жыл бұрын

Cool ty

@Phil_Cleaver Жыл бұрын

I am surprised that there is no mention of the incident where two RAAF Ansons collided mid air, became locked together, and the pilot of the upper aircraft landed the two together. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940_Brocklesby_mid-air_collision

@paulqueripel3493 Жыл бұрын

I wondered what happened to this plane. Air Atlantique closed, transferred the planes to a charity which has since shut down (even if their website is still online 7 years later). It's showing as flying from Burton on Trent to Shrewsbury a couple of days ago (or close to both rather) . G-vroe now.