TIM ROBINSON FRAeS reviews the new Lancaster documentary feature from the producers of 2019's Spitfire film.
Lancaster (2022)
Directors: David Fairhead/Ant Palmer
Producers: Trevor Beattie/Keith Haviland
Altitude Films
A follow-up to the acclaimed Spitfire 2018 documentary was always going to be a challenge. Not just because it raised the bar for aviation documentaries, but because of its central subject matter – a heavy bomber. Whereas the Spitfire represents freedom, hope and defiance and casts fighter pilots as 'aerial knights of the sky' dueling their equals, the Avro Lancaster, was built one purpose in mind – delivering high-explosive from on high to cause death and destruction to those beneath. Ax one veteran observes "I fought my war from five miles up".
Narrated by Charles Dance, Lancaster tells the story of Bomber Command, through the development and operational use of the Avro Lancaster and its 'forgotten, but not gone' aircrew, a now fast-dwindling number of veterans who, until fairly recently found themselves almost airbrushed out of history, due to their role in area bombing that was quickly disowned by politicians, desperate to wash their hands of the deaths of civilians. It has thus taken 80 years, just as WW2 is fading from first-hand witnesses, for this definitive documentary to be made. It will doubtless leave the audience with a lump in their collective throat and a tear in their eye.
Aerial cinematography of the RAF BBMF Lancaster, from warbird photography maestro, John Dibbs, is at times, jaw-dropping, showing the aeroplane in all its riveted glory and portraying its pugnacious, brooding menace in the night shots, that evokes the lone bomber that would set out in these nightly streams. Noteworthy too, is the soundtrack and music, that soars and provides an emotional backdrop to the visuals.
The duality of the Lancaster, as an outstanding pilot's aeroplane and successful design, yet a destructive weapon of war is not shunned. While the sound of four Merlin engines in a single Lancaster at air shows today brings nostalgic audio pleasure to modern ears, a German woman, aged 16 in 1945, recalls the terrifying sound of 1,000s of bombers heading for Dresden vibrating the glass in windows in her house.
The grim mission, and terrible odds of survival are contrasted with some happier recollections from the veterans – of the comradeship of wartime life in Bomber Command, from the tightly-knit Lancaster crews, to regular hangar dances and even a visit to Avro's production line at Woodford, that at least as one veteran wryly admitted to the camera, led to him getting more of an education in the female body from a willing factory girl, than about a heavy bomber's hydraulic systems.
Yet the human losses (55,573 Bomber Command aircrew killed) and waste of lives lie heavily in this poignant film, from empty chairs and tables of missing aircrew at breakfast, to one veteran admitting they vomited at the sight of what nightfighter cannon fire had done to the exposed bomb-aimers position and the vulnerable human body within. Another veteran recalls his dark crew sweepstake of how many aircraft would be lost on a mission – with the winner scooping the prize after a staggering 96 aircraft were lost on one night bombing Nuremberg – over 600 lives – more aircrew killed than the RAF lost in the entire Battle of Britain. Meanwhile, the horrendous results of being on the receiving end of a Lancaster raid: "the dead lying around in heaps" are also catalogued.
As might be expected, the immortal Dambuster raid is featured, with personal narrative from bomb-aimer Johnny Johnson, now aged 100, the last survivor of that famous raid – a wartime morale boost, that became a national myth of daring and ingenuity, and has influenced popular culture as far removed as beer advertisements to Star Wars. More unknown to the general public, and potentially more significant, was the RAF's raid against Germany's centre of rocket development at Peenemünde, on the Baltic Coast, which set back development and deployment of the unstoppable V2 ballistic missile by a number of months. The film also highlights the late development of the Lancaster's 'precision bombing' capabilities, with daylight raids using Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs allowing strategic targets such viaducts, tunnels to be destroyed.
Lancaster movie thus succeeds – not just in its stirring soundtrack, astonishing air-to-air footage and personal recollections from the last WW2 veterans – but in putting the bombing effort in its historical context, a brutal, ruthless air campaign to end the war as quickly as possible against an enemy regime that was engaged in carrying out unspeakable evil through its Final Solution. As one veteran remarks – "War is a dirty business" – but as several veterans noted, Bomber Command's blunt instrument, state-of the-art at the time, was the only way of carrying the fight to the heart of Germany – a view echoed by the elderly German woman interviewed by the filmmakers: "what else could they do?" she laments.
Powerful, epic and moving - if you only watch one film about Bomber Command – it needs to be Lancaster.
LANCASTER is in selected UK Cinemas & on digital streaming services 27 May.
Released on DVD & BLURAY 30 May