An Avro Lancaster II at its dispersal point

Silver gelatin print

12 x 16 cm

Stamped to reverse ‘This photograph has been passed by censor’ ‘Copyright. The TP copyright illustration from ‘The Aeroplane’ must not be reproduced without the written permission of Temple Press Ltd.’

December 1943

The Avro Lancaster II was fitted with the rotary Bristol Hercules engine. There was a fear that there would be a shortage of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, therefore 300 were produced by Armstrong Whitworth in Coventry with an alternative engine.

Here it is pictured at an airfield, coming out of the mist. Somewhere probably in East Anglia, an area prone to fog, this atmospheric shot is enhanced by the second Lancaster bomber that is just about visible in the background and the human figure, dwarfed by the aeroplane, standing on concrete to the right.

Condition: good.

Provenance: from the collection of Philip J R Moyes, author of many books on the RAF, most notably The Pictorial History which ran to several volumes.