"We did 18 missions and THEN THE WAR QUIT."

Decades ago I was a young staff journalist helping to launch London Broadcasting (LBC), Britain’s first commercial radio station.

In their wisdom, management brought over an American radio stalwart to train us in chatty radio news speak. For instance, if there was a fire in the lion enclosure at London Zoo, we were to tell listeners:” There’s a helluva fire in the Cat house…”

I was reminded of this recently when I revisited the footage from our 1989 documentary “Operation Failed to Return – the men who flew from Skellingthorpe.” 

After the sombre ceremony on the site of their old base (now Birchwood, Lincoln) at which they unveiled a wonderful memorial to their fallen comrades, the veterans were partying in a large marquee. 

Microphone in hand (working at the time with Sykes Video Links) I stumbled across six Lancaster crewmen together again for the first time since VE Day 44 years earlier….three Brits and three Canadians. One, ensconced in Ottawa, Canada, had only been traced by the others two weeks earlier. 

Helping me to understand their story one of the Canadians came out with another North Americanism: “We were lucky. We had a good crew…. We did eighteen missions and then the war quit.”

I’m delighted to re-visit this and many other clips of 50 and 61 Squadrons veterans in a revised talk and film show “The Men Who Flew From Skellingthorpe.”

 This new version was commissioned last December by the Local Landscapes and Hidden Histories scheme in Lincoln and presented again to Lindsey Probus Club in March.

 This week I’ve been on the site of another wartime base of No 5 Group Bomber Command, RAF Balderton, and presented to the Lancaster Grange Care Home. Some of the residents there remembered seeing wartime take-offs.

 After three shows, I feel “up to speed” and can confidently offer the show to local history societies, military history groups and the like.

One of the best surviving crew pics ..... sourced from EJH Roberts, a bomb aimer with 61 Squadron

 It will be a pleasure to introduce once again veterans like Ernie Davidson, Reg Payne, Les Bartlett, and the remarkable Les Rutherford. Les, while in the Army, escaped the beach near Dunkirk by paddling out to sea on a door. Later, having joined the RAF, he was one of two survivors of a 50 Squadron Lancaster shot down over Germany. “I had a guardian angel on my shoulder,” Les would say.

 (It was my privilege to film his 100th birthday party, held at the International Bomber Command Centre)

 I am also pleased to quote the speech of Air Vice Marshal Sir Michael Beatham, a young wartime pilot with 50 Squadron who by 1989 was Marshal of the Royal Air Force. His words have a resonance today.

“What is important is that what went on in places like Skellingthorpe isn’t forgotten. That we don’t forget those momentous days when we were fighting for our survival. In other words that we do not forget our history. 

“If we do forget then as a nation we are liable to keep repeating our mistakes and this can have disastrous consequences as we learned to our cost in 1939. 

“Through vigilance and keeping our defences strong we are now fortunate to have had peace for 45 years but peace does not just happen. It has to be worked for - and this is the lesson we need to pass on to future generations and I’m sure this is one of the major significant points of the memorial which I have the honour to unveil today.”

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