On the 30th of May 1944, just a week before D-Day, a new batch of trainee airmen arrived at RAF Chipping Warden, near Banbury in England. Pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, wireless operators and gunners. It was here at No.12 Operational Training Unit that they would form into crews and begin training to fly the RAF's ‘heavy’ bombers.
Among the new intake were three New Zealanders, two Canadians and an Englishman who somehow found each other and decided to make up a crew. Later they were joined by a young Scottish flight engineer and completed their training to operate the legendary Lancaster bomber. They would go on to fly 32 war operations together with 75(NZ) Squadron RAF, 19 of those in one particular aircraft, Lancaster HK601 JN-D "Dog".
Dog herself would go on to complete 84 operations and survive the war, a remarkable feat. However, on her very last trip, one particularly frightening night over Eastern Germany, she almost didn't come back.
Johnny Wood, Jack Pauling, Jim Hooper, Gerry Newey, Doug Williamson, Jack Cash, Ralph Sparrow, Dennis Jones, Alan Rowe, Ron Schoefield and others.
This website is dedicated to the boys who flew Lancaster JN-D "Dog" and the boys on the ground who kept her in the air.
