Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum’s  Avro Lancaster Mk X - Sponsored by the OSUM Group

The Lancaster was the most outstanding heavy bomber of the Second World War.  The Lancaster was powered by four Rolls Royce or Packard-built Merlin engines and was the only aircraft capable of carrying the 22,000-lb. “Grand Slam” bomb.  Between 1942 and VE Day, Lancaster’s participated in 156,000 sorties and delivered two-thirds of Bomber Command’s total bomb weight. 

The Lancaster won a place for itself in history with the daring and precise bombing raids on the Mohne and Eder dams in May 1943 and with the all but impossible feat of sinking the German battleship Tirpitz, in a well-defended Norwegian fjord.  Of the 7,366 Lancaster’s built during World War Two, this Avro Lancaster from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton Ontario is the only flying aircraft of this type in North America and one of only two flying in the world.

The CWH Lancaster, C-GVRA, was one of the 422 Mk X’s built at Victory Aircraft in Canada between 1943 and 1945.  It saw service with the No. 107 Rescue Unit at Torbay, Newfoundland as a maritime patrol/search and rescue aircraft until retired by the RCAF in 1964.  With kind assistance from the Sully Foundation, it was acquired by Canadian Warplane Heritage from Goderich Legion in 1977; and following years of restoration, flew again for the first time on September 24, 1988.

The CWH Lancaster is painted in the wartime RCAF markings of the 419 “Moose” Squadron aircraft in which P/O Andrew Mynarski of Winnipeg was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for attempting to rescue the trapped rear gunner from his blazing turret.

The Lancaster has a wing span of 102 feet and a length of 69 feet 6 inches and is powered by 4 Packard Merlin 224s each having 1,640h.p.

2009 marks the 21st Year that this Avro Lancaster has been flying at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  Thousands have seen her fly and marvelled as this aircraft takes to the sky. 

About Andrew Mynarski, VC

On the night of June 13/14 1944, No. 419 Squadron (RCAF) Lancaster KB726 took off on the crew’s 13th mission to bomb the railway at Cambrai in France.  Shortly after crossing the French coast, the aircraft was attacked by an enemy fighter from below and behind.  Both port engines were set on fire and the hydraulic lines to the rear turret were severed by one of the cannon shells.  The fluid was ignited and created a blazing inferno in the rear fuselage of the Lancaster.   The tail gunner was trapped in the tail turret with no means of escape when mid upper gunner, P/O Andrew Charles Mynarski, noted his plight as he made his way to the rear door to escape.  By this time, all the other crewmen had parachuted from the aircraft that was now out of control.  Mynarski crawled through the flaming aircraft to the rear gunner where he vainly attempted to free him.  Finally, with his flight suite a mass of flames, he reluctantly obeyed the tail gunner’s orders and backed through the burning oil to the rear door from which he would exit to safety.  Prior to jumping, Mynarski stood at attention and saluted the trapped gunner.  The Lancaster hit the ground at a shallow angle and only two of the twenty bombs on board detonated.  Miraculously, the tail gunner was thrown clear of the aircraft without injury.  After evading enemy troops for five weeks, he returned to England only to learn that P/O Mynarski had succumbed to his burns just hours after parachuting to earth.

Upon relating the episode to Air Force officials, P/O Andrew Mynarski, from Winnipeg, Manitoba was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross – the British Commonwealth’s highest award for valour.  His was to be the sole VC awarded to a member of the RCAF in RAF Bomber Command in World War Two.

The CWH Lancaster has been painted in RAF Bomber Command colours bearing the squadron and unit code VR-A to represent the aircraft in which P/O Andrew Mynarski, VC was mid upper gunner on that fateful night in June 1944.