BBMF Lancaster PA474 is scheduled to begin an 18-month ‘Major’ maintenance programme away from Coningsby under contract in October 2025. When the Lancaster emerges from its ‘Major’ maintenance programme in 2027 it will be painted in new markings.
The Lancaster’s new markings will represent those worn in 1944-45 by LM220 of IX Squadron, based at Bardney, Lincolnshire. LM220 was delivered to IX Squadron in June 1944. It was fitted with bulged bomb bay doors (which will not be replicated on PA474) to allow it to carry and drop the 12,00lb ‘Tallboy’ or ‘Super Cookie’ bombs. The aircraft was allocated the code letters ‘WS-Y’, which by the autumn of 1944 were outlined in yellow, making this a particularly colourful livery. Flying Officer Douglas Tweddle DFC completed 25 of his 37 wartime ‘ops’ in LM220 and it was he and his crew who had the nose art applied with the inscription “Getting Younger Every Day”. The bearded Father William figure was used at the time by William Younger’s brewery in Edinburgh to advertise Younger’s beer. The Tweddle crew “borrowed” a tray with the artwork from their favourite pub and asked a member of the groundcrew to paint this nose art on their aircraft ‘WS-Y’.
Lancaster LM220 flew a total of 63 ‘ops’ with IX Squadron, more than a dozen of them dropping ‘Tallboys’, including two of the raids against the German battleship Tirpitz, the second as part of the successful attack that capsized the ship. It also flew two Operation EXODUS missions in May 1945 to repatriate Allied POWs. Having survived the war LM220 was struck off charge and scrapped in November 1946.
The full background story relating to the new ‘identity’ for Lancaster PA474 will feature in a future Club magazine, but surely the inscription “Getting Younger Every Day” could not be more appropriate for an 80-year-old Lancaster that continues to fly and to be fitted with various new components.
