As featured in

Fliegerblatt, 2016 (no.5)

The average Lancaster bomber, flying operations during W.W.II, could expect to return from
about twenty trips before being lost. It’s therefore no surprise to learn that out of more than 7000 examples, just 35 are known to have flown more than 100 raids.

In this book, the prolific and respected
Norman Franks shares the stories of each of those centenarians and a number of others
that almost made it. Some of the featured aircraft – like R5868 ‘S-Sugar’ or EE139
‘Phantom of the Ruhr’ – are quite famous, but most are not. That is both a strength and a limitation of this book. The inclusion of the
less-famous aircraft tells a rarely told part of the Bomber Command story, but it follows that there is less information on some, and Franks occasionally falls into the trap of supposing and assuming, where there perhaps
wasn’t quite enough recorded detail to work with.

Billed as a ‘photographic record’, Franks includes several well-known photos, but also
draws extensively from a very large collection of images that have never before been published.There are some outstanding photos among them.

The final section, a potted collection
of nineteen ‘almost-centenarians’, is particularly good. In places the reproduction,
which is just on standard paper stock, is not the most impressive quality, but bearing in mind the varying condition of wartime
prints, it may well be that this is as good as it gets.

Don’t expect the most exciting read, but for that collection of images ‘Veteran Lancs’ is
worth a look.

Aircrew Book Review

Because of its subject, this volume is encyclopedic in nature. It is well written, and contains a wealth of information about its subjects.

NZ Crown Mines

This recent Images of War title takes an interesting look at the famous Lancaster. As it tells us in the introduction, I think it is quite thought provoking that of 7,366 Lancasters that were built, only 35 made it to the magic figure of 100 missions. To reach this figure took longer than you might have thought, but it also gives a good indication of the loss rates suffered by Bomber Command, and the odds that were against the 7-man aircrews who manned each Lancaster.
...
It is an interesting story and great to have a collective record of these 35 aircraft and the crews who flew them. For the modeller, you will also find some useful reference detail for the aircraft themselves, as well as uniforms and ground equipment that was used around the aircraft.

Read the full review here!

Military Modelling, Robin Buckland