Private Tour Of A Fallen WW2 Bomber | Forces TV 

My Mum was the lady mentioned who sewed the Irish linen onto the air frames of the Hampdens, straight from school at age 14. She worked for English Electric in Preston and the girls had to do 8 stitches to the inch and a double stitch every 8 stitches. She later worked at the airfield, climbing up onto the wings and patching up damaged planes. We took her to Cosford in 2009 to see the restoration and she was able to identify one of the parts for Darren. She still had the needle she used throughout the war and donated it to the museum. She died age 90 in 2016 and still talked about her visit to the museum.

My wifes uncle was a front gunner in a Wellington. He never stepped on an aircraft again after the war. Looking at the cramped conditions and poor defences in the Hampden helps you understand why the people who flew those things were braver than brave.

A really interesting video. I am very pleased to see this restoration, as my father, Sqn. Ldr. Geoffrey Hall D.F.C. Bar, flew the Hampden with 106 and 61 Sqns. on his first tour of ops. Particularly interesting was the reference to the expected maximum operational limit of about 8 1/2 hours. As a young Pilot Officer of 21, my father's log shows that he flew for 9 hours 50 minutes on the 26th September 1940 in P4413 with 106 Sqn. from R.A.F. Finningley , followed by 9 hours 15 minutes on the 22nd November 1940 in X 2981 while with 61 Sqn. from Hemswell. I have many letters he sent to his father during the war, giving fascinating info. I quote verbatim from one he sent to his father on the 28th September 1940 referring to the 9 hour 50 minute Hampden flight "...We had a long trip on Thursday night (26th Sept) in the most appalling weather. There were low rain clouds all the way, and heavy sleet in the target area made it impossible to see anything. I was circling for nearly an hour before we positively identified the target and were able to attack it. It took us six hours to get home against headwinds and the whole trip took ten minutes short of ten hours - that's a long time to sit in one place. The blokes on the ground had an anxious time waiting for us, because these aircraft are only supposed to stay up for eight hours. However, I have made a study of fuel consumption and I nursed it carefully. .... One of our blokes wasn't so fortunate and ran out of fuel over the coast, having to abandon the aircraft. ..." My father was a lucky pilot and survived his two tours of ops without losing any aircraft or crew, despite lots of unexpected ventilation, courtesy of the Luftwaffe and flak. Extremely sad that so many other brave lads were not so fortunate.

rip to the brave men that fought on that fallen bird

The thing to remember when looking at just how narrow the fuselage of the Hampden is that you need to factor in wearing a flying suit [think boiler suit overalls] and numerous layers of clothing to keep warm, plus you need to consider the parachute harness, flying gloves, goggles and boots, leather helmet. Just getting into the aircraft would be a struggle, never mind trying to fight off enemy fighters or escape from a damaged and/or burning aircraft that may or may not be still under control. Brave young men.

Reg Miles aged 94 and counting, during WWll I worked in a crashed Hampden, they were fitted with cable cutters on the leading edge of the wings fingers got chopped off if not careful, I also flew 41 ops on Halifax mark 3 and Lancaster, Stirling and many hours on Yorks , all as second pilot and Flight Engineer , exHalton App 39th Entry . Want info just ask

OMG this place is amazing. Just parts of superb 1940’s-vintage aircraft just sat there in the background

wow. awesome. please keep our history alive!

Thanks for this. My Dad flew in a Hampden. Alan Golsen. He was only 5ft 1" tall, so a good fit for rear gunner. Apparently, if you weren't shot down, there was risk from the undercarriage collapsing on landing!! His plane had engine failure over Germany in probably 1941, he bailed out and survived, but alas the other 3 crewmen perished. He was captured, and a PoW in Stalagluft III (Great Escape, but wasn't part of the escape). If he hadn't have been a PoW from early on, he probably wouldn't have survived the war.

My old man was Hampden 144sqn bomb-aimer navigator. Shot down over Hamburg 1940 - Stalag Luft 1B four years, death march etc. Sadly pilot roman candled & created four foot trench in soft ground. Hamburg fire officer contacted in 1980's with photos of crash site & pilot with chute cords etc. Good old boy now gone.....

My Uncle Fred was a wireless operator on 144 sqn Hampdens.He was killed in 1941

I've been to see this wonderful aircraft,hampden is one of my favs for looks not for fighting in though

Not too often that you get a close look at a Hampden. Very informative video. Very interesting that it was modified to have a beam gun that had to be manually moved from one side of the aircraft to the other. So sad to think about the airmen who died on this airplane in combat. Brave men all.

I don't care if it was a terrible design and obsolete virtually as soon as it came out. I have always loved the shape of the Hampden.

wow just loved this video.more please..

Thanks for the video. Hopefully, someone's been taking a lot of photos of before & after restoring the various parts of the aircraft. Would make a hell of a reference book for a modeler.

Commendable on the restoration work and the story behind this War Bird. My Best to you !

Excellent!!

Brave Blokes Aviators.

Interesting tour. Thank you.

There's a complete Hamden at the Canadian Museum of Flight in Langley, British Columbia.

Amazing work.

I got to work on a section of one of these at 217 maintenance wing RAF Cardington as part of a restoration project about 25 years ago. Been fascinated with them ever since.

Fantastic video, you can see why the Hampden had the nick name of "Flying Suitcase"

Wonderful job

Great work guys, great work.

My father was a WAG in a Hampden Torpedo Bomber 415 Squadron RCAF!

There's a Wellington in the background!

there was a Wellington in the background

it's about time for someone to deep dive into the history of RAF over Soviet Union in ww2

I hope they keep the damage visible and also display the original parts with it.

what sort LMF human being thumbs down this great vid

Brave men & women

The thing is you have to pretty much replace the entire plane. By the time your done it's a new plane that looks like an old one.

Oof. I'd not have restored it. It would have been a remarkable piece, reassembled as best as could be with the original parts left, of a plane's (and a couple of the crew's) last mission. A frozen in time remembrance. A shame they rebuilt it.

How's that restoration going? This is an old video

Leonard frank Redfern pilot RAFVR 1166466 flew in HampdenAE361 and sadly died with his crew in. operation archery 27th Dec 1941 over Malloy Island Norway.

Must have been really shitty to be under attack in those planes. You could spit through those planes .Makes you think how brave they were.

Would've been nice to incorporate a photo of what one looked like, I'm gonna have to go google now.

No wonder the crews nicknamed the Hampden 'The flying Suitcase'!

are they going to make it to fly or is it just going to be a static exhibit

Unfortuantely the Hampdens were woefully inadequate for the task set by Arthur Harris. They were slow, and as a result fell easy prey to German night fighters

In my opinion I would not fix up a shot down aircraft especially if airmen died in the aircraft because all the damage to the aircraft is a story of its downfall and when you fix it up you get rid of all the original markings and damage

How is the restoration going?

Is that a Wellington in the background?

It was,not called the flying suitcase for nothing .

a toilet in a bomber this small, luxury :)

A question, I've noticed this aircraft has a faded type A1 fuselage roundel on the starboard side boom. But looking at the restored tail fin it appears to be a type C fin flash, rather then the type A. My question, I now this aircraft was lost in Sep 42, and type C1 roundels and C type fin flash came into effect in Jul of that year, is there anyone who can confirm for me if the new roundel type was painted over the original, and faded away in all its years outside in the weather? Thankyou.

Kudos to the museum for doing this great work. It will bring to people's attention some of the awful airplanes our boys had to fight with in the early years of the war. Very sadly, the reputation of these incredibly brave men and boys in Bomber Command will now always be tarnished with the name of "Bomber" Harris. I'm sure he started off with the best of intentions, as bombers were the only way we could take the war to Germany. But somewhere along the road, he seemed to lose it, and wanted to keep on plastering beautiful Medieval towns in Europe that had no strategic importance at all. To our PC way of thinking nowadays, it seems as though he wanted to kill as many innocent civilians as he could. He argued, of course, that there were no "innocent" civilians. But a look at the victims of the Blitz ought to have shown him that this was not true.

She’d geddit.

A forgotten aircraft the hampden

The Hampden looks structurally weak.

Brave brave men it was a flying coffin

👍 👍 👍!!!

How are they going to tell the German pilot that this wellington crew won the gulag and are redeploying so his kill doesn’t count

Pity the interviewer was too idle to show a bit of enthusiasm.

Knew from that slender tail that it was a hampton

I was a tail gunner a Huey in Vietnam🤓🤪

I refer the German messcherschmitt plane and heinkel he plane 2

mli13htgMgw for an update on the restoration of the aircraft.

Oh, the reverence humans have for war machines used to kill humans.

Couldn't understand a word he said

How's that restoration going? This is an old video