W5005 completed 44 successful ‘op’s with 460 Squadron. It was transferred to 550 Squadron, where it kept its nose art, becoming ‘BQ-N’. It flew a further 50 ops with 550 Sqn and was ditched in the Humber Estuary returning to Killingholme from its 94th operation, in August 1944.

Hi Roger - As explained in my article, we (and especially Clive) did a lot of research on this. The 460 Squadron records show that JB607 was shot down (over Kerkrade, Holland) on 29 December 1943 on only its ninth operation. So it could not have displayed the 30 operations shown in the artwork's bomb tally. The confusion seems to have arisen because a photo of the Stan Ireland crew who were flying JB607 when it was lost shows them standing under the Lancaster with this nose art – so some people have assumed this was ‘their’ aircraft - and therefore that the nose art was on JB607. In fact they never actually flew W5005 - they probably just had their photo taken with some nice nose art.

Hi Dave If you mean this picture of mine - no, I just stumbled across Greg's book while doing some research. Prints available here: www.flightartworks.com/-/portfolio/aviation/wwii-bombers/-/medias/a0a492da-b4c6-4369-ab35-d11d2e16ebb5-handley-page-halifax-b-iii-above-clouds Cheers - GE

Thanks, Laurie. I have just been admiring some of your work: I grew up in Saltburn so you're ticking a few boxes there!

I won't tell anyone if you don't.