1/72 Hasegawa Avro Lancaster DV401

by Elger Abbink

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Lancaster DV401 (QR-Z) of 61 Squadron took off from its base of Skellingthorpe at 23.46, on the second of January 1943.  The target of the bomber and its 7-man crew was Berlin.  Just south of Stavoren over the IJsselmeer (formerly the Zuiderzee), the aircraft was attacked by a German nighfighter and was badly damaged.  The pilot was 22 year old Flying Officer George Arthur Tull, the only son of a London tobacco shop keeper.  The aircraft was on fire, and possibly members of the crew were injured.  Tull tried to reach land to make an emergency landing, and the airplane passed the Frisian coast at the small harbout of Laaxum.  By that time, the airplane had lost a lot of altitude and was ablaze from back to front.  They were too low for anyone to bail out, and about a mile inland, the tail of the aircraft broke off.  Half a mile further, the airplane slammed into a hill.  The airplane that had been brand new - with only 64 flying hours - was reduced to rubble.  None of the crew survived.  The subsequent explosion caused by the airplane's fuel and bomb load woke all the people in the surrounding area.  It was 01.30, January 3d, 1943.

The crew are buried at Bakhuizen cemetary. They were G. A. Tull (pilot - 22); J. S. Baldwin (bombadier - 20); C. G. Crosby (gunner - 35); C. Ablett (gunner); J. Stock (wireless operator - 22); G. E. Heasman (flight engineer - 33); J. G. Holden (navigator - 20).

With this article I have included a picture of the graves of the crew, as well as a wartime picture of the crash site a few days after the incident.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

  

  

The Hasegawa model was built out of the box. The kit itself is not without flaws - most notably the big tailwheel, but I had a good time building it and I was very pleased overall with the quality.  The antenna is from stretched sprue.  I used Humbrol enamel paints, and I finished the model with water-based acrylic clear satin from a spraycan, which I found at an artist supply store.  I need to thank Mark Peacock for generously donating decals for the code letters and serial numbers. I 'm always amazed about the generosity scale modeling community.

I built the model for my dad who is an avid local amateur historian who investigated the crash of DV401.

An account of the crash (in Dutch) can be found in Jan van der Veer's book "De Luchtoorlog Boven Zuid-West Friesland '40-'45".

Elger

Photos and text © by Elger Abbink