Bidspirit auction | Dambuster Raid Lance Howard RARE

Dambuster Raid Lance Howard RARE signed WW2 RAF 44th ann cover Rare only 200 issued. Flown by Lancaster PA474, numbered on the back with flight details on cachet. Special Scampton 50th ann Dambusters Raid postmark. He joined the RAAF in 1940 and was initially selected for pilot training. Eventually he was remustered as a navigator. He arrived in the UK in late 1941 and was posted to 14 OTU at RAF Cottesmore. He was posted to 49 Squadron in May 1942, where he spent some time in further training in the Conversion Unit. By late 1942, he was flying as the regular navigator in Bill Townsend's crew and went on to complete 25 operations by March 1943. By then he had been recommended for a commission, although it was not confirmed until after he had joined 617 Squadron. On the night of the Dams Raid, Howard was apprehensive as Townsend coaxed AJ-O into the air. ”I had visions of the bumpy (grass) take-causing the lights under the fuselage to be shaken off so that instead of being 60ft above the ground we would finish up 60ft below it,' he later remembered. They made it into the air, however, and set course for Germany. In his account in Colin Burgess's book, Australia's Dambusters, Howard later recalled: It was a clear night with a full moon and we flew at 60 to 100 feet to keep under German radar. On the way in we received a radio message to attack the Ennepe dam, which indicated that the main target, the Möhne, had been breached. This we saw for ourselves shortly afterwards as we used this for a turning point on the way to the Ennepe. It was an horrific picture with a great stream of water bursting down the valley from the breach in the dam wall. We attacked the Ennepe at sixty feet height and a speed of 240 miles per hour. There were no defences and the bomb was accurate. But no breach was observed and it was obvious that two or more bombs would be needed. Unfortunately there were no other aircraft. So back we screamed flat out to the Möhne with the engines at maximum revs and thence up to the north Dutch coast where we were sent on our way by a large flak gun, and then over the North Sea to Scampton. We had another encounter with flak and searchlights on the way in, and all in all one wonders how we survived flying low-level and dodging high tension cables and trees. We were the last crew back. For his part in the Dams Raid, and as the only officer in the crew of AJ-O, Howard was awarded the DFC. He participated fully in the investiture ceremony on the morning of 22 June and the dinner at the Hungaria restaurant in the evening. (He can be seen in the famous photograph of the event with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigar in the other.) Howard's last two operations in the whole war were the squadron's attacks on Italian targets in July. Good condition. Part of Single Vendor collection. We combine postage on multiple winning lots and can ship worldwide.