ABOVE:
Great excitement
at Victory Aircraft’s
Malton plant as
its fi rst Lancaster
is unveiled on 6
August 1943.
CWHMAEROPLANE SEPTEMBER 2017 http://www.aeroplanemonthly.com 49New colours on the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum Lancaster salute the fi rst example of the type to be built in Canada, and its wartime record
The war diaries of RUHR EXPRESS
that there would be little in the way
of production fl ight-testing. KB700
made its maiden fl ight at Malton
on 1 August 1943; fi ve days later, it
would be ‘christened’ as Ruhr Express
during a high-profi le ceremony and,
with national radio coverage of the
occasion, begin its delivery fl ight to
Britain.
A Canadian crew was put together
for the ferry, headed by the very
experienced Sqn Ldr Reg Lane
DSO DFC. Already with more
than 50 operational sorties to his
credit, Lane had fl own a Halifax
on the March 1942 attack against
the German battleship Tirpitz in
the Trondheimfjord. He was thus
no stranger to operations out of the
ordinary, but even so he found it
disconcerting to discover that the
new Lancaster’s engine instruments
were unserviceable. Lane said later:
“In front of all the workers, offi cials,
and media it would have been an
unmitigated disaster not to take off.
As well, it would have had an adverse
effect on morale.”
KB700 made it to Dorval,
Montréal, to complete the fi rst leg.
Further testing there uncovered more
problems, including an engine failure.
Weather delays en route threw a
further spanner into the works, butthe trans-Atlantic stretch passed off
uneventfully and, at last, Ruhr Express
arrived in the UK.
At this stage, prior to allocation
to an operational unit, the Lancaster
wore no squadron codes. It is this
point in KB700’s existence that the
port side of the Canadian Warplane
Heritage Museum’s Victory Aircraft-
built Lancaster X, FM213/C-GVRA,
was painted to represent during
May of this year. The CWHM has
often applied different markingsWORDS: BEN DUNNELL
to FM213 as a means of saluting
various Lancasters with a Canadian
connection, and Ruhr Express is the
latest of these.
But what of the original KB700
and its subsequent career? The
operations record books of the two
RCAF squadrons with which it
served in Bomber Command tell that
story vividly. They provide a snapshot
of one Lancaster — albeit one
especially signifi cant Lancaster
— and its war.48-57_AM_LANCASTER_Sept17_cc C.indd 49 31/07/2017 14:47