1943, Photograph, SRG 435/5/404
Crew preparing Wellington Mark III bombers at No. 30 Operational Training Unit, in Hixon, Staffordshire, for a leaflet dropping ('Nickelling') sortie over France, on 6 September 1943. The two aircraft closest to the foreground are numbered BT-Z BK347 and BT-T DF640. BT-Z BK347 later crashed near Ingleton, North Yorkshire, on 21 April 1944. Vickers Wellington aircraft were British twin-engine, long range medium bombers designed in the mid 1930s, and widely used as night bombers in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced by larger four-engine bombers such as the Avro Lancaster. The Wellington continued to serve throughout the war as an anti-submarine aircraft. [Details from Imperial War Museum website, catalogue number CH 18411].