Britain's Most Mass-Produced Bomber | Vickers Wellington (Part 1)

Today we're looking at the Vickers Wellington, or the 'Wimpy' as most affectionately called it, the most mass-produced bomber to enter RAF service. From 1939 - 1942 it formed the backbone of RAF bomber command, and was often the only way that Britain could truly 'take the fight to the enemy'. The Wellington is also well known for its unique way of being built using geodetic construction, a technique that was refined in Britain by engineer Barnes Wallis.

Sources:

Air Ministry (1941), Pilot's Notes, The Wellington I, IA, and IC Aeroplanes.

0:00 Intro
3:41 Prototype Development
13:32 Mk I Bomber & Service Life
23:12 Mk IA, Mk IC, War Service
35:28 Mk II, Mk III, War Service
43:58 James Ward, V.C
48:07 Later War Service

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Producing these videos is a hobby of mine - and apparently its now a full-time job too! I have a passion for history, and personally own a large collection of books, journals and other texts, and endeavor to do as much research as possible. However if there are any mistakes, please don't hesitate to reach out and correct anything :)

[RexsHangar]

F.A.Q Section

Q: Do you take aircraft requests?
A: I have a list of aircraft I plan to cover, but feel free to add to it with suggestions:)

Q: Why do you use imperial measurements for some videos, and metric for others?
A: I do this based on country of manufacture. Imperial measurements for Britain and the U.S, metric for the rest of the world, but I include text in my videos that convert it for both.

Q: Will you include video footage in your videos, or just photos?
A: Video footage is very expensive to licence, if I can find footage in the public domain I will try to use it, but a lot of it is hoarded by licencing studies (British Pathe, Periscope films etc). In the future I may be able to afford clips :)

Q: Why do you sometimes feature images/screenshots from flight simulators?
A: Sometimes there are not a lot of photos available for certain aircraft, so I substitute this with digital images that are as accurate as possible.

Feel free to leave you questions below - I may not be able to answer all of them, but I will keep my eyes open :)

[wmralder]

I recently found out that my Uncle was a Wellington pilot when he died on a mission, apparently over Germany. The plane made it home and he's buried in a cemetary in Northeast England. I had thought he'd been Lancaster pilot until I found his RCAF record online.

[mikeonbc]

Thoroughly enjoyed that. I'm very proud of the fact my Dad was a WW2 Lanc pilot. But he was also a Wellington pilot, when he and his crew were training up at an OTU based at Silverstone. On one particular training flight, cloudbase was very low and they had to stay at about 1000ft AGL. One of the engines lost power then stopped, and they were concerned about the other one as they struggled to maintain height. The navigator was also concerned that high ground might soon be ahead in the form of the Peak District. Suddenly my Dad saw an airfield appear out of the gloom and made an immediate decision to put the Wellington down, wheels up as they needed to act very quickly plus the extra drag of the deployed u/c gear could have had fatal consequences. And because Wimpy's could catch fire easily when sparks were flying, he opted for the grass alongside the tarmac runway as his landing option. it all worked perfectly and the only injury to crew was a torn shoulder lapel on the jacket of one of the crew. For his valiant action, he was bawled out by the station commander for having damaged one of His Majesty's aircraft. His crew though, thought he was a bloody hero as they had no doubt they would probably otherwise have been killed. The airfield turned out to be Castle Donnington. The navigator was Len Smee who, if you google him, went on to have another extraordinary crash survival adventure after the war. My Dad and his crew remained lifelong friends after the war.

[aircraftnut]

I knew someone who served as a tail gunner on a Wellington bomber in ww2. He said “you don’t know fear until you experience trained soldiers who are good at what they do and are there for the sole purpose of trying to kill you”
Thanks for your service R.I.P. Pat Quinn 😢

[BHuang]

Intersting Fact:
A Vickers Wellington LN514 holds the record of fastest construction in 23 hours and 50 minutes, and took off 24 hours and 48 minutes!

[paulhaynes]

Excellent - really enjoyed this one. The longer format gives us something to really get our teeth into. The odd thing about this plane is that I thought I knew so much about it but not that it was built by Vickers! Even weirder when you consider that my dad worked there. Thanks to your channel, I now also have a very different understanding of where a plane like this came from. As an immediate postwar child, I grew up with all the famous WW2 planes as just being there, as if they'd just appeared out of nowhere. But now, thanks to watching hours of your videos, I now understand how such planes evolved from those that came before them.

[wilomica]

Yay one I requested! My maternal grandfather was a navigator in one of those. Thank you!

[chrislee]

Fascinating stuff.
My dad was a Wimpy pilot from 1943, completing a 35-sortie tour over Burma.
I've always found it remarkable and so disappointing that none survive even close to airworthy.

[dougstubbs]

I had seen in bios and other texts that pilots considered the Welly to have the very best, most comfortable pilots seat, positioning and how easily the controls fell to hand, unsurpassed by any other aircraft, back then. Small detail, but it did reflect the generally overall good ergonomics of this cockpit. Also, unlike, say a DC3, the glazing didn’t leak. The Welly was also praised for minimal vibration, unlike a four engine bomber which shook like a dog shitting razor blades. Queenslander.

[hughgrection]

An Canadian friend told me a story about himself and his father and their visit to England to see his old base where he had flown out of during the war. His father had flown Wellingtons. He started his story by saying "my dad was king over there". They took a taxi to some museum and the driver was keen to hear about his father's recollections and expressed Britains thanks to Canada for their help and loyalty. When he dropped them off the driver said that it was a small museum and he would wait for them and he did. He returned them...no charge. When it was time to visit his old base (which was still an RAF base) they arrived out front and my friend asked security if his father could possibly get to see airfield he flew from and was told by the guard that he had no authority but would make enquiries. They waited a while and he then he saw an officer with an NCO marching towards them. The NCO opened the door and then to quote my fried "then that officer saluted my dad". They got the full treatment and his father was greeted enthusiastically by all. I will never forget that phrase "my dad was king over there".

[jp-umfr]

After a lecture given by Barnes Wallace in the 60's I had the honour of meeting him. He had shook hands with every apprentice, some 100+. He was a quiet unassuming gentleman, grey haired but still so full of vitality. We don't seem to breed men like him anymore or maybe they are stifled.

[wideyxyz]

Brilliant. I can attest to the strength of the Wimpy even in model form! I was building an Airfix kit of the Mk 1C in the Late 1970s when I came across a problem of fitting the front Turret. No matter how Hard I tried I couldn't get it to fit properly (of course the turret had to swivel and the guns had to be able to raise and lower). After a long time messing about with it my preteen anger (I was 12 years old) got the better of me and I launched it across my bedroom where it hit the wall and bounced across the bed. I stormed off and left it where it landed.
Later I came back a little ashamed of my actions and picked it up and inspected it. No Damage! I couldn't believe it and the most mysterious thing of all was the front turret slotted in without problem. I completed the model and painted it and it hung from the celling of my bedroom on its nylon fishing line hangers where it "flew" for many years until I left home in my late teens. I think my mum passed it onto someone after I left home with all my other models. (Or dust gathering junk as she used to refer to them!)
I still have a huge soft spot for the indestructible Wimpy!

[davidjones]

When I was young my mum said to me that our local vicar flew in Wellingtons, so I said to her why didn't he wear flying boots like everybody else?

[thomaskositzki]

Wow I am astonsihed!
I am German and always just heard something like this in historical accounts: after the first disastrous day-time attacks, the Welly got relegated to second-line duty. End of story.
There one can see the effect of gross simplification, didn't expect the Welly to have had such a distinct service career!
Can't wait to hear about the Humpback-Welly! :D

[grrlpurpleable]

OMG you are covering something a bit more mainstream... I could but dream! Your attention to detail on the better known aircraft of this era = colour me pleased :) Looking forward to part 2 - excellent work!

[markfryer]

A very good and in depth look at the Wellington medium bomber. I have a book on the Wellington and one of the things mentioned repeatedly in aircrew memories was of the reliability of the engines and I think that the radial Hercules engines played a significant role here because a radial engine didn't require the radiators and plumbing that an in-line engine did. Loss or damage to the cooling system of an in-line engine would result in the loss of the engine and this could result in the loss of the aircraft. So the geodetic structure and radial engines combined to make a legend of the Wellington's capacity to absorb considerable battle damage and still return home when others would have been lost. This is not to say that the Wellington was immune to losses, it wasn't but if you could survive the attack or the flak then you had a good chance of getting back home.
Another thing that pilots would rave about was just how comfortable the pilots seats were.
Mark from Melbourne Australia

[TheGameFilmGuruMan]

Something to note: In this video you talk about an attack on the 'battlecruiser' Nürnberg. Nürnberg was about the furthest thing from a battlecruiser, being instead a light cruiser.

[southronjr]

Really enjoyed this longer format. I would love to see similar videos on the B26 Marauder and B25 Mitchell, especially the models fitted with the 75mm cannons. I have seen numerous videos on them but none in such detail and of such good presentation quality.

[scrumpydrinker]

Rex, the Wimpy was the catalyst for the 60 series Merlins as fitted to the Spitfire Mk9 and the P51D Mustang. Vickers were developing a high altitude version of the Wellington and required an engine that could operate at 30000 ft. Rolls Royce rejected the use of a turbocharger and went for the two stage two speed route utilising the Vulture centrifugal supercharger as the second stage. The high altitude bomber went nowhere but Lord Hives suggested that they put the resultant engine into a Spitfire and the rest is history

[peterjorgensen]

These are really good videos! No music, no nonsense, but very thorough and complete!