EARLY MORNING ARRIVAL
By Robert Taylor
1250 Signed and Numbered Prints
125 Artist Proofs

On the morning of 6 June 1944 as the Allies were making their first landings on the beaches of Normandy,  a four engined Lancaster of RAF Bomber Command, made its way back to Colerne after an early morning raid.  It was a brand new aircraft, and was returning from its very first mission.  Aboard was a Canadian crew with an average age of 21.   LANCASTER V-RA had a short but distinguished career.  At first light on D-Day,  her young crew had made a low level strike, bombing the heavy coastal gun emplacements at Arromanches in northern France from just 1,500 feet - a spectacular and exceptionally dangerous introduction into the hazardous business of aerial bombardment.  The next night they took out a bridge at Coutances in West Normandy from 1,200 feet and on the third night they raided the Acere marshalling yards on the outskirts of Paris.  Their final mission against the Cambrai marshalling yards on the night of 12 June ended in heroism and disaster. Attacked by a Ju88 night fighter and set on fire, the Lancaster was doomed.  The captain ordered his crew to bale out, but at the rear of the aircraft the tail gun turret was jammed, its gunner trapped.  Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski went back to help, but with fire all around him he could do nothing to assist his tail gunner.  His own parachute by this time was burned and the fire was so intense he was forced to jump, bidding goodbye to his 
trapped friend with a salute.  His efforts to save his comrade  cost him his life - the charred remains of his parachute bearing testimony to a hero.  The pilot, Mynarski, had trimmed the burning Lancaster into level flight before jumping and obligingly V-RA
pancaked into the flatlands below, the tail gunner miraculously surviving the crash.  Andrew Mynarski, who could have saved himself was awarded posthumously the Victoria Cross for his conspicuous act of bravery.  The edition, released in 1988, is signed by
six members of Mynarski's crew and three Victoria Cross recipients who were Lancaster crewmen:  Norman Jackson, Roderick
Leoroyd and Bill Reid. 

Size:  33"  x  25"
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