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| Signatures on this item | |
| *The value given for each signature has been calculated by us based on the historical significance and rarity of the signature. Values of many pilot signatures have risen in recent years and will likely continue to rise as they become more and more rare. | |
| Name | Info |
 Flight Lieutenant Mike Chatterton *Signature Value : £15 | RAF pilot Mike Chatterton flew the Battle of Britian Memorial Flight Lancaster in the 1990s, amassing over 500 flying hours, and also is an experienced Nimrod pilot. He is the son of wartime Lancaster pilot John Chatterton and managed to take his father and some of his surviving crew for a flight in the restored Lancaster. |
 Plt Of John Chatterton DFC (deceased) *Signature Value : £25 | Flew thirty sorties with No.44 Sqn as a pilot on Lancasters. The missions he flew included Dusseldorf - where Bill Reid earned his Victoria Cross - and Nuremberg, where a terrible toll of aircraft were lost. Earning the nickname Ace, he also served with No.630 Sqn and No.57 Sqn during the war. Post war he became a university lecurer and farmer, his son Mike joined the RAF flying Shackletons and Nimrods in the 1970s, eventually flying the Lancaster of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, taking his father and some of his surviving crew for a flight in the 1990s. John died in 2004 just as his biography Ploughshare and hining Sword was published. |
| The Aircraft : | |
| Name | Info |
| Lancaster | The Avro Lancaster arose from the avro Manchester and the first prototype Lancaster was a converted Manchester with four engines. The Lancaster was first flown in January 1941, and started operations in March 1942. By March 1945 The Royal Air Force had 56 squadrons of Lancasters with the first squadron equipped being No.44 Squadron. During World War Two the Avro Lancaster flew 156,000 sorties and dropped 618,378 tonnes of bombs between 1942 and 1945. Lancaster Bomberss took part in the devastating round-the-clock raids on Hamburg during Air Marshall Harris' "Operation Gomorrah" in July 1943. Just 35 Lancasters completed more than 100 successful operations each, and 3,249 were lost in action. The most successful survivor completed 139 operations, and the Lancaster was scrapped after the war in 1947. A few Lancasters were converted into tankers and the two tanker aircraft were joined by another converted Lancaster and were used in the Berlin Airlift, achieving 757 tanker sorties. A famous Lancaster bombing raid was the 1943 mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, to destroy the dams of the Ruhr Valley. The operation was carried out by 617 Squadron in modified Mk IIIs carrying special drum shaped bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis. Also famous was a series of Lancaster attacks using Tallboy bombs against the German battleship Tirpitz, which first disabled and later sank the ship. The Lancaster bomber was the basis of the new Avro Lincoln bomber, initially known as the Lancaster IV and Lancaster V. (Becoming Lincoln B1 and B2 respectively.) Their Lancastrian airliner was also based on the Lancaster but was not very successful. Other developments were the Avro York and the successful Shackleton which continued in airborne early warning service up to 1992. |
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