Ultimate selection of
aviation art prints of Royal Air Force Handley Page Halifax Bomber
aircraft. Aviation art prints of the Halifax Bomber by leading aviation
artists Ivan Berryman, Gleed and Barry Price, available from Cranston Fine
Arts, the aviation art company.
No.76 Squadron Halifax by Ivan Berryman.
Halifaxes of No.76 Squadron RAF en route to another night bombing raid over Germany. The lead aircraft here has code MP-L. Serial numbers for aircraft were unique, but codes like MP-L were transferred after an aircraft was lost. A total of 10 aircraft carrying the codes MP-L were lost from No.76 Squadron. These aircraft were :
L9530 : Shot down 12th-13th August 1941. R9452 : Crashed 12th-13th April 1942. W7660 : Shot down 19th-20th August 1942. W7678 : Lost 3rd-4th March 1943. DK172 : Shot down 23rd-24th May 1943. DK200 : Crashed 11th-12th June 1943. LK922 : Shot down 21st-22nd January 1944. LK789 : Shot down 24th-25th April 1944. MZ622 : Crashed 24th-25th May 1944. LL579 : Crashed 27th February 1945.
Item Code : IBF0003
No.76 Squadron Halifax by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
In the depths of winter, Halifax aircraft of 158 Squadron based at RAF Lissett, Yorkshire, make their final preparations before take off. A remarkable aircraft much loved by its crews.
Item Code : DHM2202
Mutual Support by Philip West. - Editions Available
A cold winters morning, as dawn breaks over RAF Lissett, revealing that last nights biting wind has once again brought a covering of snow to the airfield. But, with conditions forecast to improve, tonights operation to bomb industrial targets in Germany is set to proceed, and ground crew start to prepare Halifax Mk3 LV907 F-Freddy, simply known as Friday 13th, for action. This iconic aircraft flew an impressive total of 128 operational sorties with 158 Squadron between March 1944 and April 1945.
Item Code : DHM1902
Action This Day by Richard Taylor. - Editions Available
A Halifax bomber of Bomber Command is being refueled and checked by ground crew on a snow covered RAF airfield. The Halifax was one of the three major bombers of the RAF. The Royal Air Force Halifax had a crew of six to eight, a maximum speed of 280mph (with MK.VI top speed of 312mph) service ceiling of 22,800 feet maximum range of 3,000 miles. The Halifax carried four .303 browning machine guns in the tail turret, two .303 browning machines in the nose turret, and in the MkIII there were four .303 brownings in the dorsal turret. The Handley Page Halifax first joined the Royal Air Force in March 1941 with 35 squadron. The Halifax saw service in Europe and the Middle East with a variety of variants for use with Coastal Command, in anti submarine warfare, special duties, glider-tugs, and troop transportation roles. A total of 6177 Halifaxes were built and the aircraft stayed in service with the Royal Air Force until 1952.
Sadly, but two examples of the Handly page Halifax exist today - the unrestored W1048 at the RAF Museum at Hendon, and the Yorkshire Air Museums pristine LV907 Friday the 13th, a rebuild from the remains of HR792. In this portrait of one of Bomber Commands oft-forgotten workhorses, the original Friday the 13th is set against a stunning evening cloudscape.
Item Code : B0012
Friday the 13th by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
On August 15th 1942, under the leadership of Don Bennet, a new group was formed from Bomber Command to develop specialised target finding and target marking. Made up purely from experienced volunteers, this elite and highly trained group of men were known as the Pathfinders. Up until this point the means available to Bomber Command of accurately finding their targets were totally lacking and the task of the Pathfinders was to develop techniques to precisely define these targets ahead of the main force. Initially made up of four Squadrons Nos. 7 (Stirlings) 35 (Halifax) 83 (Lancaster) and 156 (Wellingtons) they were based at a clutch of airfields between Cambridge and Huntingdon. Originally part of No.3 Group Bomber Command the Pathfinder Force was directly answerable to C-in-C Air Marshal Arthur Harris until January 1943 when it became a separate group, No.8 (PFF) . Personally selected for the task by Arthur Harris, the Australian born Don Bennet, just 32 years of age proved to b.........
The Battle of Britain had been won by the young fighter pilots of Fighter Command, but now it fell to another band of young men to wage total warfare against the Nazi war machine - the aircrew of RAF Bomber Command. And like the fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain, the young men who flew with Bomber Command came not just from Britain, but from all over the Commonwealth, and from the countries of occupied mainland Europe. Every man was a volunteer, prepared to endure the deadly flak and prowling night fighters, to say nothing of the savage and bitter cold, in order to wage their relentless attack on the military and industrial targets of the Third Reich. The aircraft that carried these young men to war were numerous, but bearing the brunt of the RAFs incessant campaign were two heavy bombers, the stalwarts of Bomber Command - the Lancaster and the Halifax. Between them they accounted for over three quarters of all the bombs dropped by the RAF, and Halifaxes alone accounted for a.........
Sadly, but two examples of the Handly page Halifax exist today - the unrestored W1048 at the RAF Museum at Hendon, and the Yorkshire Air Museums pristine LV907 Friday the 13th, a rebuild from the remains of HR792.
Item Code : KW0018
A Friday in Winter by Keith Woodcock. - Editions Available
Flying escort missions was no soft option for fighter pilots. Supporting bombers en-route to important strategic targets almost guaranteed interception by enemy fighters, and the great bomber air raids over enemy occupied Europe brought about some of the most ferociously fought dog-fights of the war. Though regarded as the best defencive fighter ever built, the Spitfire flew in most fighter roles in almost every theatre of WWII. It equipped many squadrons such as the RAF's number 610 Squadron, which flew this outstanding fighter in various marks, throughout the war. Having contested the Battle of Britain flying Mark Is, 610 became part of Douglas Bader's famous Tangmere Wing in 1941 with the Mark Vb. As part of top-scoring Johnnie Johnson's with Canadian Wing in 1943, the squadron was equipped with the Mark IX – the best of all Spitfire Marks according to the great wing leader – getting the better of the Luftwaffe's new Fw190 in the great air battles leading up to.........
Remembered fondly by many RAF, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand bomber crews, the Halifax served many diverse roles in WWII, including service with Special Duties, dropping agents and supplies behind enemy lines. Halifax MkIIs of 35 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, head out over the Lincolnshire coastline at dusk bound for Germany, August 1942. No.35 Squadron was one of the five squadrons selected to form the original Pathfinder Force.
Item Code : NT0002
Pathfinder Halifax by Nicolas Trudgian. - Editions Available
Halifax bombers of 102 squadron on the way across to occupied Europe on another bombing misison, June/ July 1944. At the controls of DY - E is Flt Sgt Arthur Albert Edwards DFC, the Halifax DY - H would a few weeks later be shot down on the 12th August 1944.
Item Code : NTR0029
Halifax Bombers by Barry Price. - Editions Available
Pilot Officer Cyril Joe Barton, VC: Born 5th June 1921 in Suffolk, Cyril Barton volunteered for aircrew duties and joined the RAFVR on 16th April 1941, qualifying as a Sergeant Pilot 10th November 1942. He and his crew went to No.1663 Heavy Conversion Unit (HCU) at Rufforth in Yorkshire. On 5th September 1943, they joined No.78 Squadron. Barton was commissioned as a pilot officer three weeks later. Undertaking their first operational sortie (a raid against Montlucon) they served with No.78 squadron until 15th January 1944. Having completed nine sorties, they were posted to No.578 Squadron. Their second sortie with the squadron, was against Stuttgart in Halifax LK797 which was a brand new aircraft. On 30th March 1944, having now completed six sorties in LK797 - which the crew had named Excalibur, they took off on a raid against Nuremburg. Whilst still 70 miles from the target, they were attacked head on by two enemy fighters. Excalibur had two fuel tanks punctured, both the radio and r.........
Image size 16.5 inches x 11.5 inches (42cm x 30cm)
none
£14.00
Halifax Mk.III NA337 by Ivan Berryman.
One of 6,176 Halifaxes built during World War II, NA337(2P-X) was shot down over Norway on 23rd April 1945. In 1995 it was recovered from the lake that had been its watery home for fifty years and has now been restored by the Halifax Aircraft Association in Ontario, Canada.
Item Code : DHM1712
Halifax Mk.III NA337 by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
The Handley Page Halifax, together with the Avro Lancaster, formed the backbone of the RAFs night offensive against Germany from 1942 to 1945 and finished the campaign with an impressive record of achievement.
Item Code : DHM2233
Welcome Sight by Stephen Brown. - Editions Available
Out of the Night - The First To Go In by Robert Taylor.
Silently out of the night they came. With flaps deployed, three timber and plywood Horsa gliders swept swiftly down through the night skies, rapidly closing with their objective – Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal. On board, with tension etched deep into their blackened faces, men from the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, part of the British 6th Airborne Division, braced themselves for landing. They, and sappers from the Royal Engineers, were about to become the first fighting force to land in France on D-Day. They were about to make history.
Item Code : DHM1818
Out of the Night - The First To Go In by Robert Taylor. - Editions Available
D-Day Invasion : Tribute to the Glider Troops by Ivan Berryman.
A tribute to the glider crews and airborne troops who participated in the glider operations during D-Day. The British Horsa glider (known as the flying coffin) was used by British, Canadian and American airborne forces during the invasion. Approximately 100 glider pilots were killed or wounded during the D-Day operations.
Item Code : B0313
D-Day Invasion : Tribute to the Glider Troops by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Sunday 8th April 1945. Halifax B.II Series 1 (Special) JP254 of 148 Special Duties Squadron, RAF piloted by Pilot officer Bill Leckie is depicted approaching the drop zone near to the Alt Aussee salt mine in the Austrian Alps to drop four SOE agents and their equipment whose mission it was to secure and protect 6,755 items of the world's greatest works of art that had been looted and stored by the Germans as they swept across Europe. With the allied forces closing in, the Germans had planned to blow up the entire store to prevent the artworks from falling into the hands of the liberators. Once on the ground, the four agents linked up with local resistance fighters and the mine and its valuable contents were eventually secured, the explosives made safe and the entire cache taken into the safe keeping of the 80th US Infantry Division as the German occupation of Europe crumbled.
Item Code : B0488
Operation Ebensburg by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Having survived the bombing raid on Karlsruhe, it was the cruelest of ironies that Halifax III LK789 (MP-L) of 76 Sqn should fall victim to a lone German fighter that was lurking in the night skies above Norfolk. Witnessed by another Halifax, LK785 (MP-T), the upward firing waist guns of Lt Wolfgang Wenning's Messerschmitt Me410 of II/KG51 found their mark, expertly exploiting the blind spot of the Halifax, sending LK789 down in flames near Welney, killing all but one of her crew. Wenning's victory was to be short lived, however, the German being killed in a mid air collision with an RAF Airspeed Oxford just three days later during another intruder operation over the midlands.
Item Code : B0503
Unseen and Deadly by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
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