The Air Ministry, more concerned than ever about the ineffectiveness of Bomber Command, were almost as excited, ordering 450 before the official trails were completed. The first Lancasters went into service with 44 Squadron at RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, before the end of the year.
Pip Beck, a telephone operator at the base, described her reaction to the arrival of the first of the new bombers. ‘I stared in astonishment at this formidable and beautiful aircraft, cockpit as high as the balcony on which I stood and a great spread of wings with four enormous engines. Its lines were sleek and graceful, yet there was an enormous feeling of power about it. It looked so right after the clumsiness of the Manchester.’
With the arrival of the Lancaster, the RAF’s bombing war now started in earnest. Under Harris’s uncompromising command, it was a fight waged with ruthlessness, as shown in the assaults on cities such as Hamburg in July 1943, which left 45,000 Germans dead, and Dresden in February 1945, where around 25,000 were killed.
Harris had no doubts about the morality of campaign, given the savage nature of the Nazi enemy. ‘They have sewn the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,’ he had said in November 1940 at the height of the Blitz.