The Spitfire is probably Britain's most famous fighter, but the Lancaster equals that fame as a bomber. Between the end of the Battle of Britain and the invasion of France in June 1944, the only way for Britain to effectively take the fight to the enemy was in the air, and this was one of the main ways of doing it. It was done at a very high price. 7,377 were built, and 3,736 were lost; that is, over half. Not all of the crews were lost of course; many became prisoners. Almost 10,000, in fact, though 55,573 were killed.

The Lancaster was a 4 engined heavy bomber. In the 1930s the RAF had a preference for twin engined bombers (which required less maintenance) which resulted in the Avro aircraft company producing the (ultimately disappointing) Avro Manchester. In 1940 Avro designer Roy Chadwick (1893-1947) started work on an improved, 4 engined Manchester which used Rolls Royce Merlin engines. (Yes, the ones used in early model Spitfires.) The first Lancaster flew on 9 January 1941. The first production model flew in October of 1941.

There were a few different models of Lancaster, though not quite as many as the Spitfire. The final production model was the B.VII, which had two variants; the FE type which was intended for use in the Far East against Japan, and the Western Union, which went to France.

The main differences from the earlier models were the movement of the dorsal turret forward, and the replacement of the quad .303 guns in the dorsal and tail turrets with twin 0.5 guns. (In image 30336 you'll see that both turrets of this plane have twin guns.)

This aircraft was taken into the RAF in 1945 under the registration NX622 (the number that this plane still bears), but it did not see active service. It flew only 7 hours for the RAF. In 1951 it was converted to a maritime reconnaissance aircraft. It was sent to the French Aeronavale (essentially the French equivalent to a Fleet Air Arm). One of the most noticeable differences between this aircraft and Bomber Command ones is that, as far as I can see from some old pictures of it in French service, it had no dorsal turret. (Understandable because in the jet age your chances of shooting down a MiG 15 with WW II machine guns... well, the odds wouldn't be good.) The nose and tail turrets were still there, though.

By 1962 the Lanc was serving in New Caledonia. By the end of that year, it had been donated to the RAAF Association.

What happened between then and 1983 I'm not quite sure, but that was when it moved to Bull Creek.

My guess is that they put the dorsal turret back in. They then repainted it with most of the insignia of JO-D ("Digger", or more conventionally "Dog"), a Lancaster that flew with 463 Squadron RAAF flying out of RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Well, save for the fact that the real JO-D was a Lancaster B.I and not a Lancaster B.VII, and its serial was actually LL847 rather than NX622.

So clearly, this is not that plane. Unfortunately.

That's because the real JO-D completed 93 raids. Unfortunately on raid 94, a bombing run on Munich on 17 to 18 December 1944, its luck ran out. There is little information about what happened or why since there was no known contact with the plane after takeoff, but it was lost over France; specifically the department of Eure in Normandy (west of Paris, south of Rouen). All 8 of the crew was killed; the youngest was the flight engineer (19), the "oldest" the 26 year old wireless operator. One of the air gunners was 23, with all of the others aged 20 to 22. They were buried in a mass grave in the then Le Gros-Thiel (now Le Bosc-du-Thiel).

Why choose JO-D? From the Association's web site:
"The aircraft was not too difficult to choose. As well as achieving the impressive total of 93 raids, JO-D (D-Digger) had also been crewed on operations by several members of the Western Australian division of the Royal Australian Air Force Association, including Des Sullivan, Gus Belford and John McKenzie."

Addendum: My personal opinion is that Facebook is a sociopathic organisation that steals other peoples' intellectual property (including the images in this gallery) despite being explicitly denied permission to do so.