I will post the 'story' that I find with this incident. My interest is the eight crew, one more than normal for a Lancaster. I understand that familiarisation trips occaisionally took place before ops, to learn the ropes. They certainly did in the USAF Eighth Air Force, so the eighth man may have been on one of these trips. If so was he one of the survivors, was he lucky enough to survive any subsequent tours? Of the aircraft, how many ops had it done?, was it one of the veterans?, and was it named?, as many were. As it was a 9 Sqdn aircraft it may have had the bomb bay door modification for carrying Tallboys, that will make a difference to the fuselage shape. The last elements are for my interest in making a model of the aircraft.
Despite only being 44 I am only one generation away from WWII. My father was a policeman in Southampton during the war and he applied to the RAF for air gunner, but being police was in a reserved occupation, so they didnt let him go. I'm very concious that that reserved occupation may well be the reason I'm in existance. That probably give me a greater affinity than others of my age with the era and those sacrifices made, something I hope my daughters appreciate in time too.
js