Lancaster in the sands, Pegwell Bay, Kent
I Googled my father's name and this thread came up. He is the airman touching the Lancaster's wingtip. He was Master Navigator Colin Walsh, and he served in the RAF from his late teens (joining during the Second World War) through to his late forties, when he left and joined the Probation Service. He died in 1996.
The photograph is well-known in my family and a copy of it sits on my shelf here at home in London. The wreck was visible only when there was an extraordinarily low tide, and the photographer in the water with my father subsequently won the Daily Mirror Photograph of the Year.
Jonathan Walsh