Ludlow’s Bert Evans prepared Lancaster Bombers for bombing missions over Germany during the Second World War.

Bert with his RAF crew

There isn’t much to show for Bert Evans’ war. No uniforms, no medals, no paraphernalia.

The only nod to any involvement in the Second World War is a small framed picture on his mantlepiece of a Lancaster Bomber, one of Britain’s most famous war planes.

Servicing these incredible bombing birds, counting them out for raids over Germany and later counting them back in again if they were lucky enough to return, was his job.

These were Bert’s Lancasters.

“We were responsible for keeping them in the air,” says Bert ‘Sparks’ Evans, a former electrician and RAF leading aircraftsman, now aged 88, from Ludlow.

“We used to send out up to 30 planes at night and the most we lost was seven in one raid. There were seven blokes on a plane, so that’s 49 blokes.

“It’s difficult because you got to know the crew. I remember one Lancaster I couldn’t get electrically right. The crew came down and asked ‘Have you fixed it Sparks? Thank god for that, we are going on a raid tonight’.”

Bert wished he hadn’t got that particular Lancaster fixed up, however.

“They never came back,” he adds.

Former RAF aircraftsman, Bert Evans from Ludlow

“There’s things that happen in war that you can never dream about.”

The “Lanc” or “Lankie” as it was affectionately called was a British four-engine Second World War heavy bomber serving within RAF Bomber Command. It became the most famous and most successful of the Second World War night bombers, delivering 608,612 tons of bombs in 156,000 sorties.

Although the Lancaster was primarily a night bomber, it excelled in many other roles including daylight precision bombing, and gained worldwide renown as the “Dam Buster” used in the 1943 Operation Chastise raids on Germany’s Ruhr Valley dams.

Bert began his relationship with the Lankie after being called up to join the RAF in 1942. He was 21 and had spent most of his working life until then as a projectionist at Ludlow Picture House.

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After just a few months of training he was posted to Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire where he serviced planes for 115 Squadron running bombing raids over German territory.

He recalls “square-bashing” during initial training at Great Yarmouth and how he found himself on the other end of bombing raids as German planes routinely targeted the air base.

“They knew it was a training base and the Germans used to bomb us,” says Bert.

“It was a bit frightening and our gunners were firing back at them, but my mate told me that if they dropped a bomb overhead it would land two miles away.

“I didn’t mind so much during the daytime but at night it was different. I thought it was the end of the world.

“Sometimes a Naafi wagon would come along the road to bring a cup of tea and a plane would come over with its machine gun ripping up the road in front of you.”

Later stationed at Waterbeach, he recalls how nine crew members of a Lancaster “bombed up with massive explosives” were vapourised when their aircraft went up in smoke.

There was nothing Bert didn’t know about the electrical workings of a Lancaster, and many was the time he worked flat out to fix them ahead of key bombing raids.

Among the electrical gadgets Bert was responsible for aboard the flight deck of the Lancaster Bomber were 32 of the most important of all – the switches that released the aircraft’s bombs.

“They had all these switches and the crew needed to know they all worked because these aircraft were carrying 10 tons of bombs.

“We were dealing with bombs every day.”

After servicing the electrics of the plane, it would be “bombed up” ready for a four-hour raid under cover of darkness later that night.

And Sparks would often be there on the runway at Waterbeach to see the Lancasters return from their mission.

“If there was an emergency I had to start the floodlights up,” he says.

“We used to see the planes off and count them back, and often some didn’t make it back.

“It would be ‘My god, we’ve got seven missing’. They would either have gone down or the crew had been taken as prisoners of war.

“It was one of those things.”

Bert plays down his role in the workings of one of Britain’s most famous war planes. His credit goes entirely to the plane and the crews that flew them.

He says: “It’s a marvellous plane and it did a lot to contribute to winning the war. It was the best bomber. We also had the Flying Fortresses and the Liberators but the Lancaster was the best.

“I was just keeping them in the sky. Someone had to do it and it was my job, that’s all.

“I admired the crews – they were here today and gone tomorrow. They were the brave chaps.

“Would I go up in a plane over Germany? I would not.”

By Ben Bentley