Among the Avro Lancaster’s most ambitious postwar tasks was mapping large parts of Africa – leaving a lasting legacy, as Andrew Thomas reveals
The final Bomber Command squadron to fly the legendary Avro Lancaster successfully completed one of the RAF’s greatest peacetime initiatives. In 1943 various Colonial Office committees agreed that when the war ended, the Directorate of Colonial Survey (DoCS) based at Teddington, Middlesex was to conduct geodetic and topographical surveys of British-administered Africa. The results would, in many cases, give the first accurate mapping of large swathes of the continent and greatly assist in numerous planned development projects.
It was decided at an early stage that the photographic element of the survey should fall to the RAF as it was best equipped to conduct long-distance flying from remote and austere locations. It also had access to radar equipment and navigation beacons that would be integral to the job – and was able to complete the extensive aircrew training required.
In early 1946, 541 Squadron’s B Flight, a Spitfire photographic reconnaissance unit based at RAF Benson, Oxfordshire, was instructed to re-equip with the Lancaster PR Mk.1. It was then to c…
