‘There are 20,000 handcrafted poppies on display from Easter until the end of August. The centre piece of the display is a Lancaster Bomber looking out towards the city of Lincoln and Lincoln Cathedral in the distance‘
A couple of weeks prior to the commemoration of ‘Victory in Europe Day’ 80 years ago, we decided to pay a visit to the IBCC in Lincoln. It was a beautiful sunny day during the April heatwave and, as it turned out, a perfect day for exploring the memorial to Bomber Command and the accompanying exhibition.
The International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) has been created to provide a world-class facility to serve as a point for recognition, remembrance and reconciliation for Bomber Command. Lincoln has been chosen for the site as it provides a central point for all twenty-seven bases that earned Lincolnshire the title of ‘Bomber County’.
I had reservations that taking photographs might prove difficult due to the volume of visitors but, with a little patience and timing, I managed to get my pictures just as I like them; people-free, apart from some of the sculptures, that is.
The first impressive sight that greets you as you make your way from the car park to the reception is the below photo of a sculpture of an Avro Lancaster. We did at first wonder what was depicted falling out of the open hatches underneath the aircraft but all was soon to become clear, the aircraft is on a mission to drop humanitarian aid.
Operation Manna was a humanitarian mission carried out by the Allied forces during the final days of World War II. The operation took place between April 29th and May 8th 1945and aimed to deliver food to the starving population of the Netherlands which had suffered severe food shortages during the German occupation. The mission was a collaborative effort between the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces. Bombers, typically used for combat missions, were repurposed to drop food supplies over designated drop zones in Dutch cities such as Rotterdam, The Hague and Delft. The operation was named after the Biblical story of manna from heaven, symbolising the life-saving nature of the food drops. Despite the risks involved, including potential attacks from German forces, the operation was conducted with the co-operation of the occupying German troops, who agreed to a temporary ceasefire. Over 11,000 tons of food were delivered, providing much needed relief to the Dutch population. It is estimated that this operation saved the lives of over a million people.
Next we come to the eye-catching and impressive centre piece.
At the heart of the IBCC are the Memorial Spire and Walls of Names. The Spire commands stunning views across Lincoln, with a focus on the cathedral which served as a sighting point for crews flying from Lincolnshire. It is the tallest war memorial in the U.K.
It was designed by Stephen Palmer of Place Architecture and the steel structure was manufactured by S H Structures based in North Yorkshire. It was delivered under police escort to the site on 10th May 2015, arriving on two low loaders, each measuring twenty-five metres in length. It is 102ft (31.09m) high, which is the wingspan of the Avro Lancaster bomber and is 16ft (5m) wide at the base, the width of a Lancaster wing.
The Walls of Names remembers the 58,000 men and women who lost their lives serving or supporting Bomber Command during World War Two. The walls surround the Memorial Spire in a series of circles framing the view of the city and the cathedral. There are 271 individual panels and each one is formed from engraved sheets of Corten weathering steel.Every life lost in Bomber Command was considered an equal sacrifice so, as a result, the walls do not recognise rank or any medals awarded, just names in alphabetical order. The IBCC is the only place in the world where all these losses are commemorated.
The Spire was officially unveiled on the 2nd October 2015 with an invited audience of 2,000 guests, including 312 veterans and their families.
The little flecks you can see on the walls are where our more traditional paper poppies have been inserted next to someone’s name.
Moving on now to the ceramic poppy installation, the artwork pictured below is called ‘Victory in Europe at 80’ or VE80.
There are 20,000 handcrafted poppies on display from Easter until the end of August. The centre piece of the display is a Lancaster Bomber looking out towards the city of Lincoln and Lincoln Cathedral in the distance. Obviously an aerial view would show the Lancaster off in all its glory but from ground level this is about the best I could manage.
The Lancaster poppy display has been created by artist Darius Sirmulevicius, originally from Lithuania but now living in Kirton, Lincolnshire. Each one is being sold to raise funds for charity at the end of August at a cost of £39.99 each; they will be packaged and dispatched to the people who purchase them in a Spire Memorial shaped box in September.
The photo below was taken from the same place as the poppy installation but I have zoomed in on the magnificent cathedral and the Bishops Place which sits in front of it.
Returning to the Spire Monument, in the below picture you can just see, poking out above the wall of names, some heads. These are some of these sculptures in among the walls and they are called ‘Women of World War Two’.
Each of the women represented had a story to tell, some quite extraordinary, some tragic. I picked out five of them who I thought were the most interesting. The information about them is taken from the notice boards by the installations.
I’ll begin with the lady below:
Lettice Curtis.
Lettice was the first woman to fly and deliver to operations a Lancaster bomber. Educated at Benenden and St. Hilda’s Oxford, Lettice became one of the first women pilots to join the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATC). Between 1940 and 1945 she was said to have flown ‘thirteen days on, two days off’ for 62 consecutive months, piloting a vast range of aircraft. After the war she worked for a number of years on the initial planning of the joint civil/RAF Air Traffic Control Centre at West Drayton. She was a founding member of the British Women Pilots Association and qualified to fly helicopters in October 1992, before voluntarily ‘grounding’ herself in 1995. Lettice died on 21st July 2014, aged 99 years. She is described as being an English aviator, flight test engineer, air racing pilot and sportswoman.
Four more brave and dedicated women appear together on the photo below and again, like Lettice, each one has a unique experience of the war.
Joan Curran
A brilliant physicist who graduated from Newham College in 1937 but was not awarded a degree because Cambridge still refused to grant them to women. Undaunted, she studied for a higher degree and in wartime was responsible for many technical innovations, notably the proximity fuse and ‘Window’ – the use of chaff to confuse enemy radar. Window was dropped by Lancasters of 617 Squadron to synthesise a phantom invasion force of ships in the Straits of Dover and keep the Germans unsure as to whether the brunt of the Allied assault would fall on Normandy or in the Pas de Calais. Her husband, another wartime physicist, was knighted but a senior contemporary scientist gave it as his opinion that she had made a greater contribution to the war effort than he did.
Renee Woods
Renee was born in Fishtoft, near Boston, Lincolnshire. She was killed whilst serving at RAF Waddington, when five Nazi bombs dropped from a lone Luftwaffe bomber destroyed the NAAFI on 9th May 1941. She was only 23 years old. Six NAAFI girls were killed in that raid including manager Doris Constance Raven. The rebuilt NAAFI building was christened the Ravens Club in their memory and retains that name to this day.
Stella Charnaud
A philanthropist and founder of the Women’s Voluntary Service (W.V.S.). Her mother, Milibah Johnson, came from Lincolnshire and was the second wife of Charles Charnaud, who was working in Constantinople when she was born. After the First World War, in which she worked as a volunteer, she became secretary to Lady Reading, the wife of the Viceroy of India, later becoming the Viceroy’s Chief of Staff. After the Marchioness died from cancer, Stella married the Marquess of Reading and, when he died in 1935, became more involved in supporting cultural institutions. Whilst conducting research in the U.S.A. she became a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1938, in response to the Home Secretary’s request, she founded the W.V.S. which by 1942 had millions of members. She later founded Women’s Home Industries and was the first woman to take her seat in the House of Lords as a Life Peer in 1958.
Madeleine Damerment
A Frenchwoman who was involved in the Pat O’Leary escape line, one of the first of the lines that helped an estimated 7,000 downed allied airmen to escape from occupied France. She herself helped as many as 75 airmen but fled France in March 1942 to avoid arrest. After arriving in Britain, Madeleine was recruited by the S.O.E. to be trained to become a courier for the SOE’s ‘Bricklayer’ circuit. She was captured by the Gestapo on her return to France and executed at the Dachau concentration camp of 13th September 1944 along with three other female SOE agents: she was just twenty-six years old. Of the 58,000 names which appear on the walls, these are the stories of just five. Of the remaining 57,995 each individual had their own story to tell. We can only begin to imagine what each story is: very thought provoking though. I’d like to thank the people and the information notices at the IBCC and their web site, without which this article would not have been possible.
Thank you for reading. If you are ever in Lincoln, myself and David can highly recommend a visit to the centre. There is lots to see, with a very nice cafe and shop on the site.
Writing & Images Ruth Craine, Late Spring ’25
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