Members of No. 467 Squadron line up behind Lancaster 'P-Peter' to wish 'good prang and safe return' before take-off from RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire, England. These photographs capture the last moments before take-off on operations. RAAF Flight Lieutenant Arnold Easton, a No. 467 Squadron navigator, described take-off in a letter to his family on 4 July 1944: At the end of the take off runway and on the grass to the side can be seen a kind of caravan painted like a draughts board with black and white squares that is to make it easily visible from the ground or the air. Outside this control box, as it is called, quite a large crowd of WAAFs, officers and men who aren't flying and who go there solely for the purpose of giving us a hearty wave and cheer as we take off. Just out to the side of this crowd is a man standing with an Aldis lamp in each hand. One throws a green light the other a red one. He flashes the green light at the aircraft he wants to take off next. You hear a roar of motors as the pilot in that aircraft manoeuvres his aircraft on to the runway and places it in a dead straight line with the runway. [Easton quoted in Mark Rowe, The luckiest men alive, privately published, 2003, pp. 20–21] [AWM UK2724, photographer RA Halliday]
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