RAAF Pilot Officer Arthur Buckland with his movie camera in a No. 463 Squadron RAAF Lancaster, RAF Waddington, 16 March 1945. Buckland was making movies of Bomber Command operations for the RAF Film Production Unit and some of his films ended up being shown in cinemas. The Lancaster, as can be seen here, was specially adapted for the purpose, having had a special hatchway for the camera cut out of the side of the aircraft. On 19 March 1945, three days after this specially posed photograph was taken, the No. 463 Squadron film unit Lancaster, with Buckland as one of the aircraft's two camera operators, filmed No. 617 Squadron RAF's dramatic raid on the Arnsberg viaduct in Germany. To destroy the railway bridge, the squadron dropped seven of Bomber Command's biggest bombs—the 'Tallboy' five-ton earthquake bomb—and the No. 463 film unit Lancaster pilot reported: 'No 1 Cameraman filmed Tallboy large leaving 617 aircraft and followed it down and Mid-Upper cameraman filmed the bomb hitting the railway viaduct' [No. 463 Squadron RAAF, Operations Record Book, 19 March 1945; AWM UK2631]
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