Guy Martin’s Lost WW2 Bomber
Guy Martin’s Lost WW2 Bomber | Channel 4 1 x 60'
In the most ambitious engineering project he’s ever taken part in, Guy Martin helps to recover a crashed World War 2 RAF Lancaster Bomber - and the remains of its missing crew members - from the depths of a Dutch lake, where it has lain for 80 years.
At 2.11am on the 13th June 1943, Pathfinder Lancaster ED603 was shot down over the Ijsselmeer in the Netherlands by a German Night Fighter. Within ten days, the bodies of four crew members had washed ashore and were buried by locals. However, three of the crew were never found and, most likely, remain in the wreckage of their plane at the bottom of the Ijsselmeer.
Now, though, thanks to a multimillion-pound National Recovery Programme set up by the Dutch government, Guy will join the attempts to recover ED603, find the missing crew men and give them a proper burial, with full military honors. Guy will be getting stuck in throughout the whole extraordinary endeavor. He’ll help build a massive cofferdam, driving 17-metre-long metal sheets into the lakebed to build a wall around the crash site. He’ll man the pumps as millions of litres of water are drained from the dam, to reveal what remains of the Lancaster after 80 years buried in the seabed. He’ll then join the expert team inside the dried-out cofferdam as they meticulously recover every single piece of ED603, sort it, clean it and carefully search for the remains and belongings of the missing crew members.
Guy also meets the descendants of ED603’s crew, learning a bit more about their relatives and
coming to understand how important this honoring of the missing airmen is to them. He’ll also come to understand its importance to the Dutch people, who view the missing airmen as heroes who were put their lives on the line to free the Netherlands from Nazi occupation.
Guy will visit the extraordinary museum of the man who first identified the location of ED603 almost 30 years ago. And he’ll tell the story of the elite Pathfinder force – made up of the RAF’s very best crews trained to accurately mark targets for the rest of the bomber stream. He’ll meet one of the last surviving Pathfinder Navigators, 100-year-old Jack Dark and learn about the cutting-edge technology they used to increase Bomber Command’s accuracy tenfold.
Finally, months after the recovery is completed, Guy will make a final visit to the Netherlands, to see the twisted metal remains of ED603 laid out in a hangar - and use them to try and work out what exactly happened to the plane and its crew. Then he’ll visit the Identification Laboratory where any remains, clothing and personal effects will be investigated to determine whether the whole operation was a success – did they find all three of the missing airmen?
