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The Battle of Britain had been won by the young fighter pilots of Fighter Command, but now it fell to another band of young men to wage total warfare against the Nazi war machine, the aircrew of RAF Bomber Command. And like the fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain, the young men who flew with Bomber Command came not just from Britain, but from all over the Commonwealth and from the countries of occupied mainland Europe. Every man was a volunteer, prepared to endure the deadly flak and prowling night-fighters, to say nothing of the savage and bitter cold, in order to wage their relentless attack on the military and industrial targets of the Third Reich.
The aircraft that carried these young men to war were numerous, but bearing the brunt of the RAF's incessant campaign were two heavy bombers, the stalwarts of Bomber Command - the Lancaster and the Halifax. Between them they accounted for over three-quarters of all the bombs dropped by the RAF, and Halifaxes alone accounted for a total of 73,312 operations, nearly a fifth of all missions carried out by Bomber Command.
Robert Taylor's superb new painting, The Hard Way Home, pays tribute to the magnificent Halifax crews who flew with RAF Bomber Command during World War II. As the early morning sun casts its golden glow across the shimmering sea below, it reveals a lone Halifax of 405 (Vancouver) Squadron RCAF that has struggled home the hard way - damaged and alone. Hit by deadly flak over the target, one of the aircraft's engines is already out and another is smoking badly as the exhausted pilot and his crew fight to keep the unwieldy bomber airborne. Any marauding Luftwaffe fighters would have found them easy prey, but fortunately for this crew they have been spotted by a formation of Hurricanes from 253 Squadron out on routine patrol. For that final, weary leg of their long journey home the Halifax crew will at last have protection to see them safely back to base.
This magnificent new limited edition from the world's premier aviation artist has been endorsed with the signatures of surviving veterans who flew operationally on Halifaxes during that long, bitter struggle in the skies over Europe, together with well respected RAF Hurricane pilots who flew in their defence.
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