32. WWII’s Heaviest Bomber Wasn’t American
When we picture WWII bombers raining destruction down on the Third Reich and Japan, what usually comes to mind are iconic famous American heavy bombers such as the B-17 Flying Fortress, the B-24 Liberator, and the B-29 Super Fortress. However, the war’s heaviest bomber – and the one which dropped the most tonnage – was not American. It was, the British Royal Air Force’s Avro Lancaster.
The Lancaster was Britain’s most successful bomber of WWII. First flown in 1941 and entering operational service in February of 1942, it became the mainstay of Britain’s strategic bombing campaign. It displaced the RAF’s other heavy bombers, the Halifax and Sterling, to become Britain’s principal bomber in the second half of the war. Lancasters carried 64% of the tonnage dropped by Bomber Command during the conflict. They could also carry the heaviest payload of the war, at 22,000 pounds, exceeding the 20,000-pound maximum payload of the bigger and more advanced B-29 – an airplane twice as heavy as the Lancaster.
