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Cloud Companions by Robert Taylor.- World Naval Ships .com

Cloud Companions by Robert Taylor.


Cloud Companions by Robert Taylor.

A Lancaster has been damaged and is left far behind the main force to make its own perilous way home as best it can. Seeing the vulnerability of their friends, a Mosquito crew expose themselves to the same dangers, and throttle back to stay alongside the injured warbird. Dawn has broken, the visibility is unlimited. They have yet to make that Channel crossing and enemy fighters are in the area. The crew of the Lancaster struggle to maintain flying speed and enough height to bring their large four-engined aircraft home. Perhaps tonight they will all drink and laugh in the local pub - perhaps! Meanwhile the drama unfolds: Dawn has broken, the visibility is unlimited. They have yet to make that Channel crossing and enemy fighters are in the area. The crew of the Lancaster struggle to maintain flying speed and enough height to bring their large four engine aircraft home. Robert Taylor conveys the desperate urgency of the situation with masterful strokes of his brush, providing an image of war that is poignant, emotive, yet beautiful to behold.
AMAZING VALUE! - The value of the signatures on this item is in excess of the price of the print itself!
Item Code : DHM2083Cloud Companions by Robert Taylor. - This Edition
TYPEEDITION DETAILSSIZESIGNATURESOFFERSYOUR PRICEPURCHASING
PRINTSigned limited edition of 1250 prints.

SOLD OUT
Paper size 33 inches x 29 inches (84cm x 74cm) Reid, Bill
Coney, Fred
Costello, John
Hammersley, Roly
Sims, Lyndon
Sumpter, Len
Wing, Howie
+ Artist : Robert Taylor


Signature(s) value alone : £315
SOLD
OUT
NOT
AVAILABLE
All prices on our website are displayed in British Pounds Sterling



Other editions of this item : Cloud Companions by Robert Taylor DHM2083
TYPEEDITION DETAILSSIZESIGNATURESOFFERSYOUR PRICEPURCHASING
ARTIST
PROOF
Limited edition of 125 artist proofs.

SOLD OUT
Paper size 33 inches x 29 inches (84cm x 74cm) Reid, Bill
Coney, Fred
Costello, John
Hammersley, Roly
Sims, Lyndon
Sumpter, Len
Wing, Howie
+ Artist : Robert Taylor


Signature(s) value alone : £315
SOLD
OUT
VIEW EDITION...
General descriptions of types of editions :


Signatures on this item
*The value given for each signature has been calculated by us based on the historical significance and rarity of the signature. Values of many pilot signatures have risen in recent years and will likely continue to rise as they become more and more rare.
NameInfo


The signature of Flight Lieutenant Bill Reid VC (deceased)

Flight Lieutenant Bill Reid VC (deceased)
*Signature Value : £80

Volunteering for RAF aircrew in 1940, Bill Reid learned to fly in California, training on the Stearman, Vultee and Harvard. After gaining his pilots wings back in England he flew Wellingtons before moving on to Lancasters in 1943. On the night of Nov 3rd 1943, his Lancaster suffered two severe attacks from Luftwaffe night fighters, badly wounding Reid, killing his navigator and radio operator, and severely damaging the aircraft. Bill flew on 200 miles to accurately bomb the target and get his aircraft home. For this act of outstanding courage and determination he was awarded the Victoria Cross. Died 28th November 2001.
Fred Coney (deceased)
*Signature Value : £30

Fred Coney served with No.15 Sqn out of RAF Mildenhall during 1943 and 1944, including two ops on D-Day. He was the honorary chairman of the Mildenhall Registrar. He passed away in 2010.
Howie Wing
*Signature Value : £35

John Costello
*Signature Value : £35



Len Sumpter (deceased)
*Signature Value : £70

Leonard Joseph Sumpter was born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, on 20th September 1911, the son of Joseph and Mary Ann Sumpter. He had already served two stints in the Grenadier Guards before transferring to the RAF in 1941. He had joined the army as a boy soldier in 1928 and left again in 1931. He rejoined his old regiment at the outbreak of war but then in 1941 he persuaded his superiors to let him transfer to the RAF. After training in England and Canada, he was posted to No.57 Squadron at Scampton in September 1942 and flew as the bomb aimer on thirteen operations with Flt Lt G.W. Curry. Curry was then grounded with ear trouble, and his crew were told they had to break up. However, he and his colleague, flight engineer Bob Henderson, heard a rumour that a new squadron was being formed elsewhere at Scampton, and went looking for David Shannon, who was apparently on the lookout for a bomb aimer and an engineer. They both impressed the young pilot, and joined his crew. After the Dams Raid, for which he received the DFM for his accurate attack on the Eder Dam, Sumpter continued flying in Shannon's crew, as No.617 Squadron undertook a series of operations. He was commissioned in June 1943. In 1944 Mosquitoes were introduced into No.617 Squadron to mark targets, and Sumpter became Shannon's observer. He received the DFC in June 1944. Shannon was finally taken off operations, but Sumpter reverted to Lancasters for a short time as part of Flt Lt I.M. Marshall's crew. By the end of the war he had flown a total of thirty-five operations. He flew on No.617 Squadron's last wartime operation, an attack on Berchtesgarten on 25th April 1943. He was demobilised from the RAF after the war, but rejoined in 1946 in the Physical Fitness branch, and served until 1950. Len Sumpter died on 30th November 1993 in Luton.
Lyndon Sims (deceased)
*Signature Value : £35

Enlisted 1940 as a flight mechanic in the Royal Air Force and commissioned 1943, joined as a bomber Pilot with No.75 (New Zealand) Squadron. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, gazetted on 13th October 1944. After the war he became a successful rally driver, making his debut in the early 1950s driving a 2.4-litre Riley Pathfinder in which he took part in the Rallye de Monte-Carlo in 1954 co-driven by William Rogers, finishing 20th. That same year he finished seventh in the 6 Hour Relay Silverstone, driving the same car. It was in a private Aston Martin DB2 that Lyndon Sims first came to international fame, as the driver in the three-man crew that won the sixth edition of the RAC Rally, in 1956 when he was 39 years old. He was partnered with Rupert Jones and Tony Ambrose, beating Ian Appleyard and Pat Appleyard of Leeds, second in a Jaguar XK140 and Dr. J. T. Spare and M. Meredith-Owens third in a Morgan Plus-4. Later in the 1956 season Sims took a fine fourth in a national sportscar race at Silverstone in the same car, and once again with Ambrose as co-driver he finished 10th in the Internationale Tulpenrallye, which passed through Holland, Belgium and eastern France. Sims returned to the Rallye de Monte-Carlo in 1959 in another Aston Martin, scoring a second in class with his navigator and friend Tony Ambrose who the next year joined the BMC Competitions Department soon becoming a prominent rally co-driver. Lyndon Sims passed away in 1999 at the age of 82.

His citation fo the DFC :

This officer is now engaged on his second tour of operational duty and has completed very many sorties against most heavily defended objectives in Germany. As Flight Engineer leader, he has shown conscientiousness and vigour in his duties and has been largely responsible for the high standard of technical efficiency attained by the engineers in his unit. On one occasion when operating against Fellersleben his aircraft was badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire. Similar damage has been sustained on various sorties but this has never deterred Flight Lieutenant Sims from displaying great keenness to fly on operations.
Roly Hammersley
*Signature Value : £30

The Aircraft :
NameInfo
MosquitoUsed as a night fighter, fighter bomber, bomber and Photo-reconnaissance, with a crew of two, Maximum speed was 425 mph, at 30,300 feet, 380mph at 17,000ft. and a ceiling of 36,000feet, maximum range 3,500 miles. the Mosquito was armed with four 20mm Hospano cannon in belly and four .303 inch browning machine guns in nose. Coastal strike aircraft had eight 3-inch Rockets under the wings, and one 57mm shell gun in belly. The Mossie at it was known made its first flight on 25th November 1940, and the mosquito made its first operational flight for the Royal Air Force as a reconnaissance unit based at Benson. In early 1942, a modified version (mark II) operated as a night fighter with 157 and 23 squadron's. In April 1943 the first De Haviland Mosquito saw service in the Far east and in 1944 The Mosquito was used at Coastal Command in its strike wings. Bomber Commands offensive against Germany saw many Mosquitos, used as photo Reconnaissance aircraft, Fighter Escorts, and Path Finders. The Mosquito stayed in service with the Royal Air Force until 1955. and a total of 7781 mosquito's were built.
LancasterThe Avro Lancaster arose from the avro Manchester and the first prototype Lancaster was a converted Manchester with four engines. The Lancaster was first flown in January 1941, and started operations in March 1942. By March 1945 The Royal Air Force had 56 squadrons of Lancasters with the first squadron equipped being No.44 Squadron. During World War Two the Avro Lancaster flew 156,000 sorties and dropped 618,378 tonnes of bombs between 1942 and 1945. Lancaster Bomberss took part in the devastating round-the-clock raids on Hamburg during Air Marshall Harris' "Operation Gomorrah" in July 1943. Just 35 Lancasters completed more than 100 successful operations each, and 3,249 were lost in action. The most successful survivor completed 139 operations, and the Lancaster was scrapped after the war in 1947. A few Lancasters were converted into tankers and the two tanker aircraft were joined by another converted Lancaster and were used in the Berlin Airlift, achieving 757 tanker sorties. A famous Lancaster bombing raid was the 1943 mission, codenamed Operation Chastise, to destroy the dams of the Ruhr Valley. The operation was carried out by 617 Squadron in modified Mk IIIs carrying special drum shaped bouncing bombs designed by Barnes Wallis. Also famous was a series of Lancaster attacks using Tallboy bombs against the German battleship Tirpitz, which first disabled and later sank the ship. The Lancaster bomber was the basis of the new Avro Lincoln bomber, initially known as the Lancaster IV and Lancaster V. (Becoming Lincoln B1 and B2 respectively.) Their Lancastrian airliner was also based on the Lancaster but was not very successful. Other developments were the Avro York and the successful Shackleton which continued in airborne early warning service up to 1992.

Everything we obtain for this site is shown on the site, we do not have any more photos, crew lists or further information on any of the ships.

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