Vickers Wellington LN514

Overview

Vickers Wellington LN514 was a Vickers Wellington bomber built in 1943 in record time, as part of a British propaganda effort during the Second World War. The bomber was constructed in 23 hours and 50 minutes, and took off 24 hours and 48 minutes after the first parts of the airframe had been laid down, beating the previous record of 48 hours set by an American factory. It was constructed at the Vickers-Armstrongs factory in Broughton, Flintshire. The record attempt was the idea of the government to bolster morale at home and send a message abroad that British wartime manufacturing capacity was unaffected by German bombing. The Ministry of Information produced the newsreel Worker's Week-End using film of the attempt, detailing the construction process from the beginning to first flight, emphasising the vital role of women in the workforce on the "factory front". It was distributed both at home and in America, deliberately using a North American sounding narrator. As part of the BBC television's Battle of Britain 70th anniversary season, the record attempt was the subject of a one-hour documentary film Wellington Bomber. Bringing together some of the workers who were originally involved, it examined the effort through their eyes, and together with historian Max Hastings and Rupert "Tiny" Cooling, a former Wellington pilot, examined the bomber and the wider historical context. It was first broadcast on BBC Four on 14 September 2010.