Flt Sgt Joe Kmiecik, a Second World war veteran, was a pilot in 83 Squadron in 1954, and flew one of the three RAF Lancasters used in the 1955 film The Dam Busters. His son Jan has kindly sent me another photograph, taken at Lake Windermere during the filming.
It is quite extraordinary to see how low the pilot is flying. The figure standing in the bow of the boat underneath must have been almost deafened by the experience.
Man, but I would have given anything to have been the chap in the boat!!!
If you watch the movie very carefully, during one of the ‘night’ training flights over the lakes (probably Windermere), there is a pleasure boat happily cruising along in the dead of ‘night’ !
The shots of Winderemere were taken in daylight and toned dark .Most of the night shots are treat the same way.The double decker bus at Kings Lynn a good example.
My wifes boss was Jim Clay.
Phil Oliver
Indeed – shot Day for Night.
I’ve only recently discovered this very interesting site and have left a post on another page concerning Richard Thorpe’s sad demise. Flt Lt Ken Souter is my father [I see there is a reference to him in a page of a navigator’s log book here]. He’s a spritely 93 years old and often talks fondly of the two Polish members of the team, Ted and Joe. Re the picture of a low-flying Lancaster on Windemere he tells a story [which also appears in Jonathan Falconer’s excellent book about the filming] about the 60ft of the original raid not looking particularly impressive on film so the director asked the crews to fly lower. This they did, somewhat reluctantly, to the extent that the prop wash was throwing up spray from the surface of the lake.’Bloody dangerous’ was my father’s comment at the time. Fortunately, I have all his log books around the time of the filming and they are an interesting chronological record of a unique time.