The last plane is a Nimrod - the converted Comet II airliner used as the Marine Reconnaisance replacement for the Shak. And the RAF handles all maritime work except flying off carriers, which is the job of the Fleet Air Arm (ex-Royal Naval Air Service).
My two contacts with Lincolns, which were developments of the Lancaster, and later, with new fuselages, became Shackletons:
During the Bombardier part of my training I was stationed at RAF Yatesbury, in western England (near USAF base Fairford, with whom we played cricket and baseball in alternate months - but that is another story). Among Yatesbury's distinguished alumni were Guy (Dam Busters) Gibson, and Arthur (now Sir Arthur) C. Clarke, who wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey. It had an active airfield, and two Lincolns were parked in the hangar area, having been used by the Radio Fitters course students in the past. They were now off limits.
One moonless night, like a little kid, I couldn't resist taking a walk and getting into one of the Lincs through the gap under the fuselage where the radar scanner dome used to be. For a few minutes I played hangar pilot, moving the control spectacle and, going back in my imagination and gazing through the windshield at the starry night, to the night raids over the Ruhr or Berlin. Then I tried the bomb-aimer's prone position in the nose. Finally, I went all the way back and sat in the lonely tail gunner's position, and imagined myself as my uncle Ron, a scared 18-year-old, peering into the night, half-frozen, trying to spot the Me110 or Ju88 before they killed me. I thought of taking a souvenir from the plane, then thought better of it - could have cost me my commission.
Fast-forward three years. I was stationed at RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire (the county where most WWII RAF bomber stations were) for a few months in 1962. Coningsby was the home of 617 Squadron (The Dam Busters) after they left RAF Scampton. The early raids with the 12,000lb Tallboy bomb left from this station, and they still the had 1,000 yards of runway extension on the far side of the main road that ran past the airfield. In 1944, when they were taking off with Tallboys and full fuel load, the road was closed off and the takeoff run used all of the station's main runway, across the road, and part of the extension. When I was at Coningsby it was the home to 9 Sq. and 12 Sq., both equipped with Canberras. I was there on an Instructor's course before going to #232 OCU (Operational Conversion Unit) at Gaydon, where I helped teach crews converting to the Victor.
One day a pal of mine and I took a short trip one evening to the old, closed and abandoned RAF Woodhall Spa, which was also one of 617 Sq's bases in WWII (IIRC, where they took off from to drop the 22,000lb "Grand Slam"). If you recall the opening scene from Twelve O'Clock High", where Dean Jagger makes a sentimental trip back to his old WWII USAAF base, we experienced something eerily similar. As we disobeyed the KEEP OUT signs (hey, we were RAF officers, right?) and wandered along the weed-encroached runway and into the old watch tower, you could almost hear "Bless 'em all" being sung.
Then, as we stood on the crumbling balcony of the watch tower, where Station Commanders and assistants must have seen many Lancs off on their last trips, as if orderd up by Hollywood, in the half light, at about 10,000 feet, flew over what looked exactly like a Lancaster. It would have been a later Lincoln, of course, but it made the hair stand up on the back of our necks. "Christ," my buddy muttered, "what if he lands?" But the "ghost ship" flew serenely on into the distance and finally disappeared.
Utterly overcome, emotionally, we went back to our quarters and never told anyone; we didn't think they would believe us.
