The Mynarski Memorial Lancaster, the Victoria Cross Won in a Burning Fuselage over France, and the Hamilton Warbird That Carries a Crewman's Final Salute

The Mynarski Memorial Lancaster, registration FM213, is one of exactly two airworthy Avro Lancasters remaining on Earth. It flies from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario, painted as KB726 - the aircraft aboard which Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski earned the Victoria Cross on the night of June 12, 1944, over occupied France. His is the story of a man who turned away from an open escape hatch because a crewmate could not get out.

The Avro Lancaster: Born From a Failed Design

The Lancaster was not the aircraft Avro set out to build. Its predecessor, the Avro Manchester, was powered by two Rolls-Royce Vulture engines with a persistent and dangerous habit of failing in flight. The Royal Air Force recognized it as an operational failure almost immediately.

Avro’s chief designer Roy Chadwick solved the problem by keeping the Manchester airframe and replacing its two unreliable engines with four Rolls-Royce Merlins - the same V-12 powering the Spitfire and Hurricane - on a strengthened wing. The result was the most capable Allied heavy bomber of the Second World War.

The Lancaster’s unobstructed bomb bay ran the full length of the fuselage. It carried the bouncing bomb in the Dambusters Raid of May 1943, the 12,000-pound Tallboy deep-penetration bomb, and the 22,000-pound Grand Slam - the largest conventional aerial bomb dropped by any aircraft during the war.

Lancaster Production and Combat Record

Over 7,000 Lancasters were built in Britain and Canada. Bomber Command flew more than 155,000 sorties using the type and dropped the majority of all RAF bombs from 1942 through the end of the war in Europe.

The aircraft reached 22,000 feet and cruised at nearly 280 miles per hour at altitude. Four defensive gun positions protected the crew. At altitude in winter, the Lancaster’s inadequate heating systems made frostbite a genuine threat. Crews flew in electrically heated suits on missions lasting eight to twelve hours.

The Human Cost of Bomber Command

The Lancaster’s operational record carries a number that does not diminish with repetition: more than 55,000 Bomber Command aircrew died in the Second World War - roughly half of all who served. These were young men from Yorkshire, Manitoba, Queensland, and every corner of the Commonwealth who understood the odds and climbed in anyway, night after night, year after year.

The Royal Canadian Air Force in Bomber Command

No. 6 Group, Royal Canadian Air Force, established in early 1943, flew from bases in Yorkshire alongside British, Australian, New Zealand, and South African crews. At its peak the group operated more than 15 squadrons and approximately 15,000 personnel - a Canadian bomber force operating under British command.

No. 419 Squadron - the Moose Squadron, badge: a moose head, motto: Moosa Aswayita (“Kick the enemy hard”) - was one of those units. They flew from Middleton St. George in County Durham, and they flew Lancasters.

Who Was Andrew Mynarski?

Pilot Officer Andrew Charles Mynarski was 27 years old and from Winnipeg, Manitoba. His family had emigrated from Poland. Before the war he worked in the fur trade and in a leather goods shop. He volunteered for the Royal Canadian Air Force in the fall of 1941, trained as an air gunner, and was posted to No. 419 Squadron.

On the aircraft, Mynarski occupied the mid-upper turret - a rotating position on top of the fuselage just aft of the wing, armed with two .303-caliber Browning machine guns. At the very end of the fuselage, in the tail turret, sat Flying Officer Pat Brophy - the most isolated member of the crew, watching everything that came from behind.

The Raid on Cambrai, June 12, 1944

The target was Cambrai, in northern France - six days after the Normandy landings. Bomber Command was striking rail yards and military infrastructure to slow German reinforcement of the beachhead. Lancaster KB726 completed its bomb run and turned for home.

A Junkers Ju 88 night fighter found them. It attacked from below and behind - the Lancaster’s most vulnerable arc. Both port engines were hit. The wing caught fire. Hydraulic lines in the rear of the aircraft were severed.

The pilot ordered the crew to abandon aircraft. Mynarski moved toward the forward escape hatch. Then he looked back down the fuselage.

Why Mynarski Turned Back

The tail turret on a Lancaster rotated hydraulically. With the lines severed, the turret had jammed. Brophy was locked inside a glass-and-metal turret at the back of a burning aircraft, unable to rotate to his exit position. He watched his crewmates disappear through their exits one by one.

Mynarski turned back.

The floor of the fuselage between the mid-upper position and the tail was on fire - hydraulic fluid, coolant, and rubber all burning. Mynarski pushed through it, reached Brophy’s turret, and began forcing the mechanism by hand, then with tools. The turret would not open from outside.

Brophy could see through the perspex that Mynarski’s flying suit had caught fire. He signaled: Go. There is nothing more you can do. Mynarski kept working. Brophy signaled again. The aircraft was losing altitude.

At some point, Mynarski stopped. He stood. He looked at Brophy through the perspex. He saluted. Then he turned, went back through the fire, and jumped.

What Happened to Both Men

Mynarski was found by French civilians after landing. His parachute had partially burned through and only partially deployed. He was alive when they reached him. He died shortly after from his burns.

KB726 hit the ground with Brophy still locked in the tail turret. The impact tore the turret free of the fuselage. Brophy was thrown clear - injured, captured by German forces, but alive. He spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner and came home when it ended.

There was no other witness to what happened inside KB726. The entire account rests on what Pat Brophy reported to the Royal Canadian Air Force after the war - describing how long Mynarski worked, that his suit was on fire, and the salute that came before he went to the hatch.

The Victoria Cross

On October 11, 1945, Andrew Mynarski was awarded the Victoria Cross, posthumously. The citation describes an officer who turned back when he had a clear exit, who persisted when the outcome was almost certainly beyond reach, and who saluted before he jumped.

The salute is the detail that endures.

FM213: The Mynarski Memorial Lancaster Today

Of all the Lancasters built - more than 7,000 - two remain airworthy today. The Royal Air Force’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight operates PA474 from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire, where it has flown since 1973. The other is in Canada.

FM213 was built in late 1945 at the Victory Aircraft plant in Malton, Ontario. She never flew a combat mission - the war ended as she came off the production line. After years in various postwar configurations, she arrived at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario, where she was restored to airworthy condition.

The museum painted her as KB726, wearing No. 419 Squadron’s Moose markings, and designated her the Mynarski Memorial Lancaster. In more recent years she has also been called Vera, but the story of Andrew Mynarski and Pat Brophy remains painted on her sides.

What to Expect at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum is located at John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport. The Lancaster is the centerpiece of the collection, and the dimensions don’t fully register until you’re standing next to her.

She runs nearly 70 feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan of just over 102 feet. The main undercarriage tires come up past your shoulder. When the bomb bay doors are lowered, the opening is the size of a room. On days when the museum allows public walkthroughs, visitors move through the fuselage - ducking under the main spar, passing the navigator’s table and wireless operator’s position, working forward to the mid-upper turret, and then continuing aft.

It is thirty feet of fuselage from the mid-upper position to the tail turret. That turret is smaller than most people expect. You sit with your back to the direction of flight, the perspex curving around you. Standing in it for even a moment makes it immediately clear what it would mean to be locked inside with fire moving forward.

Why This Matters for Pilots and Aviation Enthusiasts

When FM213 starts all four Merlin engines, the experience is physical before it is auditory - a deep, irregular exhaust note that works through your chest at low power, and at full power becomes something else entirely. Eight thousand horsepower pointed at the sky. That sound existed over Germany and occupied Europe more than eighty years ago.

At airshows, a low pass by the Lancaster stops people who know nothing of Bomber Command or No. 419 Squadron. The aircraft does not require context to work on an audience. The context simply makes it land harder.

The museum’s full collection includes a Harvard trainer, a Sea Fury, Corsairs, a Mitchell, and warbirds spanning multiple decades - one of the finest collections in North America. But the Lancaster is the reason to make the trip. The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum sustains FM213 through donations, memberships, and gate admissions, because there are two airworthy Lancasters left on Earth and each is irreplaceable.

Key Takeaways

• Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski turned back from an open escape hatch to free trapped rear gunner Pat Brophy aboard Lancaster KB726, over Cambrai, France, on June 12, 1944 - six days after D-Day
• Mynarski’s parachute partially burned through during his jump; he died of burns after French civilians found him
• Brophy survived when the crash impact tore the tail turret free of the fuselage; his postwar testimony is the sole eyewitness account of Mynarski’s actions
• Mynarski was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously on October 11, 1945; the defining detail of the citation is the salute he gave Brophy through the perspex before leaving
• FM213, the Mynarski Memorial Lancaster, is one of two airworthy Lancasters on Earth and flies from the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton, Ontario