| | Item Code : DHM0434E | Lancaster Dawn by Anthony Saunders. (E) - This Edition |  Buy 1 Get 1 Half Price! |
| | TYPE | EDITION DETAILS | SIZE | SIGNATURES | OFFERS | YOUR PRICE | PURCHASING | | PRINT | Briggs signature edition of 200 prints from the signed limited edition of 850 prints.
| Image size 19 inches x 12.5 inches (48cm x 32cm) |  Briggs, Don 
+ Artist : Anthony Saunders
Signature(s) value alone : £45 | £15 Off! | Now : £130.00 |
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| Other editions of this item : | Lancaster Dawn by Anthony Saunders. | DHM0434 |
| | TYPE | EDITION DETAILS | SIZE | SIGNATURES | OFFERS | YOUR PRICE | PURCHASING | | PRINT | Signed limited edition of 850 prints. | Image size 19 inches x 12.5 inches (48cm x 32cm) | Artist : Anthony Saunders | £25 Off! | Now : £95.00 | VIEW EDITION... | | PRINT | Higgins / Lamb RAF signature series of 100 prints from the signed limited edition of 850 prints. | Image size 19 inches x 12.5 inches (48cm x 32cm) |  Higgins, William Bill 
Lamb, Alistair
+ Artist : Anthony Saunders
Signature(s) value alone : £55 | £45 Off! | Now : £75.00 | VIEW EDITION... | | PRESENTATION | Reid Presentation Edition of 5 Limited Edition Prints. | Image size 19 inches x 12.5 inches (48cm x 32cm) | Reid, Bill (clipped)
+ Artist : Anthony Saunders
Signature(s) value alone : £80 | | £300.00 | VIEW EDITION... | | PRINT | Jackson Presentation Edition of 5 Artist Proofs. | Image size 19 inches x 12.5 inches (48cm x 32cm) | Jackson, Norman (clipped)
+ Artist : Anthony Saunders
Signature(s) value alone : £80 | | £300.00 | VIEW EDITION... | | PRINT | George Harris RAF signature series edition of 100 prints from the signed limited edition of 850 prints. | Image size 19 inches x 12.5 inches (48cm x 32cm) | Harris, George
+ Artist : Anthony Saunders
Signature(s) value alone : £50 | £90 Off! | Now : £100.00 | VIEW EDITION... | GICLEE
CANVAS | Limited edition of 50 giclee canvas artist proofs. | Image size 30 inches x 20 inches (76cm x 51cm) | Artist : Anthony Saunders
on separate certificate | £100 Off! | Now : £400.00 | VIEW EDITION... |
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| 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. | | Name | Info | 
Flt Lt Don Briggs DFM (deceased)
*Signature Value : £45
| Don Briggs spent two years at RAF Halton qualifying as an engine fitter before serving on RAF flying units until he volunteered in December 1943 for the new aircrew trade of Flight Engineer. After a period of training he joined No.156 Squadron equipped with the Lancaster. The unit was part of Bomber Command's Pathfinder Force. The flight engineer was the pilot's mate who managed the engines, fuel systems and the ancillary equipment. He teamed up with Flying Officer Bill Neale and they were to complete sixty-two bombing operations together. Their first sortie was on June 11th, 1944 when Bomber Command was attacking targets in support of the Allied landings in Normandy. Railway marshalling yards, supply dumps and construction sites for the V-1 flying bombs and storage sites for the V-2 rocket were their primary targets. By late August, Bomber Command resumed its campaign against the industrial cities in Germany and Briggs attacked Russelheim, Kiel, Stettin and cities in the Ruhr. His crew marked targets with flares to allow the main force to mount accurate attacks. After the war, Briggs flew long-range transport sorties in York aircraft (based on the Lancaster) before spending three years at the Empire Test Pilot's School at Farnborough. In July 1951 he started training as a pilot and, after converting to jets, he joined the newly-formed No.10 Squadron to fly the twin-engine Canberra bomber. In August 1955 he trained on the first of the RAF's V-bombers, the Valiant. He joined the first squadron, No.138, and a year later he transferred to No.49 Squadron, which was being formed for the task of conducting the nuclear weapons trials in the Pacific. Operation Grapple was mounted in 1957 to test Britain's first thermonuclear megaton weapon, the Hydrogen Bomb. The site chosen for the test was Malden Island 400 miles south of Christmas Island in the South Pacific. Briggs was the second pilot in the crew of Squadron Leader Arthur Steele. They flew their Valiant bomber to the newly constructed airfield on March 18, 1957 and began a period of intensive training. On May 15th, No.49 Sqn's commanding officer, Wing Commander Ken Hubbard, dropped the first weapon successfully. For the second drop on May 31st, Steele, Briggs and their crew flew the reserve aircraft and for the third and final test, they were tasked for the sortie. On June 19th, they took off and climbed to 45,000 feet, and carried out a practice run over the target before clearance to drop the bomb was given. Fifty seconds after release, the bomb exploded at the pre-determined height of 8,000 feet. Steele and Briggs had erected the anti-flash screens in the cockpit of their aircraft before making a precisely executed turn away from the explosion and before the shock wave was felt in the aircraft. The drop was completely successful. A few days after their flight, the squadron returned to Wittering. By the end of the year, Briggs had completed a Valiant captain's course and he transferred to No.138 Squadron where he spent the next three years. This was followed by almost three years as a pilot instructor on Valiants and it was during this period he also converted to the Victor bomber. In 1964 he trained as a flying instructor and spent three years instructing trainee pilots at an RAF flying school near Newark. In January 1967 he converted to the third of the RAF's V-bombers, the Vulcan, and was to spend the next five years as an instructor on the iconic delta-wing aircraft before joining No 9 Squadron shortly before it moved to its new base in Cyprus. After 34 years service, he retired at the end of 1973. There were 88 Vulcan 2s produced and Briggs flew 57 of them during his seven years with the force. He spent 15 years at the Oxford Air Training School training pupils to become commercial airline pilots. He retired aged 65 when he joined the RAF Microlight Association at Halton where his RAF career had begun and where he became the chief flying instructor. Finally, at the age of 84 he decided to finish his flying career having flown 71 different types of aircraft and gliders. He died in July 2018. |
| The Aircraft : | | Name | Info | | Lancaster | The 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. |
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