A Brief History
On June 15, 1936, the Vickers Wellington twin engine bomber made its maiden flight. The bomber would be produced from 1936 until the end of World War II in 1945, with a massive production run of well over 11,400 copies, over 4 000 more than the larger and more famous 7377 Avro Lancasters built. The Wellington was quickly found to be inadequate for a role as a daylight heavy bomber but proved highly effective in other roles as a medium bomber, both versatile and resilient.
Digging Deeper
Designed by inventive genius Barnes Wallis, the guy that gave us the dam-busting bouncing bomb, the gigantic Tall Boy and Grand Slam bombs, and later “swing wing” designs for use on supersonic jets, the Wellington used Wallis’ geodesic (or geodetic) design of strong, but light, aluminum alloy cells covered with a doped fabric skin giving the plane a somewhat honeycomb appearance. This design by Wallis resulted in an incredibly strong latitudinal airframe that could survive enormous portions of the skin shot or burned away, or even portions blown off. The only drawback to the geodesic construction was a lack of longitudinal rigidity that made the Wellington a poor choice for towing gliders, something it was not intended for in the first place. (The fuselage would actually stretch and “grow” while towing a glider!) Wallis had designed other airplanes and even airships using the geodesic design.
Using a pair of Bristol Pegasus radial engines producing 1050 horsepower apiece, the Wellington could fly at a top speed of 235 mph, not bad for 1936 when the plane first flew but lagging behind other twin-engine bombers during the war. A ceiling of only 18,000 feet precluded high level missions, and a bomb load of 4500 pounds was just average. The original defensive armament consisted of a twin .303 caliber machine gun turret in the nose and another twin .303 caliber machine gun in the tail. Aircraft planners in 1936 thought attacks by fighters from the side were impractical due to the increased speed of modern airplanes, but of course they were wrong. A .303 caliber machine gun was added to each side of the Wellington in the waist position to protect the sides of the bomber. A ventral turret was also designed and added. Later versions increased the tail turret armament to 4 X .303 machine guns. Using rifle caliber machine guns for defense was a flaw of many British bombers during World War II, and even the Germans quickly found out such caliber machine guns were inadequate to defend against fighter-interceptors. The Wellington required a crew of 6 and was affectionately called the “Wimpy,” after the character J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye cartoons (the guy always asking to borrow money to buy a hamburger). Upgrades throughout the wartime production kept the Wellington a competitive design, especially regarding engines as a wide range of engines were used in various Wellington models, increasing horsepower, speed, and altitude performance with each upgrade. Both inline and radial engines were used in various models. The largest production run of a model was the Wellington B Mark X (3804 produced) that had powerful 1675 horsepower Hercules XVIII engines.
Once the war started the Wellington was the first line British bomber, and the British quickly found it was unable to conduct daytime raids against precision targets due to German interceptors. Tactics quickly changed to area bombing at night, and an accelerated development of the successor to the Wellington as the main British bomber, the Avro Lancaster with its 4 Merlin engines, capacious bomb load (14,000 to 22,000 pounds) and top speed of 282 mph. Although the Lancaster took over the main role as strategic bomber when introduced in 1942, the Wellington was definitely not put out of a job. In fact, the Wellington bomber fleet had many jobs. Used as a medium bomber and interdiction aircraft, the Wimpy was also adapted for a variety of other uses, such as anti-submarine patrol and equipped with a gigantic metal band around the plane to generate a strong magnetic field it was used to detonate German magnetic naval mines. Some Wellingtons were adapted for use as torpedo bombers, some with radar units to guide interceptors (especially to V-1 flying bombs), ground and sea attack models had rocket rails added under the wings, and some were converted to use as transports (up to 18 troops). High altitude versions with pressurized crew quarters and reconnaissance models were made, and a variety of experimental models were either made or considered. The Wellington saw combat in all theaters of World War II and the type was retired in 1953.
The Wellington was used by the RAF and the Fleet Air Arm, performing coastal defense and maritime patrol duties as well as attacking targets on the ground. The Canadian and Australian air forces were also equipped with Wellingtons, and many Polish pilots that had escaped the German take over of Poland in 1939 flew Wellingtons for the British. (Other expatriate pilots such as Czechoslovakian also flew the Wellington for the RAF.) The bombers acquired a well-deserved reputation for ruggedness, and many damaged planes returned their crews safely to base bearing extensive battle damage. (Aircrew love an airplane that brings them home!)
Although the Wellington did not have a long service life, as the most produced British bomber of all time it certainly had a great impact on World War II. No flying examples remain today, and only 2 complete Wellingtons exist on British display. The Wimpy was the basis for what was intended as its successor, the somewhat larger twin engine Warwick, but only 12+ of the 846 built were used as bombers, the rest of the production modified as use as transports. The Wellington was developed as a civilian airliner in 1945 after the war ended, called the VC.1 Viking. A production run of 163 Vikings was built from 1945 to 1954, each capable of carrying 36 passengers (original models only 27 passengers) and virtually all were retired by the mid-1960’s. Vickers, then known as Vickers-Armstrongs, built a total of over 16,000 aircraft during their existence, of which about 75% were Wellingtons and Warwicks. They are no longer a commercial entity. The company’s origin was in 1828 and its last iteration ended when purchased by Rolls-Royce in 1999, with the Vickers name disappearing completely in 2004.
Question for students (and subscribers): Is the Vickers Wellington worthy of consideration as one of the greatest World War II medium bombers? You tell us what you think about this subject in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bond, Steve. Wimpy: A Detailed History of the Vickers Wellington in service, 1938-1953. Grub Street Publishing, 2014.
Bowman, Martin. WELLINGTON. Smithsonian, 1990.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of a Vickers Wellington Mk.I medium bomber, published in eds. H. J. Cooper, D. A. Russell, and O. G. Thetford, Aircraft of the Fighting Powers Vol I (Leicester, England: Harborough Publishing Co, 1940) and prepared for Wikipedia by Keith Edkins in April 2004, is in the public domain, because it is one of the following:
- It is a photograph taken prior to 1 June 1957; or
- It was published prior to 1969; or
- It is an artistic work other than a photograph or engraving (e.g. a painting) which was created prior to 1969.
HMSO has declared that the expiry of Crown Copyrights applies worldwide (ref: HMSO Email Reply).
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