I'd love to see a Wellington and Halifax built as there are no examples (as far as I am aware) static or airworthy, but the costs would be astronomical. A Wellington was dragged out of a Scottish Loch a few years ago, but I don't know what state she's in now
There are two complete surviving Vickers Wellingtons preserved in the United Kingdom. Some other substantial parts also survive.
- Wellington IA serial number N2980 is on display at Brooklands Museum at Brooklands, Surrey. Built at Brooklands and first flown in November 1939, this aircraft took part in the RAF's daylight bombing raids on Germany early in the Second World War but later lost power during a training flight on 31 December 1940 and ditched in Loch Ness. All the occupants survived except the rear gunner, who was killed when his parachute failed to open. The aircraft was recovered from the bottom of Loch Ness in September 1985 and restored in the late 1980s and 1990s. A new Wellington exhibition around N2980 was officially opened by Robin Holmes (who led the recovery team), Penelope Keith (as trustee of Brooklands Museum), Norman Parker (who worked for Vickers) and Ken Wallis (who flew Wellingtons operationally) on 15 June 2011, the 75th anniversary of the first flight of the type's effective prototype in 1936.
- Wellington T.10 serial number MF628 is held by the Royal Air Force Museum. It was delivered to RAF No.18 MU (Maintenance Unit) for storage at RAF Tinwald Downs, Dumfries, as a Wellington B.X, on 11 May 1944. In March 1948 the front gun turret was removed in its conversion to a T.10 for its role as a postwar aircrew trainer; the RAF Museum later refitted the front gun turret in keeping with its original build as a B.X (wartime mark numbers used Roman numerals, Arabic numerals were adopted postwar). In Autumn 2010, this aircraft was taken to the RAF Museum's site at Cosford for restoration over the next four or five years.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nvs0rzf-sQ"]Wellington Bomber 24.09.10 - YouTube[/ame]
Halifax Survivors:
The Yorkshire Air Museum, on the site of the Second World War airfield, RAF Elvington, has a fully restored aircraft re-constructed from a fuselage section of Halifax B.Mk.II
HR792 and parts from other aircraft including the wings from an RAF Hastings. It is painted to represent Halifax
LV907, "Friday the 13th" from No. 158 Squadron RAF on the port side and "N - Novembre" of 347 "Guyenne" Squadron, Free French Air Force, on the starboard side (RAF Elvington being the home of the only two French heavy bomber squadrons in Bomber Command).
Another fully restored Halifax,
NA337 of No. 644 Squadron RAF, then based at RAF Tarrant Rushton, is a transport/special duties version, and was retrieved from the bottom of Lake Mjøsa in Norway in 1995 after being shot down in April 1945. It was taken to Canada and restoration was completed in 2005.
NA337 is a Halifax A.Mk.VII Special Duties aircraft built by Rootes Motors, at Liverpool Airport and is now preserved at the National Air Force Museum of Canada at CFB Trenton in Trenton, Ontario, near Kingston, Ontario.
A third Halifax is a B.Mk.II, serial
W1048, 'S' for Sugar of No. 35 Squadron RAF. On the night of the 27/28 April 1942, this aircraft was taking part in a raid on the
Tirpitz - its first operational flight. It was hit by anti-aircraft fire after releasing the four 1,000-pound (450 kg) mines it carried and the pilot made a successful belly landing on the frozen surface of Lake Hoklingen. The crew escaped to Sweden with the help of the Norwegian resistance, except for the Flight Engineer who remained behind because of a broken ankle and was taken prisoner. Within hours, the aircraft sank through the ice into 27 metres (89 ft) of water.
In the summer of 1973, it was recovered from the lake by a team of divers from the RAF and a Norwegian diving club, and was transported to the UK on a British Army Landing craft tank. It is displayed in its "as recovered" condition in the Bomber Command display at the Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon in London, apart from the nose turret which had already been restored prior to the decision.
The front fuselage section of Halifax MkVII PN323, built by Fairey Aviation at Manchester, is displayed at the Imperial War Museum in London. PN323 was the final Halifax scrapped, at Radlett, with the forward fuselage being recovered in 1965 and the nose section/crew compartment moved to the IWM 1978.
On 26 November 2006, archaeologists from the Warsaw Uprising Museum, Poland, unearthed remains of another Halifax (
JP276 "A") from No. 148 Squadron RAF, which was found in southern Poland, near the city of Dąbrowa Tarnowska. It was shot down on the night 4–5 August 1944 while returning from the "air-drop-action" during the Warsaw Uprising.
In August 1945, while on weather patrol, the aging Halifax bomber
LW170 from No. 518 Squadron RAF sprang a fuel leak and, while trying to return to base, was forced to ditch off the Hebrides Islands west of Scotland.
A project is currently underway with the stated aim of finding, recovering and restoring Halifax LW170. When it is recovered it will be restored and displayed at the Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, Alberta, Canada.
One side of the nose and cockpit of Halifax Mk. VII NP707, which completed 67 operations with No. 432 Squadron RCAF, was saved when the aircraft was scrapped after the war. It is now owned by the Bomber Command Museum of Canada.
In December 2014, the discovery of the largely intact remains of a bomber believed to be Halifax W7656 missing following an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz on April 28, 1942 was announced. As two of the crew failed to escape, the aircraft was designated a war grave.