Enstone's Black Lancasters - AGAIN

"No official records exist" - hmm.

Whilst I can well believe the Lancaster was a choice for the atomic bombs I'm not sure why there are no records of the RAF unit. The obvious location for such a unit would be Canada where training could be easily kept out of the way, plus it was closer to theatre. Canada was building Lancasters so was well placed to help with modifications and extra fuel tanks.

Enstone sounds a very odd location with lots of crews passing through the OTU with flying both day and night. It wasn't a backwater. Someone would have noticed crews being posted to a mysterious squadron or flight as family historians are all over the unit records. Someone must have noticed and possibly recorded this.

My suspicion is that this may have been a Fortitude type operation to direct attention away from the truth and perhaps to imply atomic weapons were destined for German Cities? The black Lancasters may have existed as I believe an all black scheme was tried or considered for night bombing, after all many Mosquito night fighters were painted all black.

I didn't watch the whole video so didn't notice any sources in the bits I watched. Where did this come from?

I wonder if those mystery Lancasters were assigned to MAP and not to the RAF? This might explain the lack of mention in official (i.e. RAF) records. Maybe one of those detailed histories on the Lancaster contains a list of users for every single Lancaster built?

If they were assigned to MAP then their true purpose would have been kept secret, although the Enstone thing is still an enigma, Boscombe Down or Farnborough would have been better for security.

The Enola Gay flew from Tinian to Hiroshima, a point to point distance of 2526 km, so a minimum of 5052 km round trip

the B29 has a stated range of 5230 km and a ferry range of 5600 km

The Lancaster has a stated range of 4,073 km

So what part were the lancasters going to take ?

Figures from Wikipedia so you take your chances......

Were there safe parts of China to land or could they have been adapted to carry extra fuel? I suspect both options would have been planned for if this was a serious idea. I have not considered altitude as the bomb would require a high level drop to enable the aircraft to exit the area safely. The B-29 was better suited to this type of mission I suspect, despite the wing spar issue. I wonder if the Lincoln was proposed as it would have been available if the Far East war had continued into 1946?

Finally would the A bomb have been dropped at night or was that option discarded early on?