Face of Nation : Don’t be alarmed if you see what looks like a massive bomb on the highway south of Calgary on Friday.
It’s a full-size replica of a Second World War bomb called the Grand Slam on its way to the Bomber Command Museum of Canada in Nanton, about 90 kilometres south of Calgary. The 10,000-kilogram Grand Slam was the largest bomb in the war.
Veteran woodworkers John Morel and Andy Lockhart normally build high-end furniture, so when they were asked by the museum to make the bomb, they knew they could use their fine wood-working skills to pull it off. Lockhart calls the replica bomb one of the biggest projects he’s done.
Constructed with fibreboard, aluminum and fibreglass, the nearly seven-metre long piece took them three months to build in Morel’s shop.
“It had it’s moments, Lockhart said, explaining that the materials were heavy and hard to manoeuvre. “The tail part is sheet aluminum, bent from flat into a cone. And all of the various pieces had to line up with no gaps,” he said. “It’s great to see it finally done.”
He said he hopes it serves as a valuable teaching tool, and that it can foster “an appreciation of the scale of things that actually happened in World War II, the abilities of the guys who flew the Lancasters and did the missions, and some of the elements that actually went in to winning that war.” Museum historian Dave Birrell says it was carried by specially-modified Lancaster Bombers with the elite Dambusters squadron.
“No other airplane could come close to lifting 22,400 pounds,” he said. The Allies dropped 41 one of them on German infrastructure targets such as rail bridges and underground submarine pens.
“Used in just that last few months of the war and the Canadian connection is that the leader of the squadron at that point was Johnny Fauquier, the most decorated Canadian airman in World War II,” Birrell said.
There are no other replicas of the bombs, but there are three or four originals at museums in the U.K., he said. The Grand Slam will be put on display alongside the museum’s Lancaster bomber after it’s carefully driven down Highway 2 on Friday.
