Qualla: International Bomber Command Centre

International Bomber Command Centre: Introduction

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit International Bomber Command Centre, CC BY-SA 4.0. They were mostly very young. Some had lied about their age to get in; many would not live to see their twenty-fifth birthday. From the airfields scattered across Lincolnshire's flat eastern farmland, Bomber Command crews flew east into German flak by night and did not always come back. On a low rise above the city of Lincoln, a 102-foot spire of weathered steel now rises to the exact wingspan of an Avro Lancaster. Around it, 270 metal panels carry the engraved names of 57,871 men and women — every single airman, every ground crew member, every WAAF, every supporter who died serving with Bomber Command between 1939 and 1945. This is the International Bomber Command Centre, and it exists because for seventy years afterwards, no one had built them a home of their own.

Image: International Bomber Command Centre | CC BY-SA 4.0

International Bomber Command Centre: A wingspan in steel

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanielleinLincoln, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Spire was raised on Canwick Hill on 10 May 2015, before the visitor centre was even built. It is five metres wide at the base — the width of a Lancaster's wing — and tapers upward in weathering steel that rusts to a deep, settled orange. Stand at its foot and look up: this is...

Image: DanielleinLincoln | CC BY-SA 4.0

International Bomber Command Centre: Recognition, remembrance, reconciliation

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit IBCC Market, CC BY-SA 4.0. Bomber Command's losses were proportionally the worst of any major Allied force in the Second World War. Of roughly 125,000 aircrew who served, about 55,500 were killed — close to half. The casualty rate among operational aircrew approached that of junior infantry officers on the...

Image: IBCC Market | CC BY-SA 4.0

International Bomber Command Centre: The Digital Archive

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanielleinLincoln, CC BY-SA 4.0. Behind the Spire and the Walls is the Chadwick Centre — named for Roy Chadwick, the engineer who designed the Lancaster — and behind that, a quieter and stranger project. In partnership with the University of Lincoln, the IBCC has assembled a Digital Archive of more than 40,000 i...

Image: DanielleinLincoln | CC BY-SA 4.0

International Bomber Command Centre: Reading the Walls

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit IBCC Market, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Walls of Names form a half-circle around the Spire. The panels are tall enough that you have to step back to read the upper rows, low enough at the bottom that you find yourself crouching. Names are grouped by squadron and date of loss, so a single panel can carry an entire c...

Image: IBCC Market | CC BY-SA 4.0

International Bomber Command Centre: Visiting today

Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James-laserred, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Centre opened to the public at the end of January 2018, with a formal ceremony on 12 April that year as part of the RAF's centenary. The grounds are open daily and free to enter; the exhibition and Chadwick Centre charge a modest admission. There is a peace garden, a memorial...

Image: James-laserred | CC BY-SA 4.0