Avro Lancaster Escape Hatch

[hokusai]

I am currently reading J. Hamilton-Patterson's book "Marked for Death - The first war in the air"
The book is about WW1 but there is an amazing statement about WW2 bombers in the chapter about parachutes:

"In the Second World War the eminent British-born Princeton mathematician Freeman Dyson was assigned to the RAF’s Operational Research Section where he made a disturbing discovery. About half the crews of American bombers shot down in daylight raids were escaping from their aircraft to become PoWs. From the older British night bombers, the Halifax and the Stirling, about 25 per cent escaped. From the RAF’s newest bomber, the Lancaster, a mere 15 per cent of the crews survived. Dyson established that this was because its escape hatch was not only badly sited but too small for men wearing parachutes to squeeze through easily. An informant on a bomber squadron told him that the true fraction of survivors among shot-down crews was kept secret from the airmen even more strictly than were the true odds against their completing an operational tour. ‘If the boys had found out how small was the fraction who succeeded in baling out after being hit, some of them might have been tempted to jump too soon.’ This was an exact reprise of the WWI ‘official’ argument against parachutes.
There ensued a two-year attempt to get Bomber Command first to acknowledge the problem and then to notify Avro to modify the Lancaster’s escape hatch. Avro took months simply to design a larger hatch and build a prototype, and the war ended before it could be installed. It had clearly never been considered a priority."


Well, last week I received my Lancaster, maybe after 75 years I should do that modification...

[flash]

Wonder how many other machines were effected in a similar way, I lost a cousin in a Short Stirling over France in '43. They'd been told to bale, the pilot crashed but survived & escaped via Spain.

[Jager]

I really wish I could say I'm surprised by this, but I'm not
Karl

[Baxter]

I was looking at some pics of a Halifax cockpit yesterday and could not believe how they shoe horned people into it. It is a wonder that anyone survived really. Brave men.