Images

Château de Meung-sur-Loire, Meung-sur-Loire, Loiret, France. It was built from the 11th century onwards and served as the residence of the bishops of Orléans and as a prison. François Villon, the 15th-century bandit and poet, was undoubtedly...

A Second World War (1939-45) propaganda poster produced by the British Office of War Information showing an Avro Lancaster bomber. (National Archives at College Park)

A wartime photograph of an Avro Lancaster bomber dropping its bombload during the Second World War (1939-45).

A photograph of an Avro Lancaster bomber loaded with a 'bouncing bomb' used on the 'Dam Buster' raid. Also known as Operation Chastise, the raid of May 1943 aimed to destroy several Ruhr Valley dams. (National Archives, London)

A photograph of an Avro Lancaster bomber over the German city of Hamburg during a bombing raid of the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums Collection)

A 1945 photograph of an Avro Lancaster bomber carrying a 'Grand Slam' bomb which, weighing almost 10 tons (22,000 lbs), was the heaviest bomb dropped during the Second World War by any air force. (Imperial War Museums Collection)

A photograph of an Avro Lancaster bomber during the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight in England, 2018.

A photograph of HMS Dorsetshire picking up survivors after the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941 in the Atlantic. Only 110 men survived from a crew of over 2,000. (Imperial War Museums, London)

A colourised photograph of the British battle cruiser HMS Hood. The ship was the most famous vessel in the Royal Navy in the years before the Second World War. Hood was sunk by the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941.

A photograph of Admiral Günter Lütjens (1889-1941) taken in April 1940 just before he embarked on Operation Rheinübung onboard the German battleship Bismarck. (German Federal Archives)