It was designed to an Air Ministry specification (C.26/31) which sought for a transport monoplane which could also act as a bomber to replace the outdated Vickers Valentia biplane which was in active service in the Middle East and India. The specification required the aircraft to be capable of carrying 24 troops, or an equivalent amount of cargo as a transport, while mounting defensive gun turrets and bombs to be used as a bomber. This versatile design was common in British designs of the era. Another designs presented for the specification were the Armstrong Whitworth A.W.23, Handley Page H.P.51 and the Vickers Type 230, though this last one was eventually never built.
Bristol's design, named by the company as the 'Type 130', was a high-wing cantilever monoplane made entirely out of metal. Given that Bristol's previous monoplane design, the Bristol Bagshot of 1927, suffered from lack of torsional rigidity in the wings which caused aileron reversals, an extensive research program was founded at Bristol which eventually led to a new wing design with a stressed metal skin riveted to an internal framework of multiple spars and ribs. This was the basics of the Bombay's wing, which consisted on 7 spars with high-tensile flanges and alclad webs. The aircraft had also a twin-tail and a fixed tailwheel undercarriage.
The crew consisted of a pilot, sat in an enclosed cockpit, a navigator/bomb-aimer who sat in the nose and a radio operator/gunner who divided his time between the radio post behind the cockpit and the gun turret in the nose. When acting as a bomber, an additional crew member was carried to the tail turret.
In the prototype, the tail gun was equipped with a single Lewis gun mounted on a scarf ring, but in production aircraft both gun positions were armed with single Vickers K machine guns. A total of eight 250 pounds (110 kg) bombs could be carried externally under the fuselage on racks.
A prototype, the Type 130, was ordered in March 1933 and flew for the first time on 23rd June 1935. The Type 130 was powered by two Bristol Pegasus III engines which delivered a total of 750 hp of power and drove two-bladed propellers. Testings were carried out successfully and an initial order for 80 machine was placed as the Bombay in July 1937. Unlike the prototype, these were powered by the more powerful Bristol Pegasus XXII which delivered 1.010 hp of power and drove three-bladed propellers. Wheel spats which were present on the prototype were also discarded in the production version, called Bombay Mk.I.
Production run was set for early 1939 but, considering that Bristol's production lines were full with the more urgent Bristol Blenheim, manufacturing was taken by Short & Harland, in Belfast, where a total of 50 machines were made from March 1939 until June 1940. Given the complex nature of the Bombay's wing, production was delayed, and the last 30 left were cancelled.
The first production Bombay flew in March 1939 and were delivered to the No.216 Squadron RAF , based in Egypt in September that year. Although obsolete as a bomber, for the European theatre, it saw action with the No.271 Squadron which was based at RAF Doncaster, in Yorkshire, transporting supplies to the British Expeditionary Force in June 1940. That same month, French pilot Jean-François Demozay borrowed an abandoned Bombay to ferry himself and 15 more soldiers from France to England, where he became an ace for the Royal Air Force (RAF).
The Middle-East is where the Bombay was more extensively used, specially with the No.216 Squadron which operated most of the Bombays that had been built. When Italy waged war on Britain in June 1940, in the absence of more modern aircraft, No.216 Squadron's Bombays were used as night bombers as well as transports. Its payload of eight bombs was supplemented by improvised bombs thrown out the cargo door by hand. This way the aircraft flew bombing sorties against targets in the Western Desert region, such as Benghazi and Tobruk and the Italian Somaliland. Until the Vickers Wellington arrived in significant numbers to that theatre, the Bombay was British main transport and bomber.
Serving as a transport, they ferried supplies and evacuated wounded soldiers during the Siege of Tobruk of 1941. On 2nd May 1941 Bombays of No.216 Squadron, evacuated the Greek Royal Family from Crete to Egypt. Later that month, Bombays played a significant role transporting troops during the Anglo-Iraqi War. It was also used by the Special Air Service (SAS) in their first special operation in the Middle East when, five Bombays performed five raids against German forward airfields on 17th November 1941.
Lieutnant General William Gott, the highest ranking British general killed in the war, dies when the Bombay he was being carried on was shot down in the Western Desert on 7th August 1942. He was about to assume command from General Claude Auchinleck, but his death opened way for General Bernard Montgomery to take over.
Bombays were also employed by the No.1 Air Ambulance Unit of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), where they evacuated over 2.000 wounded troops during the Sicily Campaign in July 1943. One crew of this unit was credited with having evacuated more than 6.000 casualties from Sicily and Italy before the type was finally withdrawn from use service in 1944.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Bombay
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._271_Squadron_RAF
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._1_Air_Ambulance_Unit_RAAF
4. https://www.valka.cz/Bristol-Bombay-t6615
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