A dam good show

TODAY, a Second World War Avro Lancaster will rumble down the upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire and pass low over the reservoir and dam built there in the early years of the 20th century.

Flying by day, and in peacetime, the vintage bomber will be spared the probing of searchlights, the merciless bursting of flak and flicker of tracer that greeted the Lancasters of 617 Squadron 65 years ago, as they took part in the most audacious bombing operation of the Second World War: the Dambusters raid.

On the night of 16-17 May 1943, the purpose-formed squadron, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, took off from RAF Scampton near Lincoln. Each plane was laden with a huge, drum-shaped bomb slung beneath its fuselage as it lumbered across the North Sea towards the industrial heartland of Germany. Their targets were heavily defended dams on the Möhne and Sorpe rivers and another on the Eder. At a time when the outcome of the war was uncertain, the plan was for their cumbersome “bouncing bombs” – designed by aviation engineer and inventor Barnes Wallis – to breach the dams, disrupting water and power supplies to the Nazi war machine’s key munitions plants in the Ruhr valley.

The crews of the specially formed precision-bombing squadron had undergone intensive training in hair-raisingly low flying, and in the delivery of “Upkeep”, as the bomb was known. Designed to be given backspin as it dropped, it would skip over the water surface – and over the anti-torpedo nets guarding the dams – then sink to the dam base and explode. The Derwent reservoir and dam, where today’s memorial flight will take place, was one of several areas used for practice runs.

Two of the target dams, the Möhne and the Eder, were indeed breached, flooding the area, carrying away bridges and power stations and disrupting infrastructure and power and water supply – but at considerable cost to 617 Squadron. (Let’s not forget, either, the 1,300 people who died as a result of the raid, including 500 slave-labourers, mostly women from Ukraine). Of the 19 Lancasters that took off from Scampton in what was knows as “Operation Chastise”, eight failed to return, with 53 aircrew killed and a further three made prisoners of war.

The flyers’ heroism and sacrifice has become near-legendary – enshrined in the postwar popular imagination by the Dam Busters film of 1954, Eric Coates’ theme tune for which became an enduring standard. Their story is about to be writ large on screen once again, as Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson embarks on a new version of the film.

But while the tenacity and expertise of the aircrew involved has become a byword for heroism, in hindsight the raid’s tactical impact has been largely dismissed. At the time, the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, declared the strike “a trenchant blow for victory”, while in Germany, Hitler raged at “this disaster in the west”. Barnes Wallis, while distressed by the aircrew losses incurred, wrote: “I feel a blow has been struck at Germany from which she cannot recover for several years.”

Later commentators, however, have been less enthusiastic, describing its impact on the German war effort as negligible, with one describing it as “a conjuring trick, virtually devoid of military significance”. Even one of the surviving pilots, Ken Brown, remarked in 1992 that he felt the loss of the eight crews was unjustified by the results.

However, even by those who question its effectiveness, the raid is still regarded as an astonishing feat of arms, says Robert Owen, the official historian of the 617 Squadron Aircrew Association. At the Derwent dam after today’s flyover, Owen will launch a book of essays on the raid, Breaching the German Dams – Flying Into History, which he has co-written with Richard Morris, biographer of the raid’s leader, Guy Gibson VC and another bomber hero, Leonard Cheshire VC.

“When you look at a lot of revisionist comments about the raid,” says Owen, “They’re looking at it purely in terms of the material damage caused, not at the broader picture. In a way, the dams raid was a victim of its own propaganda: at the time, the Ministry of Information wanted to portray the maximum effect. And of course it was a terribly visual operation, with reconnaissance photographs showing the dams with water pouring out of them. Leaflets were dropped [on German-occupied countries] with these photographs, saying that the RAF was hitting back.

“Churchill used it to help persuade the Americans to focus on Europe, rather than the Pacific. Also, when the Russians were clamouring for a second front to ease their burden, this was photographic representation that we were actually doing something to help. “Then, post-war, people look back on it and more information becomes available and they realise, ‘Well, it wasn’t quite as effective as it was made out to be.’ Everyone thought the Ruhr would be out of action and the war would be over shortly, and of course it didn’t do that. But in fairness, even before the operation, the planners weren’t expecting that. They were being realistic… So there is debate there.”

In Germany, the raid did mean that a significant amount of manpower and materials had to be redirected from other projects, such as the Atlantic Wall. This knock-on effect, continues Owen, extended to the German economy, leaving it more vulnerable to the later pummelling of 24-hour British and American bombing. “The raid also showed that a very small force could penetrate right into a highly defended area in the heart of Germany, find a very small target – at night as well – and cause a disproportionate amount of damage.”

The raid’s effect on German morale – not least on those who experienced it directly – was considerable. One conscripted Dutch worker in the Möhne valley, watching the distant anti-aircraft fire, suddenly heard “a violent rushing sound” and ran for his life up a hill. “A tremendous flood had swept away the bridge with all the people on it,” he later recalled. “At the same moment there was a tremendous flash: the power station had also been washed away, together with houses and streets.”

Spin-offs from the project, says Owen, included the RAF’s development of precision-bombing tactics, and the vindication of Barnes Wallis, whose unorthodox heavy bombs, euphemistically christened “Tallboy” and “Grand Slam”, were accepted and played a vital role. Their formidable punch destroyed the German battleship Tirpitz, as well as Nazi V weapons bases and U-boat pens – all delivered by 617 squadron, who had become specialists in the business.

Owen has interviewed some of the surviving dambuster crews, and was frequently struck by their modesty. “Although they acknowledged that they’d achieved something out of the ordinary, they weren’t going to be put on a pedestal as heroes. It was a case of ‘cometh the hour, cometh the men’.” Many of these men, he adds, were scarcely older than his own 21-year-old son; Gibson, who was awarded the Victoria Cross after the raid, only to be killed on another bombing raid the following year, was 25. Owen also highlights the fact that many were Commonwealth flyers, while another, Flight Lieutenant Joe McCarthy, was an American who had joined the Canadian Air force.

Their actions 65 years ago will provide Squadron leader Stuart “Stu” Reid, of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, with food for thought tomorrow as he pilots the Lancaster – one of only two remaining airworthy examples of the famous bomber – over the Derwent dam.

“Obviously, for us, it’s an entirely different experience from those who were flying it during the war,” says Reid, who normally flies rather more modern E3 Sentry AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control Stations). “It’s a great thrill, which touches every emotion you have, really. But the guys flying it then were experiencing entirely different emotions. They were in fear of what was going to happen, of the unknown.

“Ours is a much more pleasurable job, because they made the Lancaster famous. What we do is retain it as a living memorial to those who flew it during the war.”

Perhaps surprisingly, he says, there is not much difference between flying the Lancaster and flying the AWACS, although their undercarriage makes them very different on the ground. “In the air, the two are quite similar to handle – both quite heavy in roll, quite sensitive in pitch, very responsive to power.”

Reid believes it is too easy to look back on that night in 1943 with the benefit of hindsight: “Nobody was certain how the war was going to go and [the British] were looking for any way of hitting back at the German military machine. You can only relate these decisions to the way things were at the time.”

Over the Derwent Valley today, his Lancaster will be met by two Tornado GR4s of 617 Squadron as it is today, based at Lossiemouth, where its aircraft are regularly deployed to Iraq (the squadron motto remains “Aprés moi, le déluge”). At a time of different values and viewpoints from those of 1943, what are Reid’s feelings about those who attacked the German dams? “These men were the heroes of their day – Roy Chadwick and his team who developed the Lancaster, the ingenuity of Barnes Wallis and the leadership and tenacity of Guy Gibson … in terms of technical evolution and personal qualities, they were the best of the best.”

• Breaching the Dams – Flying Into History is available from the Royal Air Force Museum ( www.rafmuseum.org.uk).

CHOCKS AWAY, CHAPS!

THE classic 1954 film The Dam Busters, which starred Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson and Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, is being remade by Peter Jackson, who will forsake the fantasy worlds of Lord of the Rings and King Kong for the very real events of the Second World War raids he first encountered watching the original film as a boy.

“I always thought that out of all the Second World War stories, this is one of the most extraordinary,” Jackson declared when he announced the film, which he will produce (Christian Rivers will direct).

The script is being written by Stephen Fry, and the film will be made largely in Jackson’s native New Zealand, where Weta Digital, creator of spectacular effects for the LOTR trilogy and King Kong, has been creating Lancaster bombers. Some filming, however, is expected at the Scampton air base near Lincoln, home of the Red Arrows. The cast has not yet been announced (despite rumours that Scots actor James McAvoy may land a starring role).

Jackson first contemplated remaking The Dam Busters 12 years ago, but was told that Mel Gibson was buying the film rights, which were owned by the broadcaster Sir David Frost. A few years ago, however, the rights became available again.

The New Zealander has interviewed veterans of the 1943 raid and has promised to stick as closely as possible to the spirit of the original film – including Eric Coates’s immortal theme.

But will they keep the name of Guy Gibson’s dog, Nigger? The dog is integral to the story: it was run over just before the raid and its name used as a codeword during the mission. In recent years, the dog’s name has been excised from TV screenings of the 1954 film. It remains to be seen whether sensitivity prevails or if the script sticks, er, doggedly, to Jackson’s promise of authenticity.