The book tells the story, in great detail, of the early stages of the idea by Wallis and the struggle to get it taken seriously; the go-ahead and the formation and training of 617 squadron of the Royal Air Force; the raid itself, which happened almost exactly 70 years ago; and the aftermath. It's an excellent book - very well written.
I should of course point out, that Barnes Wallis was an "Old Blue," that's to say he, like me, went to Christ's Hospital. Indeed, he was a familiar presence there when I was a boy. It is said that he was devastated by the huge losses of the bomber crews. If I recall correctly, he used the money that was given to him later by a grateful government to fund scholarships at CH for the sons of RAF officers.
The statue, is placed there because of the bouncing bomb trials (see photo below) which occurred there in the early part of 1943 in preparation for the raid. The trials were at the time considered to be at Reculver, rather than Herne Bay. But Reculver is rather difficult to reach these days and it is all the same bit of coastline.
All this reminded me of the only unpleasant German I ever met (I've met a lot of very nice Germans over the years, by the way). He was the ticket agent at Bochum when I was visiting in 1979. I wanted to see Wuppertal (where I was born) and in particular wanted to ride on the Schwebebahn. I stood in line and when I reached the window, politely asked for a "hin und rundfahrt" ticket to Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof. "Kein Hauptbahnhof in Wuppertal," he almost screamed at me. So, I was forced to leave the line and consult the chart. Clearly the main station was at Elberfeld. So, I rejoined the queue and eventually got my ticket. That memory has always rankled with me and when I think of the thousands of innocent folk who perished as a result of the dams breaking, I like to imagine they were like that railway man. What a contrast from the agent in Stockholm on another occasion who after I asked for a ticket to Uppsala, replied in the most perfect English "would you like a single or a return?" The irony is that, since 1992, the station in question has actually been called Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof.
But back to the Dambusters. There was an excellent two-hour documentary on Nova entitled "Bombing Hitler's Dams" recently in which a team of engineers tries to reenact the Dambusters raid. The technical challenges were formidable, even with today's technology. How they managed to get it working in just a few months during the war is nothing short of amazing. The goal of the documentary team is to build a small dam somewhere up in the wilds of Canada, and destroy it with a bomb. You'll have to see it to find out if they succeed.
One thing which I don't entirely understand is why the actual raid had to be flown at 50-100' all the way from England to the targets. Wouldn't it have been possible to fly high, like normal bomber raids, and then swoop down? Many of the crew losses seem to be attributable to this night-time low-level flying. In at least two cases, the planes flew into power transmission lines, hundreds of miles from the targets.
Anyway, it's a great story of ingenuity, dedication and sheer bravery. The 1955 movie, which I saw for the second time a year or so ago, is a great way to see the entire story.
