Back in the 80s I was at the Oktoberfest with a Brit friend of mine, and he asked the oompah band to play The Dambusters Song. They did!
Posted on 05/17/2023 7:17:34 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Eighty years ago, on May 16-17, 1943, an elite group of airmen, mostly from the Royal Air Force, but also with contingents from Canada and Australia, took off in nineteen Lancaster bombers from the RAF station in Scampton, Lincolnshire. Their mission was clear: Destroy three dams in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, thus taking out the hydroelectric power and the water supply to Germany’s industrial heartland, largely negating its value as a manufacturing center for the war effort.
Recognizing their importance, the Germans had heavily fortified the dams, installing impenetrable torpedo nets below the waterlines to guard against an underwater attack, and it was widely believed that they could be destroyed only by placing charges underwater and against the dam walls themselves, a difficult and dangerous task with a limited prospect of success.
Enter Barnes Wallis, an English engineer working for Vickers, a man with an inventive turn of mind and a determination to square this particular circle.
The result of his ruminations was the “Spherical Bomb” or “Surface Torpedo,” a bomb that skipped across the water–as children since time immemorial have skipped pebbles across the water–before sinking and exploding at depth.
Demonstrations in which he skipped marbles over tanks of water in his backyard led to some Ministry of Defence interest, and after a team at Vickers implemented some refinements in speed and direction of the spin–leading to more control over the bomb–the bomb-building project began. After extensive testing in the UK (during which at least one homefront dam was destroyed), what was then known as Operation Chastise, but would be forever after be referred to as The Dam Busters, came into being and 617 Squadron was formed for the purpose, under the command of Wing Commander Guy Gibson.
(Excerpt) Read more at ricochet.com ...
Back in the 80s I was at the Oktoberfest with a Brit friend of mine, and he asked the oompah band to play The Dambusters Song. They did!
Those Lancasters with the rolls Royce were capable of so d massive loads
Chair Force; Killing civilians by the thousands. So proud.
Watched the movie many times with my father and brothers.
Weren’t those Mosquitoes constructed of extremely light weight wood? They were fast as hell and deadly.
The Lancasters did the night bombing while we did daytime bombing with the B-17s and B-24 Liberators.
Great movie.
“Chair Force; Killing civilians by the thousands. So proud”.
Civilian deaths were an unfortunate result of total war.
Mosquitos were constructed of wood. But The Dam Busters flew Lancasters.
p
Yes I saw the movie several years ago.
I still have a copy with the proper dog’s name...
Oh man, I had forgotten about the dog and his name. Thanks for bringing it up.
And Stealthy.
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