Dambusters heroes

Daily Mail UK ^ | 27 August 2013

[Lorianne]

Flying Officer Harold Hobday, navigator

I don't think any of us expected to get through, really, because so many of our friends had been shot down or gone missing or simply had accidents.

The percentage was very high. I'm surprised I got through. All the same, I don't think people took special precautions - making wills - I certainly didn't.

Wing Commander Guy Gibson

Hoppy Hopgood, my second-in-command, said to me: 'Hey Gibbo, if you don't come back, can I have your egg tomorrow?'

I realised that the first aircraft to attack the dam would probably catch the gunners with their pants down but the second to attack wouldn't be so lucky and that would be him.

[Lorianne]

[oh8eleven]

Not a bad movie ...

[Squawk 8888]

To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.

Canada Ping!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Wasn’t there a TV show by the same name?

[okie01]

One of the most remarkable raids in military history.

Thanks for the post.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Too many good men did not come back.

[llevrok]

There are some WW2 actions that showed the highest degree of courage and inventiveness. (e.g. Dolittle raid, Dam Busters, Breaking Ultra, D Day landing, deceptions and logistics ,,,,,)

This is among the top ones in my mind

How’d they do it? No one told them they couldn’t ! (it was a different era).

[left that other site]

Nowadays the EPA would have forced the mission to abort due to environmental concerns.

[Chainmail]

Thanks!

[oh8eleven]

Wasn’t there a TV show by the same name?
The movie has been on TV many times and there's at least a couple of documentaries as well. But no TV show that I can recall.

[colorado tanker]

This was an amazing raid and these men were real heroes. It took nerves of steal to stay on course at such a low altitude in heavy flak to pull this off.

But in hindsight the amount of damage done in light of quick repairs probably made the price in lives too high.

[Wiggins]

I have that movie in my collection and it’s pretty good. The only thing that a took away from it were the special effects. Still a good a movie.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I was probably recalling a particular episode of “Twelve O’clock High”.

[oh8eleven]

Twelve O’clock High
LOL - you're old! So am I, sigh ...

[DoodleDawg]

Too many good men did not come back.

Then or later. Gibson and his crew survived the raid but every man was killed during the course of the war.

[caveat emptor]

The photo was one of many produced and analyzed in a top secret aerial reconnaissance program during WWII.

RAF Medmenham was a Royal Air Force unit based at Danesfield House near Medmenham, in Buckinghamshire, England. The unit specialized in photographic intelligence, and was once the home of the RAF Intelligence Branch. RAF Medmenham was to imagery intelligence, what Bletchley Park was to signals intelligence.

In April 1941 an RAF photographic interpretation unit (PIU) moved to Danesfield House, Medmenham,

Here are some sources:
http://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/Unit-Info/4125
http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/4059
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spies-3d.html

I saw the Nova program earlier this summer. It's available at their site, though not to me when I just tried - "due to right restrictions" -likely because I'm in Canada. It's billed as being about the German Rocket Program but was about much more.