My former colleague, Charles Foster, has published an excellent book on the story of his uncle, Sqn Ldr David Maltby and his crew. They flew the fifth Lancaster that dropped a bomb on the Mohne Dam, and the one that caused the final breach. Breaking the dams is available in all good book shops now.
This month is the 65th anniversary of the dambusters. The dambusters blog has also been set up by Charles as has breaking the dams, a site he has set up to explain what the book is about. There are also a number of other dambusters related sites that you might find of interest.
9 comments ↓
Many civilian lives lost to a raid that is now legend.
The Germans rebuilt them within months but the morale gained was priceless for a Nation that stood alone at this point.
A pointless act?
Not pointless at all Gary; without the likes of Guy Gibson this country would probably be run by the BNP or their loon friends. Wait a minute though, isn’t your former ward of Stoke like that now in fact ?
I’ve no idea what a ‘former ward’ is, but I think you are saying has MY ward been grand slammed by the BNP? The answer is yes. I sleep as easy now as I did before.Anybody would be mistaken for thinking that someone close to me has died because I am inundated with sorrowful messages by people I have never met. This didn’t happen the last time around.My wife says it is as though I have died. I can’t explain this as it didn’t happen last year when I lost that one.
As for the Dam raids, I can only say what history is saying.Factories were flooded and civilians died but the military power of the Third Reich soldiered on regardless.No piece of land was conquered by the allies and all was put back very soon after. Historians are undecided as to the true nature of the assault on the dams and civilian life but all seem to agree that it was a huge moral booster for a weary British public that stood alone in the face of an ever growing powerful enemy. As I say, a pointless act?
We stood alone? Did we? Ever?
Gary
In a real war there is no such thing as a ‘civilian’, Gary.
Good and interesting response, Gary.
The issue for me in these situations is that we all work with the benefit of hindsight; this worked; that didnt’; therefore this idea was right, and that was wrong. Unfortunately this gives the moral high ground to the person who loads 5 of the 6 revolver chambers, shoots himself and he gets away with it by a minor miracle.
Should we have bothered with the dams, or indeed any raid at any time during WWII? Would Japan have capitulated without Hiroshima or Nagasaki? At the end of the day it is only ever opinion supported by hindsight.
I’m afraid that evidence does not support your evaluation either at the time of the raids or now.
The dams breached claimed 1200 civilian lives of which 600 were innocent slave workers from the East.
A few factories were disrupted and a few railway lines were flooded. Industrial production was largely unnafected.
Albert Speer claimed that if the Sorpe dam (not breached) had been the main target, then significant loss of life and armament production would have been the case.
The film ‘the dambusters’ is mostly accurate but was made prior to de classification (of bomb delivery-top secret) and is conjecture.
The Atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (an unlucky secondary target) is a completely different matter.
Those attacks had a purpose, no matter how horrific then and now.
They were to demonstrate to a Japanese, fully intact Army, that failure to unconditionally surrender, was a futile gesture.
The Japanes had lost the battles to secure the homeland by exporting their war machine but Japan was fully armed and fully manned. Japan was not as dfeated as Germany was and its leadership was certain of victory.
We can look today of the Atomic bombs as being inhuman because that is our nature, but the American Government and people had already lost many lives in a European theatre that had nothing at all to do with them. The Pacific was a different matter and up to a Million American lives were predicted casualties if invasion was inevitable.
The bomb was a no brainer to the USA.
The Rhuer valley and the bouncing bome was pure propaganda spectacularly carried out by brave men.
Gary
I thought I’d take the liberty of copying my response to Gary Elsby on another blog. Gary claims to have ‘fought’ against the Nazi BNP (on Tuscan Tony):
“Gary
(who stood alone in fighting the Nazi BNP, recently)”
I can’t let you get away with that, Gary.
Britain is a moderate and tolerant country only because of the efforts of those who fought with real blood, real sweat and real tears in real wars for values that Nu Lab have spent the last ten years trashing.
I’m sick to the back teeth of Nu Lab’s lies that we are all racialists in order to stifle proper debate about immigration.
Can’t you see that the strides the BNP are making are a rejection of Nu Labour ? A backlash of ordinary people like me who’ve had enough of YOU ?
Until you lot came to power Britain was a well integrated, multi-racial country - now it’s a mess and in years to come when there is fighting in the streets between various enclaves with no shared language, no shared values, no shared national identity I will lay the blame entirely at your door.
Gary. You’ve done enough damage to this country. The best thing you can do for it - and for race relations - is to resign from politics.
‘Fighting the BNP’
Oh really.
You are its best recruiting sergeant.
But…but…Electro Kevin….it was the Tories that signed my Sovereignty away and opened the immigration floodgates wit the SEA and Maastricht.
Your argument is with Margaret, John and the 20th Century Conservative Party.
I’m just a bystander, picking up the pieces.
Are you lecturing me? I blame the Tories for 1066 and mass immigration.
It can be debated forever whether the Dambusters raid was necessary. Yes there was great loss of life on both sides and it did not disrupt the German war machine too much. What it did do was to force the Germans to bring in hundreds more anti aircraft guns and thousands of men from other theatres of the war to defend the dams from further attacks. It also worth remembering that the bombs were delivered by very young crews and actualy dropped at the targets unlike the V1 and V2 rockets which were indisciminatley launched hundreds of miles away and landed anywhere in the south of England(mostly)killing hundreds of civilians. To win a war you have to use everything at your disopal to achieve that aim, the Germans tried. What would we be discussing if the raids had been successful? An audacious attack by very brave young men.
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