16 May, 1943, 617 Squadron, the Dambusters, conducted a daring raid on the Ruhr dams, striking a devastating blow to the Nazi war effort. I’ve always liked 617 Squadron, ever since I read The Dambusters as a child. Here is a Lancaster bomber from the Battle of Britain Flight overflying the dam in England that they trained on.
I’m no pilot, but the raid required a neat bit of flying. First off, to get to the dams when the dams were full, at night, with no Loran, and primitive navigational aids. Then, to fly at precisely 60 feet off the surface of the water, without deviating, until the peculiar bouncing bomb could be released. They did this with two lights shining on the water, touching at the proper height. Simple trigenometry, sure, but these aircraft were flying towards a dam, in Occupied Europe, at night, with 88, 37, and 20 mm guns pointing at them with lights showing.
“At one o’clock 617’s engines were bursting into life round the field. Fauquier was running up his engines, testing his magnetos, when there was a crash from the starboard inner and the propeller jerked to a grinding halt as it seized. Fauquier, muttering with frustration, knew the aircraft would never get off the ground on three engines. There was only one thing to do. . . borrow Calder’s aircraft. The fact that he might then be shot down instead of Calder never even occurred to him, and wuold not have worried him if it had. He scuttled out of his plane and went went haring across the field.
Chapt, XXI “Grand Slam” – DamBusters.
As a pilot who flew tankers, I can tell you, that was an incredible feat even had they had GPS and all the bells and whistles. The day and age and time made it almost beyond reach, yet they did it.
Nice that people still remember.
Comment by Lin — Sunday, 18, May, 2008 @ 18:44 |
William, thanks for the post and the reminder! And yes, that was some fantastic flying, knowing that everybody and their brother was going to try to shoot you down… They were a special breed of aviators!
Comment by Old NFO — Sunday, 18, May, 2008 @ 21:46 |
Yes, those guys all qualified for Raw Bits, certainly. Funny to think that a Lancaster with eight people on it carried as much ordinance as an F-4 with two. Though the F-4 couldn’t have done the spinning bomb bit.
Comment by william the coroner — Sunday, 18, May, 2008 @ 21:53 |
A different time, a different breed of people.
Hard to imagine a feat like that today from the same nation.
I recall the movie. Fascinating story.
Thank you for the reminder.
Comment by Carteach0 — Monday, 19, May, 2008 @ 16:00 |
Yes, the English Lion has become a toothless, clawless, incontinent puddy-tat. They’ve got the raw material, but they don’t know what to do with it.
Comment by William the Coroner — Monday, 19, May, 2008 @ 16:20 |
I’m a Nam vet yet, whenever I had met someone who was in combat during WWII I am absolutely awed and feel just a bit insignificant.
I know a coupe other guys who feel as I do.
It seems that what others have accomplished, such as at Iwo and/or Okinawa is absolutely overwhelming even though we got shot at in Nam.
I met a man who earned the Medal of Honor while I was at a VA hospital.
I asked to shake his hand and, I could barely speak and finally told him that I was honored that he’d shake my hand.
He seemed to know that I was struggling and told me that he was just another guy like me.
What’s sort of funny about all this is that I was an HM in nam.
Comment by TOOLGUY — Monday, 26, May, 2008 @ 07:40 |