In 1943 The British Royal Air Force commences Operation Chastise carried out by 617 Squadron or more commonly known as the “Dambusters”.

The British wanted to attack the NAZI’s industry which was at the heart of their military might. Whenever they bombed factories however it didn’t take long for the Germans to rebuild them in secret locations. The British realised that the best way to hurt their industry was not to attack the factories themselves but to attack their power sources that supplied them. They knew that the Germans had three main power sources which were coal, oil and hydroelectric dams. The British decided that the dams were the perfect target as they would take many years to repair and this would maximise damage to their industry. They had even decided on the perfect six targets situated in Ruhr Valley in the Germany’s industrial centre and if just two of these dams (the Mohne and Sorpe) were destroyed it would halt production of tanks and aircraft etc for the German army. The problem was that from above the target of the dam was a relatively thin wall making it an impossible target from bombing raids. Also if you bombed the dams from above and somehow managed to hit the target you would only do minimal damage, taking out only a small part of the top section. The far more destructive way would be to hit the dam near the bottom, where the water pressure is significant enough to destroy the entire dam wall. But the Germans hadn’t overlooked the importance of the dams defence and they had installed torpedo nets leading up to the dam preventing any attack by sea.

The answer came from Dr Barnes Wallis, an aeronautical engineer who worked on the problem for many years, even devising new aircraft to take large enough bombs to destroy the dams from above. But it was his creation of the bouncing bomb (code named “Upkeep”) that proved to be one of the most ingenious inventions of World War II. It had long been reported that bombs dropped or launched would sometimes bounce across the surface of the water before hitting their target but this generally seemed to be a fluke. After months of experimentation Wallis devised a bomb that if dropped at the right angle would do just that. The “upkeep” was a bomb shaped much like a barrel but it was not only its shape that was important. The bomb had to be dropped at a 7 degree angle which meant the aircraft would have to fly at a low height to achieve this. But the most important factor was that the bombs had to be dropped with back spin. Back spin gave the bomb aerodynamic lift and increased the amount of bounces the bomb achieved and therefore increased the distance. But the back spin gave an added bonus to the procedure, when the bomb hit the wall of the dam the back spin would cause the bomb to bounce off and then the momentum would make the bomb return close to the dam wall. The bombs trigger was similar to that of a depth charge so as it sank to a certain level the bomb would explode where the water pressure is significant enough to destroy the entire dam wall.

Early trials of the bouncing bomb proved unsuccessful and the British Bomber command almost scrapped the idea forever but a few high ranking RAF officers saw the potential and Wallis was given the go ahead.

A team of top RAF bomber pilots were assembled and training was kept top secret and were initially called Squadron X (later to be squadron 617). Squadron 617 was for formed for this one mission and they would later to be known as the “Dambusters”. They would have to fly at 220mph and a height of 60 feet above the waters surface to get the correct motion and angle to drop the bomb. Bomber command chose only elite bombers that had survived at least 60 missions to ensure they had the required experience. Continued -->