Bombs away: The world's only flying Lancaster makes a low pass over the Derwent Dam
Posted on 05/16/2008 2:03:23 PM PDT by Stoat
It is one of the most stirring images of the Second World War - a Lancaster bomber coming in terrifyingly low over a huge dam.
Today, the last surviving pilot of the epic Dambusters operation was present to witness a spectacular re-enactment as one of the bombers flew again above the Derwent Valley dam in Derbyshire to mark the 65th anniversary of the raid.
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Bombs away: The world's only flying Lancaster makes a low pass over the Derwent Dam
With the roar of its four Merlin engines echoing, Squadron Leader Les Munro, 89, said: “I'm not one to get emotional about things but it's very nice to be back here. It does surprise me that subsequent generations take part in things like this, but it's up to the individual how they react.”
The dam was used for dummy runs by RAF crews preparing to attack three similar targets in Germany's Ruhr valley.
Led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, 19 Lancasters of 617 Squadron - carrying Barnes Wallis's extraordinary “bouncing bomb” - set out on the 1943 raid.
Two dams were destroyed, but eight aircraft and 53 men were lost.
Today's flypast was led by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight's Lancaster and a wreath was laid by Richard Todd, 88, who played Gibson in the 1954 film about the raid.
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Historic: The Lancaster bombers soars over spectators during its flypast yesterday
Also taking part in the fly-past were a Spitfire, a Hurricane, two Tornado fighters from the present 617 Squadron, and a Dakota transport plane.
All the planes flew from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire to take part in the anniversary fly-past, which was preceded by a special memorial service on top of the Derwent dam at 10am.
Squadron Leader Munro was accompanied by Michael Gibson, the nephew of Wing Commander Guy Gibson.
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Crowds throng the riverbank as the Lancaster completes its anniversary flyby
Fighter support: A Supermarine Spitfire, top, and a Hawker Hurricane in formation
Todd said: "It's the most wonderful sight, watching the old Lancaster flying over the dam. It's a wonderful sight and sound.
"It's very exciting, moving and memorable, I just wish the weather had been a little bit kinder. It's very cold but luckily it's good enough for the fly-past to take place."
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Commemoration: Douglas DC-3 transport aircraft takes part in today's anniversary
He said: "We're very humbled in thinking that all these people lost their lives so that we could be here today.
"My grandfather was always very upset about what happened, how many of the pilots and air crew died.
"It pained him for the rest of his life, that he felt in some way responsible.
"I'm trying to suppress my emotions in some way otherwise I would end up bursting into tears.
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Wing Commander Guy Gibson of 617 squadron, boarding Lancaster G
Royal approval: Air Vice-Marshall Ralh Cochrane, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, King George VI and Group Captain John Whitworth discuss Operation Chastise
"For me, it's the humbling side of it and the fact that I feel some small part of it all. It takes great people to keep everything going. Humanity as a whole is so fragile.
"When the Lancaster went over, it was very exhilarating, the sound, the history."
After the wreaths were laid at exactly 10.30am, the Lancaster bomber came into view at the top of the Derwent Valley and flew low at 100ft in between the two towers of the dam. It then banked away before circling to return over the dam again.
On its third fly-past it was accompanied by two Tornado planes from today's 617 Squadron.
After its final fly-past, a Spitfire and a Hurricane flew over the dam and finally a Dakota transport plane flew past as hundreds of air enthusiasts and servicemen and women watched.
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Aftermath: The wrecked Mohne Dam with the massive breach caused by the Dambusters 617 Squadron
Deadly: A prototype of the so-called 'bouncing bomb' developed by Barnes Wallace
BBC NEWS UK WWII Dambusters raid revisited
WWII Dambusters raid revisited |
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 Members of the 617 squadron were honoured after the raid
On the 65th anniversary of the Dambusters raid, a re-enactment watched by the last living pilot from the operation took place. It marked perhaps the most famous operation ever carried out by the RAF. BBC North of England Correspondent Danny Savage was there. The event was marked by a flypast by a Lancaster bomber over the Derwent Dam in Derbyshire - used as a practice target for training the crews. It was an operation which the cynics thought would probably never succeed.
Not only were aircrews asked to fly ridiculously low but the bombs they were using had performed with mixed results during practice. Tricky execution The idea was simple: fly a plane low over a German reservoir and drop a single bomb which would bounce on the water and sink against the dam wall.
The resulting explosion would shatter the dam and disable a key supply of water and electricity. But executing it was far from simple. Exactly 65 years ago, 19 Lancaster bombers from 617 squadron took off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire on the mission. Many of the young men were aged just in their early twenties and had spent the hours beforehand sitting on the grass in the sunshine at Scampton playing cards or kicking a football around. Surprisingly little has changed at the airfield. The runways have been concreted, but the hangars the Lancasters were kept in are now Grade II listed buildings. The wild flowers still grow. Fifty three of the 133 men who set out on the raid didn't come back. The operation made Sqn Ldr Guy Gibson a household name and outside one of the hangars is the grave of his equally famous black Labrador - Nigger - who was run over on the day of the mission and buried at midnight just as his master was over his target.
For weeks beforehand the crews had flown countless flights over lakes, reservoirs and dams in England and Wales. With just days to go before the mission they were told they would have to approach the target at just 60ft (18m) above the water. Altitude meters of the time were just not accurate enough, so two spotlights were fitted to each aircraft. When they matched up side by side, the plane was at the right height. Their targets were dams close to the river Ruhr in Germany. Not only did they hold back millions of gallons of water vital for the German war machine, they also produced power. If the dams could be broken then vast areas would be flooded, and it would also put a dent in the enemy's war machine. Several targets were selected but because the RAF suffered heavy losses, only two of the dams were destroyed. But it was still regarded as a huge success and the crews, from across the Commonwealth, were hailed as heroes. A real wartime propaganda coup.
In the 1950s the mission was immortalised in film. The Dambusters starred Richard Todd, was filmed on location at RAF Scampton and re-enacted the training missions over the Derwent reservoir. The memorial to a daring raid finishes with Todd, playing Wing Cdr Guy Gibson, walking across the airfield at Scampton to write letters to the families of the men who didn't return. Thousands of people were at the Derwent reservoir to see the flying tribute to a mission that has captured the imagination of millions of people over the years, including the last surviving Dambusters pilot, Les Munro.
Sqdn Ldr Al Pinner, the commanding officer of the commemorative Battle of Britain Memorial Flight said: "In peacetime nowadays, operational fighter aircraft are occasionally cleared to fly as low as 100ft and they are very small, manoeuvrable aircraft. "Take a big plane like a Lancaster and try to fly that down to 60ft at night - you have one of the most incredible pieces of flying skills you will ever see.” Several dams were targeted and two of them were breached. Civilians killed It shouldn't be forgotten that hundreds of civilians died that night as floodwaters washed down the valleys below the dams, sweeping aside farms and villages. That sentiment is reflected by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight marking the occasion over the Derwent Dam. The flight's motto is "Lest We Forget". The Lancaster bomber made a series of passes over the dam followed by Tornado aircraft from today's 617 squadron. The names of those who died in the raid are on a special memorial at in the centre of Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire. The memorial is shaped like a broken dam and often draws crowds of visitors. |
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Thank you very, very much.
Incredible
You're quite welcome :-)
I'm delighted that you've found it to be worthwhile.
Great pictures.
Beautiful photos. The Spitfire is probably the most beautiful fighter of WW II.
Thanks for posting this. I love this kind of stuff and probably would have missed it. Thanks again!
Sorry for the misdirection.
It really does humble those of us who had parents or grandparents that fought in that war.
God Bless them all for their courage and resolve to end Nazism and Imperialism.
Thanks!
And a couple of thousand slave factory laborers, mostly women, iirc.
Obviously, none of these WWII heroes were like today’s gutless, spineless, gonadless American Liberals!! My father served in China/Burma/India and in the Korean War. He’s turning in his grave at what DC politicians are doing to destroy this country along with the three POTUS candidates. God help us all!
Fascinating, thanks for posting.
F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S
Will have to find CD with the Lancaster pics on it. Back later
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
The actual flyover referenced in the posted article:
YouTube - Bomber marks Dambusters date
This one from the movie "The Dam busters"
YouTube - The Dambusters - The First Dam
YouTube search results from keyword 'dambusters'....several are pertinent, a few are not :-)
Thanks for the heads-up, Red .............. FRegards
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Thanks for the great post, Stoat. The Dambusters raid and the sacrifice of those who participated should be remembered by all who fought the Axis powers.
Cool pics! Wish more of those aircraft were still flying.
Cool...thanks for posting
Can some of you WW2 buffs can tell me the how the Lancaster compared to other WW2 bombers? Both allies and axis.
“Two dams were destroyed, but eight aircraft and 53 men were lost.”
What a massive failure. Better bring the troops home now. Oops, wrong war.
Thanks indcons for the ping, and thanks Stoat for the topic.
‘Two dams were destroyed, but eight aircraft and 53 men were lost.’
“What a massive failure. Better bring the troops home now.”
Dingy Harry - is that you? /just kidding
You’re welcome, Sunken Civ
If the movie was factual, there were some ingenious methods used to allow this. Flying that bird that low at an exact speed and an exact height and releasing the bomb (which was spinning backward in the bomb bay) at the exact instant were needed for the plan to work.
Altimeters were useless at that height and they were stumped - until (in the movie anyway) Gibson was at a stage show and noticed how they used the spotlights to illuminate the actress. So, they mounted an angled spotlight on each wing, calibrated to meet at exactly 65 feet. The movie shows one of the crew talking the pilot down until there was only one light on the water.
The dam had two widely seperated towers, so they came up with the "Two Penny" bombsight. It was a "Y"-shaped stick with a handle. At each end of the "Y" they inserted a nail; the distance being calibrated so that at the exact distance the towers would line up with the nails. The bombardier held it up to his eye during the approach and when the towers lined up, he dropped the bomb.
The speed was the only thing that was determined by "regular" instruments.
The bomb had to be rotated backward so it wouldn't bounce erratically and was something like a depth charge in that it was hydrostatically set off, so it would cause the most damage at the base of the dam.
I think they lost a few planes on the way to the dam and at least one more in the attack. When one of the planes made a successful drop despite the horrific AA fire, he came in again with the next bomber to help draw away the enemy fire.
Gutsy guys. Glad to see Todd still alive and kicking - he always gave a good performance. Sad though, to see the UK in her current Politically Correct state after seeing the caliber of people she could field in a war.
Gibson was killed in 1944 when his Mosquito crashed in Holland. He didn't have to fly again but he was desperate to get back in the air and Bomber Harris finally relented. None of Gibson's bomber crew survived the war - they crashed while trying to bomb the Dortmund Ems Canal in late 1943. Of 19 planes on the original mission, 11 came back. Seventy-seven crewmembers were lost and only one of them survived, which is why the dams, which were quickly repaired, were never bombed again.
Watch the movie for a stirring experience.
Strafe the crowd? Somethin?
;)
;’)
Beautiful photos. The Spitfire is probably the most beautiful fighter of WW II.
The Spitfire and the Mustang were both beautiful aircraft.
It's hard to believe it's been almost five years since we ran this thread! Not all the pics are still there but some really good ones are.
Mine too. He flew the Burma Hump.
Wasn’t it 617 Squadron that sank the TIRPITZ with the 12,000 lb ‘Tall Boy’ bombs?
FYI there was a yank or two on the raid, if I recall.
Durn time flies!
Thank you so much for the Post. My Dad fought in WWII, as did my Mom’s brother, they are all gone now, however I love the information about WWII. I grew up on it. And it brings tears to my eyes, remembering my Dad in his uniform, how handsome he was. My Dad was in the Army Air Corp. 25 years.
One of our engineers remembered that the British had bomb racks that could take the the weight. We borrowed some of these racks that were developed exclusively for the Dambusters. Had the British not built them, it could have delayed the A bomb drops as we would have needed to develop our own racks from scratch.
Thank You Stoat...well done.
I think I see a family resemblance on that face...;)
Lancaster
Speed: 287 mph
Range: 1,660 miles
Ceiling: 24,500 ft.
Bomb Load: 14,000 lb
B-17G
Speed: 287 mph
Range: 2,000 miles
Ceiling: 35,800
Bomb Load: 17,600 lb
The German Ural Bomber was canceled, and the Amerika Bomber didn’t make it past prototype.
HE-177
Speed: 350 mph
Range: 960 miles
Ceiling: 30,800
Standard Load: 15,800 lbs
Note: comparisons not exact.
The advantage of the B-17 over the Lancaster was altitude and range, both of which made daylight bombing possible.
No doubt, the B-29, arriving late in the war, compared to these you listed had improved stats.
I’ll try to compare apples to apples this time from Boeing:
The biggest difference was in range and bombload; the 17-G actually had a higher ceiling.
B-29
Cruising speed - 220 mph
Top speed - 365 mph
Ceiling - 31,850 feet
Bomb load - 20,000-pounds
Range - 5,830 miles
B-17
Cruising speed - 150 mph
Top speed - 287 mph
Ceiling - 35,600 feet
Bomb load - 9,600-pounds
Range - 3,750 miles
ping
One, Joe McCarthy (no, not that one lol).
Just curious...
How well known in America is:
a—the actual raid itself?
b—the classic 1955 film with Richard Todd?
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Take a big plane like a Lancaster and try to fly that down to 60ft at night - you have one of the most incredible pieces of flying skills you will ever see. 
