Last Dambuster flies again
BRITAIN’S last surviving Dambuster yesterday turned back the clock 75 years and climbed aboard a Lancaster bomber once again.
Squadron Leader George “Johnny” Johnson returned to the bomb aimer’s position where he served in the low-level raid of May 16-17, 1943, which flooded huge areas of Germany’s industrial heartland.
He flew over the dams of the Derwent Valley where he and 617 Squadron practised their raids on the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe dams above the Ruhr.
Johnny, 96, from Bristol said: “It has been a wonderful trip and it’s surprising how 75 years just disappear. Over the Derwent Dam, the time was gone – just like that; I was back there… thinking about the times that we went there.
“I have to say the first time I noticed the hilly area we were going to, I wondered what the hell we were doing down at 60ft, but there it was, that was the job. And it all came back just like that, it was wonderful.”
The RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s (BBMF) bomber leader Tim Dunlop said: “It was an absolute privilege and honour to fly the Lancaster with Johnny Johnson on board.”
Thrilled
Johnny took off at 7.32am from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire in the BBMF’s Lancaster PA474 the day after a planned 75th anniversary flypast of the Derwent dams had to be scrapped due to strong winds.
BBMF’s Squadron Leader Andrew Millikin said: “We are thrilled that we are able to finally mark this amazing anniversary in such a poignant way.
“It was always our intent to pay tribute to Johnny as the last British Dambuster by carrying out this sortie on May 16 1943 and we were bitterly disappointed that the weather stopped us on Wednesday.
“We seized the opportunity to complete this mission today.”
Johnny said: “My reason for joining was to help get rid of Hitler and everything he stood for.
“My ambition was to do whatever I could to give him a bloody nose.”
On the legendary raid – code named Operation Chastise – his Lancaster AJ-T “Tommy” damaged the Sorpe dam using inventor Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb after 10 nerveracking runs at the target.
Johnny said: “I hadn’t done all that training to get it wrong and waste a bomb. I called ‘Dummy Run!’ each time. By the sixth dummy run I heard the Canadian rear-gunner Dave Rodger shout: ‘Will somebody get that bomb out of here!’ He was feeling the full effects of the G-forces as we swooped lower and lower.
“On the 10th run we were just 30ft above the Sorpe at a speed of 220mph when I made the drop. ‘Bomb’s gone!’ ‘Thank Christ,’ came the voice from the rear turret, which was then almost swamped by the huge gush of water triggered by the explosion.”
The commander of the raid Guy Gibson won the Victoria Cross and another 33 gallantry awarded to the crews.
But eight of the 19 Lancasters were lost, with 53 men killed and three others taken prisoner.
Meanwhile, the gallantry medals of a Dambuster hero are being put up for sale for £150,000.
George “Jock” Chalmers was a 22-year-old wireless operator from Aberdeenshire on the last Lancaster bomber to make it back to Britain following the raid.
He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Medal upon his return.
Also on sale is his logbook which laconically says of the Dambusters raid: “Low-level attack on dams in Ruhr – successful.”
He went on to clock up 60 sorties during the war.
In peacetime he worked as a civil servant, had nine children with his wife Alma, and died in 2002, aged 81.
Steve Nuwar, of medal dealers War & Son of Leominster, said: “I can’t think of anything we will ever own that will be more important than these medals.” medals were