Ill-wind cannot blow away memory of heroes
Weather undermines flyover to mark 75th anniversary of bouncing bombs unleashed by Dam Busters
IT WAS an ill wind which would, had it been recorded 75 years earlier, have scuppered the mission that came to define the British wartime spirit.
The anniversary of the raid officially known as Operation Chastise, to knock out a series of dams in Germany’s industrial heartland, was to have been marked yesterday morning by the flypast of one of the last surviving Lancaster bombers, over the reservoir west of Sheffield where the RAF pilots had practiced.
Crowds had flocked to the Peak District in the hope of catching sight of the aircraft, one of only two in the world still airworthy.
But unlike the monumental gamble that had been taken in 1943, when the untried bouncing bombs created by the weapons designer Barnes Wallis were unleashed over the Ruhr valley, the risk this time was judged to be too great.
A flyover went ahead, but it was a present-day 29 Sqn Typhoon from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire that took the salute.
The wind speed, said the RAF, was outside the limitations within which the Lancaster was allowed to fly if she were to remain airworthy and “continue to commemorate those who gave so much for this country”.
The plane had been scheduled to fly over RAF Scampton, the original home of the Dam Busters squadron, as well as the Derwent Dam, the Rolls Royce Factory in Derby and Eyebrook Reservoir in Leicestershire.
It was the Derwent Dam, just off the A57 between Glossop and Sheffield and of similar construction to those in Germany, that Sir Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command, had sent his men for their practice runs.
“Bomber” Harris, as he was known, believed the Nazis could be broken by the weight of explosives, and Barnes Wallis had designed devices that could bounce over the torpedo nets that protected the targets.
A total of 133 Allied air crew, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, left for the raid aboard 19 Lancaster bombers from RAF Scampton on the night of May 16. Some 53 men were killed and three were captured.
The raid was immortalised on celluloid, with Richard Todd as Gibson and Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis, and the film’s theme, Eric Coates’s stirring
Dam Busters March has become synonymous not only with the operation but with the war itself.
The last British survivor of the original Squadron is George “Johnny” Johnson, now 96, and yesterday he revisited the Lancaster at Coningsby. The anniversary, he said, acted as a reminder for younger generations.
His crew was one of five selected to target the Sorpe dam, and had to fly along its length at as low an altitude as possible and drop the bomb in the centre.
The target was not destroyed but the Germans had to empty the dam to repair it, causing disruption to the war effort.
Mr Johnson said of the raid: “It was an exhilarating feeling, flying low level into the Ruhr Valley in bright moonlight.
“Once we had recovered from the early disappointment of the target – the Sorpe didn’t require us to spin the bomb or use any of our practised techniques – the most significant memory was the sight of the burst Mohne dam as we flew home.”
Asked what advice he would offer to the current aircrew in his former squadron, he said: “Do your utmost to maintain the performance and prestige of the squadron.”
The effect of the raid was to draw the Nazi defensive effort back into the homeland, a policy which culminated in the Berlin raids the following winter and helped prepare for the invasion of Europe that began 13 months after Operation Chastise.
Some 7,377 Lancasters were built for the RAF and the Australian and Canadian air forces, from 1941. Nearly 700 came out of the AV Roe factory at Yeadon, Leeds. The plane’s long, unobstructed bomb bay meant that it could take the largest bombs carried by the RAF, and it flew around 156,000 sorties.
The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight said after yesterday’s cancellation: “We are so sorry to disappoint those who wished to see our Lancaster fly as once those original 617 Sqn aircraft did.”