Last of the Dambusters
One minute he was there and the next minute, no trace of him
Johnny Johnson ON THE LOSS OF A COMRADE
It was exactly three quarters of a century ago that 133 airmen of the RAF’S 617 Squadron took off in 19 Lancaster bombers on a secret mission to attack the heart of industrial Germany.
The losses that night were catastrophic and only 77 men returned from the raid, but the legend of “The Dambusters” had been born.
George “Johnny” Johnson is one of only two surviving airmen and I have shared many glasses of his favoured red wine with him as he recounted his memories of the operation, and his thoughts as he looks back 75 years on.
During the dark days of the Second World War, when the public had been forced to swallow an unremitting diet of blood, sweat, tears, toil and gloom, the RAF’S Bomber Command had offered almost the only glimmers of hope; carrying the war into the very heart of Germany.
A crucial target was the string of dams in the hills flanking the Ruhr which generated the power for heavy industries, fuelling the Nazi war machine with aircraft parts, tanks, guns and munitions.
Many attacks had been attempted, but all had failed, so a specialist RAF Squadron – 617 – was formed to utilise the now famous “Bouncing Bomb” in an effort to deliver a killer blow.
At 9.28pm on Sunday, May 16, 1943, a few minutes before sunset, the roar of Rolls Royce Merlin engines shattered the peace of the morning and the first of those 19 Lancaster bombers rumbled off the runway at RAF Scampton into the Lincolnshire skies – and into the history books.
Johnny, a country boy, the son of a farm foreman from a small Lincolnshire village, was a bomb-aimer in one of the aircraft that night. He had been married only a few weeks to his sweetheart Gwyn, who he’d met on an RAF base two years previously. Death was never far away in Bomber Command – nearly half of the 125,000 men who served were killed.
Johnny, now 96, says: “I’d lost a good friend, my room-mate Bernie, in a previous squadron. His pilot overshot the runway on landing, went through a hedge and smashed the nose up.
“Bernie was still in the bomb-aimer’s position and was killed outright. By the time I got back, all his gear had been cleared away from our room.
“One minute he was there and the next minute, no trace of him. Just bad luck really, but you just had to go on and find another friend. That was how it was then. I just
I didn’t tell my wife that I’d been on the mission for months.. when I did she gave me a right earful. So many friends didn’t make it home... - GEORGE ‘JOHNNY’ JOHNSON, NOW 96
never thought it would happen to me.” By the time Johnny arrived at his target, the Sorpe Dam, a number of planes had already been shot down or had crashed killing many of his friends. The steep terrain, plus tall trees on one side and a church steeple on the other made it difficult to get low enough over the water for a successful bomb drop
He says: “We couldn’t make a head-on attack, so had to fly down one side of the hills, level out with the port outer engine over the dam itself, so that we were just on the water side of the dam, and estimate as best we could to the centre of the dam to drop the bomb.” Amid the terrible dangers and to the concern of his crew, Johnny ordered an astonishing nine runs at the target before, to the clear relief of the rest of the men, he was finally satisfied with his aim and he released their bomb. It was an accurate drop and the bomb detonated right at the centre of the dam, blasting a water spout so high it hit the rear gun turret of the Lancaster as it banked away, provoking a shocked cry of “God almighty!” from the rear gunner.
The last Lancaster to return eventually touched down at a quarter past six that morning – almost nine hours after the first had taken off.
The cost included eight aircraft, 53 men killed and three captured.
For Gwyn’s peace of mind, Johnny hadn’t told her about the raid before taking off.
“I didn’t really want to tell her I’d been on that particular op,” he says, “as I suspected she might be annoyed
“I’d never mentioned it previously. Sure enough, when she did find out, she gave me an earful for not telling her in the first place.” Gwyn sadly died in 2005, but Johnny still credits her, and luck, with his survival.
“She was my rock when I was on ops and I was lucky to be with the right crew in the right place at the right time.” Canadian air-gunner Fred Sutherland is the only other surviving Dambuster. When I spoke to him a few years ago, it took some persuasion to get him to recount his experiences – like so many of his generation, he felt he “hadn’t done anything special” that night.
He was invited to Britain to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Dams raid in 2013, but politely declined the invitation. “It’s not much of a party,” he says, “when there are so few of us left. My crew are all gone. Passed away. And most people don’t really understand what we did, anyway. “They could never understand.” As we spoke, it was increasingly clear to me that Fred had been deeply affected by his war service and in his advancing years, he was reflecting more on what he had been through.
“We all lost a lot of friends back then and recently I’ve found myself thinking about those who died. My friend Harvey was killed that night. He was really smart and could have done anything. It was such a loss of youth and promise. I often wonder what he’d have done, what he’d have become. All that hope just gone. “I guess I was lucky, that’s all.”
So, 75 years after Fred and Johnny risked their lives in the service of their country, I celebrate their luck, their heroism and the ultimate sacrifice many of their friends made that night.
John Nichol’s new book “Spitfire – A Very British Love Story” is published this week by Simon & Schuster. www.johnnichol.com