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Military Pron - (1 of 2) The Damm Busters

Oct 13, 2021, 1:15 PM

Military Pron (1 of 2) - 617 Squadron The Dambusters

By Request!
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When WW2 started strategic bombing was brand new. People had theorized about it during the thirties, but no one knew if it would actually work. Could you defeat a nation simply by demolishing their infrastructure from above?

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The Americans took the tough road. Fight your way through the enemy defences on pinpoint, daylight bombing raids to destroy only the factory, bridge, or railroad you wanted to. The British chose the simpler path. Just destroy the whole city at night, when enemy fighters couldn’t see you, and the factory would be lost in the destruction along the way. Neither scheme worked all that well early on.

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And some targets proved much more difficult to attack, like ones that moved. Other targets were custom built to thwart aerial attack, and some required a massive concentration of explosive power rather than just a sprinkling of little handfuls of bombs from above.

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The German battleship Tirpitz. A moving target.

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A hardened V-2 Bunker. 16 foot thick reinforced concrete.

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The hardened Dora-1 U-Boat Pens. 12 foot thick roof, 10 foot thick walls.

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But the British were on it. Just like normal troops are supplemented by Special Forces, the British developed sort of a Special Forces air unit. The guys who were tasked with doing the impossible. They were known a s Squadron 617, and later “The Dambusters”, after their most famous and propagandized raid.

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The Brits made a pretty good movie about the raid in 1955 called “The Dambusters.” Catch it if you can. I saw it years ago on a Netflix DVD rental, and it’s kind of hard to find now. And if you’ve ever wondered what Pink was watching in The Wall, as he looked at his “13 channels of shid on the TV to choose from...choose from...choose from… It was “The Dambusters” he ended up watching.

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Pink NO! It’s a really good movie!

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Look at this tub! Wanna take a bath? (Included only for Pink Floyd fans. That’s Pink Anderson and Floyd Council, btw. Anderson was born in Laurens and died in Spartanburg. SC connection! Boom.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW7DmBxpgbY&list=PLyGHs2yXwu1SWIXC6TLHT4a-2rdr9Un0f&index=10
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But Squadron 617’s real problem was that although they were tasked with special missions, they had no special equipment. But that would change over time. Even though the Battle of Britain was over, that didn’t stop the bombing on either side. It just changed the nature of it. The Germans still launched pixxant raids to annoy the British, and the British still went after Germany in slowly, but ever increasing strength.

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Nighttime over Germany, from Bomber Command’s perspective

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Operation Chastise was the brainchild of real forward thinker named Barnes Wallis, not to be confused with Marcellus Wallace.

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Marcellus Wallace. Does he look like a bioch? DOES HE?

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How about this guy, MOTHERF**KER? Barnes Wallis. Does HE look like a bioch?

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Ok, I’ll give you slightly effeminate. But he was British, right? Wallis made aircraft for the Vickers company, the same guys who made this famous little tank everyone bought in the 30’s. Here, in Finnish colors. Who knew the Finns even had tanks?

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And he realized, like the Americans, that instead of destroying whole cities, you could make things miserable for people if you took away their water, or lights, or power.

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Or even better, their armaments and munition factories.

The Detroit of Germany was the Ruhr Valley. And the Ruhr Valley was powered by damms. And no damms meant no power. And no power meant no weapons manufacturing.

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Later in the war we encircled the Ruhr Valley. But at the time, the only things that could get to it were British bombers.

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But the question was, how do you destroy a whole damm? Wallis did his calculations and decided it would take a monster axx bomb to do it, a so-called “earthquake bomb.” But it could be done. You just needed a plane big enough to carry that bomb. So he designed that too.

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Wallis’s six-engined monster plane

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It was called the Victory Bomber and it was a big plane. WAY bigger than a B-17 or B-29 but not quite as big as a post war B-36. The British Admiralty said “Son, we love it, but we don’t even have 4-engined bombers yet. Try being just “slightly ahead of our time”, rather than “too far ahead of our time.”

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Bigger than the B-29, but smaller than the B-36

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So Wallis went back to the drawing board and came up with a remarkably revolutionary solution. He realized that rather than rely purely on explosive power, he could make a much smaller bomb IF he utilized the compressive force of the water behind the damm to magnify his explosion.

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And if you’ve ever been hit by a wave, you know it can hit like a m.o.f.o.

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Instead of having most of the blast go to waste exploding in the air in front of the damm, an explosion on the water side would have all of its force pushed against the damm. Of course, that meant other problems. Like, how do you drop a bomb at the underwater base of a damm? So, back to the drawing board he went.

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Well, it turns out you can’t just drop a bomb at the underwater base of a damm. And, to make things even more difficult, those nasty Germans had put iron mesh skirts in front of the damms to stop any torpedo attacks. Smart little Natzis.

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So, what you had to do was drop your bomb in the water, skip it like a stone across the water till it hit the damm, then have it fall straight down to the bottom and explode. Easy.

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It’s getting a bit complex now. If the dammbusting raid was a bank heist, it would be like this.

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The 3 minute version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIVEUEnIZjM
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That left just one challenge. How do you get the stone to stop skipping across the water and not just skip right over the top of the damm? Oh, well, that part’s easy. You just spin it backwards while it’s skipping.

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So Wallis redesigned his bomb into the shape of a large barrel. About 9,000 lbs of barrel. Then he devised a cradle with a motor on it, that hung beneath the plane, to rotate the bomb backwards before it was dropped. It was known as the “bouncing bomb” and code named “Upkeep.” He also designed a spherical bouncing bomb code named “Highball.”

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Upkeep

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Highball

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So all you had to do was drop down to bombing height for your run, start your bomb spinning backwards, dodge any anti-aircraft fire coming at you, release your bomb at the precise height and precise distance from the damm, have your bomb skip over the torpedo nets but not over the damm, hit the damm without exploding, sink to a precise depth, and then explode. And if you were lucky, it might crack the damm enough to break it open. They even made another movie about it.

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No, seriously. That scene was based on the dambusters run. The special effects photography for Star Wars was done by Gilbert Taylor, who was the cinematographer for The Dambusters. You can read more about it here...https://www.starwars.com/news/the-cinema-behind-star-wars-the-dam-busters

The Cinema Behind Star Wars: The ### Busters

Bryan Young's Cinema Behind Star Wars column takes a look at the 1955 British war film "The ### Busters."

But sadly, it wasn’t as simple as all that. So the Brits first made a scaled down model of the damms in NW London to test their ideas. It turned out that getting at, and staying at, the proper level to drop the bombs was really, really hard. Not to mention the difficulty of keeping the plane flying straight and not skewed.

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A toy damm for testing, outside of London

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So Wallis went back to work again. He realized that if you put a searchlight at both the front and back of the plane, you could set the distance above the water you needed to be at by adjusting where the light beams crossed. Just drop your plane to where the lights intersect, and you’re golden!

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For horizontal alignment, the bombardier held a triangle-shaped widget up to his eye, and when he spotted both ends of the damm aligned with the two triangle endpoints, he dropped the spinning bomb.

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Hold it steady, mate

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If it all worked, it looked like this.

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So, 617 squadrom went to practicing, just like our Doolittle Raiders had to practice how to launch a bomber off a carrier around Bomb Island in Lake Murray. Boom! SC Connection!

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They even had an unused damm in Wales they could blow up for practice. And, just in the nick of time, Britain’s brand new 4 engined-bomber showed up.

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The fabulous Avro Lancaster. Named for the town. Not in SC.

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This was the bomber you wanted. A REAL bomber. With a bomb capacity of 14,000 lbs, it could carry anything in the allied arsenal, and in the coming years it was gonna but the hurt on the Germans at night, along with the B-17 in the day. But for now the important thing was that it was the only plane that could carry Wallis’s bomb.

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Note the motor and drive belt on the side

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The three damms the British targeted were the Mohne, the Edersee, and the Sorpe. Accordingly, the attack group was divided into three formations. Each plane was given a simple phonetic alphabet code name, like “A for Apple.”

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The Mohne Damm

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The Edersee Damm

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The Sorpe Damm

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Group 1 with 9 aircraft headed for the Mohne and Edersee damms. Group 2 with 5 aircraft headed for the Sorpe damm. And Group 3 with 5 aircraft was a reserve to hit any of the three main, or three secondary damms. At 9:30 on the evening of May 16. 1943, they headed out across the English Channel towards Germany.

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Taking a circuitous route around known flak (Flieger Abwehr Kanone – Anti-Aircraft Gun) locations, the formations snaked their way over water and through Holland, skirting cities and flying at the incredibly low height of +/- 100 feet.

That’s about the height of Memorial Stadium. To avoid German radar they flew right at treetop height. When they found a fire cut, they went below treetop level and flew in the cleared area.

But even so the losses started early. One plane was shot down by flak, another was so damaged it had to return to England. A third and fourth stuck high-tension power lines and crashed. A fifth flew too close to the sea and lost its bomb to a wave. Sort of a reverse “Flight of Icarus” scenario. Fully ¼ of the force was out before they even reached the target.

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It just can’t be a good idea to give Bruce a flamethower. Just can’t be…
Flight of Icarus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9oGkvpkefg
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Oh shid. They know we’re here…

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Plane “G for George”, piloted by mission leader Guy Gibson, was the first to reach its target. Lining up for its run on the Mohne Damm, Gibson dropped his bomb but it exploded prematurely in the water. He circled around to assist the others. “M for Mother” came in next, but was hit by flak and dropped its bomb early, which blew the plane up.

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Gibson swooped in again to draw the flak away from the next plane, “P for Popsie.” Although it was hit, it dropped its bomb successfully. But the damm held.

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Gibson’s attack, from the movie. Come on Luke! I mean, Guy…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1DCxpMz8aU&list=PLaIlWfjz6v25l9O26033nKo1hwcdpt9nq
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Next “A for Apple” and “J for Johnny” made their runs. Both bombs struck home, and finally, after three hits, the levee broke. Led Zeppelin even wrote a song about it.

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Zepp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwiTs60VoTM
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Not really, but it gave me an excuse to post the song.

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The new Mohne Damm, complete with a window

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With the damm breached, Gibson led the remaining 4 aircraft of Formation 1 on to the Edersee Damm.

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Um Guy, kinda close to the ground there, aren’t we?

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When they arrived they found no flak, which was good. But the reason there was no flak was that the terrain was so severe the Germans simply left the are undefended. And there was fog.

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Edersee Damm, in fog

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“L for Leather” moved in for a run, but the terrain made alignment too difficult. So it came around for another run. And another. And another. After 6 runs it pulled away for a break. “Z for Zebra” moved in next and its bomb skipped to the top of the damm, exploded, and blew the plane up.

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“L for Leather” came back around for a 7th run and stuck gold. A direct hit. But the damm held. Finally, the last plane in line, “N for Nut”, made a successful run and breached the second damm.

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Only two Lancasters reached the Sorpe Damm. It was a particularly tough challenge since it was an earthen, not concrete damm. That meant its cross section was shaped like a pyramid, with less chance of being breached the lower the bombs sank. Plus, it was in a deep valley, again with fog. Bad.

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An earthen damm. A tough, tough target

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Rather than attack the damm in a perpendicular run, “T for Tommy” dove into the valley nine times parallel to the damm, trying to get a proper attack angle. On the tenth run it dropped its bomb on the damm, without spin. Only the very top of the damm was impacted, with little damage.

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The Sorpe Damm holds

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“S for Sugar” was shot down on the way and never made it to the Sorpe. “F for Freddie” arrived but by them the fog was so dense the damm could not be attacked. After 7 attempts, “F for Freddie” dropped incendiary bombs in the area to burn off the fog, and on the 8th run cracked the damm further but it did not collapse.

Of the remaining planes, “Y for York” was damaged and had to return home, “C for Charlie” was shot down, and “O for Orange” dropped its bomb without effect on a secondary damm. On the return flight, two more planes were shot down.

Of the 19 planes, 11 made it to their targets, and 7 of those scored hits for the 3 breaches. 11 planes total returned to England, though not all of these made it to their targets in the first place, and some of the planes that did strike never returned.

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Time to head home, boys

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Guy, for the second time. Too damm low, man.

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Just like it was yesterday…

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The raid was a huge success, even if only a temporary one. Over 100 factories in the area were damaged. Steel and coal production dropped to 25% of the previous season’s output, and the region was without all power for weeks. Even Albert Speer, who was responsible for all production in the Reich from ‘42 on, commented on its impact.

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Albert Speer. Reich Architect and Production Minister.

Albert was quite a showman. Designed this stadium, as well as the wall of light for night rallies. Evil incarnate, but the Natzis knew how to throw a rally.

He should have gotten a death sentence at Nuremberg but lied that he was a “good natzi” and got away with it. Spent 20 years in the slammer. In 2007 evidence surfaced that he was up to much more than he let on to during the trials.
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Speer was astonished the British never followed up their attacks to hinder reconstruction, which would have been much, much easier to do than the original attack was. Simple high explosive bombs were all that was needed at that point. Barnes Wallis agreed, but the British never returned, perhaps thinking the Germans would be ready and waiting, and losses had been almost 50% even with surprise.

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A Lancaster that didn’t make it home

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The raid was a gargantuan propaganda win as well. Not only was it a huge morale boost for Britain, the Germans felt they had been thoroughly punked and abused, and it had an equally effective demoralizing effect on them. The Brits had shown they could go anywhere in Germany anytime they wanted, and successfully destroy their targets, even evading German radar and fighter defenses.

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The “other” few. The ones no one hears about. Squadron 617 of Bomber Command.

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In any event, the head of Bomber Command, “Bomber” Harris, thought the raids were a waste of resources and never prioritized follow up attacks. The mission was approved over his head, and that probably soured him a bit, too.

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But Squadron 617 had proved its value as a surgical strike force, and was retained and used many, many more times, which we’ll look at next time.

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Memba this scene from Thunderball? It’s an Avro Vulcan Bomber, also flown by Squadron 617 (among others) from the 60’s till the 80’s

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It was a mission James himself would have been proud of

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Military Pron - (1 of 2) The Damm Busters

Another fine installment!

I should have never made that comment about eyes

impressive***

well FMITEWASCANL... I pulled up this thread from a week ago

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