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WORLD WAR II THE DAM BUSTER STORY I learned about the Dam Busters around 1950 when I was ten years old. I remain impressed by the technical creativity! PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94ptLnwa5VI
Dambusters Raid TV-PG YouTube Movies & TV 190M subscribers ... 200 likes On May 17th. 1943 the Royal Air Force carried out one of the most remarkable raids ever undertaken by any aircrew. On that night a squadron of Lancaster heavy bombers flew at low level across a blacked out Europe. Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess Transcript 0:06 (suspenseful music) (airplane engine running) 0:20 - [Narrator] As the Lancaster bombers of 617 Squadron set course for their targets in Germany, none of the airmen could've known they were flying into history and legend. Their action that night filled the world's newspapers with dramatic pictures and stories of the enormous damage inflicted on Hitler's industrial heartland. Overnight, the air crew became celebrities. (victorious music) - [1950s News Reporter] Wing Commander Gibson, VC, who led the great Lancaster raid on the Ruhr dams escorted the king during a visit by Their Majesties to an air station in the north of England. The breaching of the dams was superbly executed and resulted in enormous damage and dislocation 1:02 to Germany's Ruhr industry. (victorious music) - [Narrator] The raid was immortalized in a war movie classic of the 1950s. For many, this was the true story of the Dam Busters. It recreates what had indeed been a highly courageous, low level mission. (mumbling) - Nice work, Skipper. (mumbling) - [Narrator] Yet over the last two decades, and again at the 50th anniversary of the raid, critics have suggested that the bouncing bomb was little more than a gimmick and the raid was in fact a strategic military failure. 2:08 - It's gone! Look! - [Man] My God! - It was a very gallant deed, and I think everybody admired it at that time. Strategically, I think the targets were the wrong targets. - There were feelings at the time that the Dam Busters raid might actually seriously damage the German war economy, but I think there's no doubt that this could never have really been a knockout blow. The idea that the raid could somehow cripple German industry for good was sheer fantasy. 3:14 - [Narrator] After the raid, the destruction and flooding was plain to see. But did it cause so little damage to German industry that some could exclaim it was a waste of the air crew's courage? Or, as the newspapers and the feature film suggested, did it really change the course of the war? What is the truth? The untold story of the Dam Busters' raid begins not during the war at all, but much earlier in the mid 1930s. (patriotic song) 4:01 - By the mid 1930s, it was clear that there was going to be a war within the relatively near future, and the planners in London started to think of how they would wage that war, and central to their thinking was the use of the bomber. The air staff, therefore, in 1937, drew up a series of plans called the Western Air Plans which aimed at attacking certain elements within Germany, and one of these elements was the Ruhr industry. And specifically, one committee then went on to identify 45 location, particularly coking plants and power plants which would actually, if they were destroyed, paralyze the Ruhr. Another committee looked at this and said, 'Well no, you don't need to go to those 45 targets.' 'What you actually need to go for are only two,' 'the Moehne and the Sorpe Dam.' - [Narrator] It was thought at the time that the Moehne and Sorpe reservoirs contained 75% of the water essential for the Ruhr industries. The planners predicted that if both these dams could be destroyed together, the flooding and loss of water supply would paralyze Hitler's war production. 5:05 But could it be done? The Sorpe was made up of two huge, sloping earth banks, one underwater, either side of a central concrete core. The Moehne was quite different, a vast stone wall, narrow, highly engineered, and immensely strong. Could the RAF possibly breach both these enormous dams in a single bombing raid? Nothing like it had ever been tried before. - The problem was, of course, what could they hit it with to break a large structure like that? They had only, effectively, 500 pound general purpose bombs, which are about as useless as bouncing peanuts off the structure. So therefore, their problem was they didn't have anything which was capable of breaking it. - [Narrator] The RAF were also limited by their aircraft. The crews struggled with primitive navigational and bomb-aiming equipment. Slow, medium size bombers like the Wellington could carry 6:04 four and a half thousand pounds weight of bombs, but scientists knew it would take a 30,000 pound bomb landing in the water within 100 feet of a dam to have a chance of destroying it. It seemed an impossible task, but in 1939, there was someone who thought he might have the answer, the gifted designer and engineer, Barnes Wallis. He believed that destroying Germany's sources of energy, such as mines and dams, was the key to defeating the Nazis. So Wallis proposed a massive, ten ton bomb, which, when dropped from 40,000 feet, would penetrate the earth beneath a dam or any large structure. The shockwaves of the explosion would shake the target to pieces. To carry his earthquake bomb, he also designed the huge, six engine Victory bomber, weighing over 50 tons. 7:00 But to Wallis's frustration, both the aircraft and the bomb were rejected by the Air Ministry in 1941. The idea of an attack on the Ruhr dams, however, was not forgotten. Since 1940, construction engineers had been experimenting with miniature scale models of dams like the Moehne. Then, early in 1942, almost by chance, they made an important discovery. If a bomb could be placed right up against a dam wall, then water pressure would amplify rather than buffer the explosion. With just six and a half thousand pounds of explosive, the dams would be breached, releasing the reservoirs of water beyond. This was exciting news. Just entering service, the new Lancaster bomber could easily carry a bomb that size. But could the RAF drop it from 15,000 feet to land within inches of the dam wall? Not according to the Butt Report, a government study into the effectiveness of bombing raids. 8:07 Flying at night, only 10% of bombers were dropping their loads within five miles of the target. In border regions, some bombs were even landing on the wrong country. - There is little doubt that by 1941, Bomber Command was really on a knife edge. A lot of people were arguing that bombers should really have been used with the Army or they could be used with the Navy, a general feeling that the promise of bombing from the beginning of the war was simply not being fulfilled. And there was accumulated evidence in things like the Butt Reports that bombing was simply inaccurate, that all the claims that they were actually hitting the targets, the factories that they were setting out to hit, were largely bogus. - My father was trying to discover whether balls would bounce off water, and why not start with marbles? - [Narrator] Barnes Wallis now needed 9:04 to test his idea on a larger scale, and managed to obtain the use of a testing tank at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. His theory was that a spherical bomb could be made to bounce across water. - Three, two, one, fire. (gun fires) - [Narrator] The crucial discovery, not by Wallis but a colleague, was that backspin would help the bomb skip over the water, jumping any defensive barriers. After hitting its target, backspin would draw the bomb against the dam wall as it sank, then exploded. But once again, the Air staff were not convinced. - I can sympathize with the top brass thinking, 'Well this is a crazy idea.' And of course, at that time in the war, there were many, many crazy ideas being put forward by all sorts of scientists on all sorts of ideas, most of them were tried and didn't work. This was one that eventually, by Wallis's own perseverance 10:06 and sticking to the job and persuasive powers, went far enough to actually prove that it could've worked. Perhaps some of the others might have done if they'd had Wallis running them and not other inventors. - [Narrator] Wallis tested the backspin theory by dropping wooden balls, four and a half feet in diameter, from a Wellington bomber. At first, they burst on impact, but once strengthened, they could be seen to work. The Navy were keen to try bouncing the weapon against ships, but its value against dams was questioned. By now, Wallis was desperate to convince the Air Force. He circulated a detailed paper explaining how the bouncing bomb could be used to attack the Ruhr Valley dams, in particular, the crucial targets of the Moehne and Sorpe. Wallis recognized that the two were very different. 11:03 The Sorpe's sloping earth banks clearly made it the most difficult to breach. Nevertheless, he claimed the bomb shockwave could destroy it. Wallis knew from the tests on models that his bomb was better suited to breaking dams like the Moehne, causing very serious flooding and great damage. Not everyone was convinced. Bomber Harris, the head of Bomber Command, described the bouncing bomb as, 'Tripe of the wildest description.' 'There are so many ifs and buts' 'that there is not the smallest chance of it working.' - Now Harris had had a large number of hair-brained schemes put up to him. This was just another one. Somebody bouncing a five ton lump of iron across a lake to him wasn't very attractive. He thought it was lunacy. - For Harris, I think, the issue was not, perhaps, 12:00 the question of how technically successful it might be, but whether it was really a waste of resources given that the real target had to be Germany's industrial cities and the whole spread of factories and transportation and targets which lay within them. - [Narrator] Wallis's employers, the aircraft designers Vickers-Armstrong, also thought it a hair-brained scheme. At a heated meeting, the dams project was canceled. - One can never confront bureaucracy with calmness when it is thwarting what one knows is the right way to get something done. And remember, it was urgent. It's not just whether you're gonna make a bit more money this year or put on more profit. It's urgent. The Germans are gonna come. It must've been frightening, and he could see a way of fighting them. - [Narrator] Wallis was distraught. He told the chairman of Vickers-Armstrong he'd resign. But unknown to them both, the chief of the Air staff 13:00 had meanwhile approved the project. Three days later, Wallis was summoned to Whitehall and asked to develop a working bomb from his prototype. But the dams had to be attacked in the spring when the water level was at its highest, and on the night of a full moon so the air crews could find their target, the last possible date, May the 26th, just eight weeks away. Stunned, Wallis returned to his colleagues at Vickers. - And he said afterwords that he came out of that office and he really felt sick because he realized at last his bluff had been called so to speak, and he gotta get on and do what for years he'd been saying he could do. - [Narrator] As Wallis began work on the weapon, the Air Force formed a top secret new squadron, 617, to carry out the raid. But first, they had to perfect a dangerous new skill, flying the big Lancaster bombers at very low level and at night. 14:03 617 would have to fly all the way to Germany at less than 200 feet. As they practiced intensively over British dams and reservoirs, the crews themselves still had no idea their mission would involve bouncing bombs at the two biggest dams on the Ruhr. The tests on models had proved that Wallis's bomb would work against walled dams like the Moehne, but no tests had been done to prove it could break the earth bank structure of the Sorpe. Wallis had been confident his bomb could do it. In his paper, he'd cited the example of the similar Bradfield dam near Sheffield, which collapsed after a small crack appeared in its core. Wallis was convinced his bomb would crack the core of the Sorpe, making it collapse in just the same way. It was vital he was right. That April in a special report, the Ministry of Economic Warfare stressed it was essential to break both the Moehne and the Sorpe at the same time. 15:04 They insisted that destroying only the Moehne would not necessarily devastate the Ruhr. By contrast, Wallis believed that even if they could only destroy the Moehne, this would disrupt industry through a serious shortage of water. As his deadline approached, Wallis could only afford to think of one thing, making his theory a reality. He'd now designed the full size bomb. A giant pair of calipers would hold it like a huge egg beneath the Lancaster 'till it was spun across the water. But would it work? (airplane engine running) - When the mine hit the water for the first time, the straps gave way and the wood all flew off in various directions, and then the middle bit, really the working bit with the explosive and all the depths charges and that housed in it merrily went bouncing along, 16:01 and so Wallis had expected the whole ball to do, so the problem was solved quite accidentally for us. There wasn't any back to the drawing board or, 'The wood has flown off.' 'How can we hold it on?' So I don't suppose we would've ever found the answer to that. Fortunately, nature did it for us. - [Narrator] So tests continued with the new cylindrical bomb, code named Upkeep. But it was very much trial and error. At the last minute, the height of the bomb drop was changed. - And of course all the time, we didn't know they were still working on the bomb, and it was very close to the operation. I was suddenly told it was to be 60 feet. And apparently that was the best height for that bomb to achieve its purpose. - [Interviewer] What did you all think when suddenly... - Well, we all went to buy another drink. 60 feet, I ask you. 17:03 - [Narrator] If the Lancasters flew too low, the water splash hit them. This aircraft lost a wing flap and was lucky to stay airborne. Right up until the day of the raid, the crews were not told their target. So what did they think it might be? - Gosh, almost anything and everything. I don't think anybody ever hit the nail on the head exactly what it was. We were, the submarine pens, the Tirpitz, any of the big cavalry ships. - [Narrator] The air crews were right to identify the Tirpitz as a possible target. With a huge armory, she was the most feared of Germany's battleships. The Tirpitz was a target of the bouncing bomb, but not for 617 Squadron. The Lancaster crews couldn't have known that another top secret squadron, 618, equipped with the lighter, faster Mosquito had been formed just 11 days after 617. To gain the maximum element of surprise, 18:04 the plan was that they would attack the Tirpitz with this smaller bouncing bomb within days of the dams raid. But it was this bomb, code named Highball, that was to cause a crisis which nearly stopped the dam busters just 48 hours before takeoff. (dramatic music) Just a few days before the night of the May full moon, 617 Squadron and their cylindrical Upkeep bombs were beginning to perform well to the delight of Wallis and his team. Meanwhile, 618 Squadron were having serious problems with their smaller, spherical Highballs. First, there were technical hitches with the release gear. Then it was discovered that when dropped in a sea swell, 19:02 the bomb could suddenly veer off course. (crashes loudly) (crashes loudly) Clearly, Highball was not yet ready for the Tirpitz though Upkeep was ready for the dams. The Navy wanted a delay. - The fear of the Navy was that if the RAF went ahead, then the method will be compromised. The RAF's fear was that if they delayed, any delay beyond the 26th of May meant that they'd have to delay it perhaps for another year, that then secrecy will be lost, and somehow or other, the whole idea would be compromised. - [Narrator] So for the RAF, it was now or never. To succeed, it had to be a surprise attack, and time was running out. The Dam Busters project continued with the only test of a live Upkeep bomb, five miles offshore and well away from prying eyes. 20:00 (explosion) But even as the bomb exploded, its future hung in the balance. The chiefs of staff, visiting Washington with Churchill, were asked for a decision. The answer was ciphered back to Britain on May the 14th, just 48 hours before the raid. (suspenseful music) After weeks of training, the air crews were finally told of their mission. For many, it was the longest briefing they'd known, 21:04 and their reaction to the news of the target was mixed. Some felt a sense of foreboding. - John Burpee came over to me before takeoff. Being a Canadian friend, he thrust out his hand and said, 'Goodbye, Ken.' That was not unusual. You may think so now. But, we weren't foolish enough to think this was a sure bet. Let's face it. If you made this one, you were gonna be very lucky. - [Narrator] Ken Brown and his crew on board Lancaster F for Freddie took off in the third and last wave of bombers. Theirs was to be a dramatic attack, never revealed by the feature film. Most of the other Lancasters were already over Germany as F for Freddie crossed the enemy coast. The big bombers flew low to avoid flat gunners and night fighters, 22:01 but in the moonlight, they felt only too conspicuous. - It was a beautiful, clear, moonlit night. I remember, frankly, everything was so green, Holland, and then further on over Germany, and objects stood out, churches, pylons, rivers and canals. You could tell very easily if you were off course. - The navigator was sitting at the table. He could not see outside. Who could see outside but the bomb aimer and the pilot and the flight engineer? But they had their work to do. So the bomb aimer, it fell to the bomb aimer to do all the map reading. I would pass on that information to Dudley Heal who would plot it on his charts. - Myself and Steve, we worked very closely together. He was in the nose, and so I depended greatly on the information he gave me as to what he could see. And that's how we managed to keep largely on track. 23:03 - Our main concern was our tension cables. It was pretty light, but those are difficult to see at times and got our mics on continuous all the time (mumbles) say, 'My high tension cable come out?' 'Okay, Buzz, I can see it,' and so on and so on. And we just nip over and then get down again. - They twinkled in the moonlight. If you see the high tension wires there twinkling, you know you can go over them. If you see them there, you can't. You gotta make a decision to go under them, you'll never make it over, and you gotta make that decision long before you ever reach there, but that is an actual fact. People saw them up here and tried to go over them and they just mushed through them. Bad news. - [Narrator] Far ahead of F for Freddie, the first wave of Lancasters were approaching their main target. 24:04 Their attack on the walled Moehne Dam was a total surprise. - [Man] 220. - [Man] This is fine, I can see everything. - [Man] Five. - [Man] Steady. Hold it steady. - [Man] 35. - [Man] Hold it. 26:45 - [Narrator] It had taken not one, but five Upkeep bombs to breach the walls of the Moehne. 70 miles to the east, the Eder had also been breached with three more. F for Freddie and the remaining aircraft now turn towards the crucial Sorpe. They were still over Holland just behind John Burpee 27:01 in S for Sugar. - We were about 30 seconds to a minute behind Burpee aircraft as his Burpee was flying. He flew over a German airdrome. - He was north of us and why he was there, I have no idea. I dare say the wind had carried him off or his compass may have been out. - And over on the left there we saw some flames and sparks and, you know, a lot of fireworks going on, and we knew, Ken said, 'God damn', 'that must be Burpee Barlow,' and it was, of course. - As a matter of fact, they probably saved our skins, because had we been over a bit further we'd probably been the first to be hit. - We saw the traces coming up, we saw the traces stop when it hit his aircraft, we saw the flames coming up. It must have the pilot, he must have been hit, 28:04 because the aircraft starting climbing slowly, and then it turned and a few seconds later we saw a big explosion. - But they went down, tremendous explosion. The whole valley was a great orange ball, and I looked to my port side and saw a road and I went down the road. It was the only thing I could do. There was no other cover. The rest was trees. So we hid behind the trees and went on the road. - And it was a pity, it was a shame, and we feel very upset about it, a loss of life. And in my opinion, because they weren't down low enough. - [Narrator] Three Lancasters were shot down before they even got to the Sorpe. Others turned back. F for Freddie was one of only two bombers to attack the dam known to be the hardest to breach. 29:04 - When we went to the Sorpe, the whole valley was filled with fog. The only thing we could see was the village on top, the church spire sticking through the fog, and that's all we had to go on. We made several runs just to find the dam itself. As a matter of fact, the third run we almost crashed into it. - [Narrator] The crew had been instructed to approach the earth bank Sorpe from a different angle, flying not towards the dam, but parallel to it. The bomb was not to spin or bounce. - And we had to try it about six or eight times before we got the right height, speed and location before I dropped the bomb. - And off she went. And I clearly remember, you know, taps right open, throttles right through the max boost, and getting out of there. And turning around, and then I saw this water spout go, and in those days it was something quite incredible. 30:05 - The plume was between the Moon and ourselves, and you could really see it. - [Man] What did it look like? - Just a big fountain of water coming straight up. - [Man] Well that must have been a very reassuring sight. - It was, and then we looked to see if the dam was still, and it was still there. - [Narrator] The dam held. It was later realized that Wallis's theory based on the Bradfield Dam was flawed. The Bradfield had only had a clay core. The Sorpe's was solid concrete. With dawn approaching, F for Freddie headed for home, flying over the flooded Moehne on the way. - Oh, it was immense. You can imagine the gates opening on a dam and the amount of water going through. Well that's just how it was, a torrent of water going down the valley. - To this day, I just look down there, 31:00 because I'm there and I can see things, and I say, 'Jesus Christ,' and Ken tipped the aircraft so he could see, and Dudley came from behind the curtain and looked out, and there she was, and this water gushing out like, it was incredible, incredible. - You did wonder, because you could see cars with lights on disappear, obviously underwater. And that must have happened quite a lot. You did wonder if it was all worth it. It wasn't very nice that people were dying down there and you knew you had been responsible for it, even though if you could start all over again you'd have done just the same because you felt that was your duty. - [Narrator] One by one, the surviving Lancasters touched down at RAF Scampton. As dawn broke, it became clear that the squadron's success in breaching the Moehne and the Eder had been very costly. Eight of the 19 aircraft had failed to return. 32:06 Of the 133 men who flew on the raid, 53 had been killed. Barnes Wallis was stunned by the losses. - I don't think he'd envisaged in any very clear sense that outcome, although I suppose he must've known it would happen, but perhaps the deaths were greater in number than he'd thought, and he was very, very upset. I think it may be that he felt that had he known how many young men would go, he might've thought, perhaps he would not have set the whole raid in motion. I don't know about that. That certainly is what he said. - I don't think he really appreciated that we were gonna lose anybody. He was concentrating so much on the, 33:07 whether his invention would work and whether his vision of breaching the dams was gonna be achieved. - [Narrator] As dawn broke over the shattered Moehne and Eder dams, the local people faced scenes of devastation. 34:31 - [Narrator] In all, 1,300 people had been drowned. Over 200 had simply been swept away in the deluge never to be seen again. Those victims who could be identified were often found tens of kilometers downstream. All the local police could do was circulate numbered photographs to those whose relatives were missing. 700 of the dead were foreign workers and slave laborers from occupied countries such as Holland, 35:02 France and the Ukraine. They were buried in mass graves, whereas the German victims received elaborate funerals. The German media told of a British terror attack, and even managed to claim the raid was inspired by the Jews. The flooding was widespread. These scenes of the shattered remains of the village of Neheim have never been broadcast before. For 50 years, this unique footage has remained under lock and key. Hitler reacted with fury, blaming the Luftwaffe for failing to stop the attacking bombers. But the Minister of Production, Albert Speer, realized the devastation of industry was not nearly as great as it might have been. 36:05 If the Sorpe had been destroyed instead of the Eder, said Speer, rural production would have suffered the heaviest possible blow. Today, others agree. - The Eder, the dam had nothing to do with the industry in the Ruhr valley, so the damage caused by the breaking of the Eder Dam was only in the agricultural field, you know, cows and some farmers etc., and pigs, but there was no industry in that area. The Sorpe Dam was much more important, because it played a more important role in the supply of water for the industry in the Ruhr, but it was, fortunately for us, it was not destroyed. - [Narrator] Just as the report for the Ministry of Economic Warfare had warned shortly before the raid, both the Moehne and the Sorpe had to be destroyed to cripple the industry of the Ruhr. 37:03 So was the raid a failure? Not necessarily. In warfare, physical destruction isn't always the most effective weapon. Immediately after the raid, Bomber Command set about getting photographic proof of its success. It had been the first low level, precision, night bombing raid ever carried out. A photo reconnaissance spitfire took off and headed for the Ruhr. Its pilot was Jerry Fray. - When I was about 100, 150 miles away from the target somewhere over the Ruhr, I could see the sun glinting. Now this very often happened when the sun was fairly low in the morning. It would glint for example on the greenhouses over Holland and give quite a reflection, but this was something very different, very huge, and it was in fact the sun shining off this muddy river 38:03 that was pouring down from the dam itself. And although there were no regrets, yes, one certainly felt, 'My God', 'it must've been an awful mess down there last night.' I then moved onto the Eder, which had also been hit, but of course, it's much more in a winding valley, the Eder, and more difficult to locate, although the lake was emptying so rapidly above that you could see this enormous mud bank where the lake had been. And then onto the Sorpe, and this had not been breached, but there were splash marks where something had gone over the top of it. - [Narrator] Normally, aerial reconnaissance photographs were treated with the utmost secrecy, but in this case, the Air Ministry realized their propaganda value outweighed the physical damage caused to the Germans on the ground. The pictures were quickly released to the press. Within a couple of days of the raid, the images of the broken dams 39:02 had made front page news around the Allied world. But the political impact of the raid was to be equally significant. - The photographs of flooded area and flood damage were quite spectacular, and I think that publicizing the dam's raid in this way was partly a result of the extremely good visual material that was available. The Dam Busters raid also helped Britain in its relations with its two allies, the Soviet Union and the United States. It persuaded Stalin that the British really were serious about defeating Hitler in Europe, and Stalin had been anxious about that for a long time. It helped to persuade the Americans to keep in Europe rather than turn to the Pacific, where a lot of American opinion wanted American forces to be used. I think in both those areas, the raid did contribute to Churchill's efforts 40:01 to keep both those allies concentrating on the European question. - [Narrator] Churchill made good use of the RAF success. Just two days after the raid he was in Washington addressing the United States Congress. In his speech, he was able to highlight the dams raid as an effective strike against Nazi Germany. It was just what the Americans wanted to hear. - (mumbles) before peace comes back to the world. (applause) - [Narrator] Back in Germany, Albert Speer was determined to rebuild the dams before the autumn rains to reduce the risk of water shortage. The task diverted huge resources. Some 27,000 men were moved from crucial work on the Defensive Atlantic Wall to repair the damage. 10,000 front line troops were ordered to guard all of Germany's vulnerable dams. The Nazi's anticipated further dams attacks or even a raid on the reconstruction works. - Oh yes, and it was especially Speer, 41:06 the Armaments Minister, who was afraid of this, and it would have been very easy to destroy the construction, but you didn't come back because you probably thought now the anti-aircraft guns are all installed here and you wouldn't be successful anymore a second time. - [Narrator] By October 1943, the dams were rebuilt. Complex systems of mines and buoys were installed to block the path of any further bouncing bombs. This huge diversion of men and resources was seen by the British as one of the raid's major benefits. But did Bomber Harris, the Commander in Chief of Bomber Command, plan to do any further dam busting? - Although the operation was technically a success, two dams were effectively breached, 42:04 Harris remained hostile to the whole idea of dam busting. Two reasons, I think. First of all, because of the extraordinary toll on the crews. He said he simply couldn't send men out with a 50% change of being killed and or captured. You just cannot run a major air force on that sort of basis. Second, I think Harris was simply never persuaded that creating local flood damage really would inflict serious injury on the German war economy. He was convinced that the city busting program against major industrial centers really was the more sensible use of resources. - [Narrator] 617 Squadron were never again to use Upkeep, but that wasn't the end of the bouncing bomb story. There was still 618 Squadron and its smaller bomb, Highball. - The problems with Highball, 43:03 which had been experienced in early 1943, which led to the clash between the RAF and Admiralty, and the RAF going ahead with Upkeep where Highball was not used had actually been solved. By late 1944, the weapon was a viable proposition, but of course, by that time, the Tirpitz was no longer a target, because the Tirpitz, of course, had been sunk. So it was decided that this weapon would be used against Japanese capital ships in the Pacific, and to that end, 618 went off to Australia and were based in Australia with the idea of them being used in the Pacific in cooperation with the Americans. The Americans themselves had been very interested in Highball and had themselves done some experiments on Highball, which had failed. And there's one train of thought which suggests that the Americans were not convinced that the weapon would actually be useful. It might actually malfunction and blow up the aircraft 44:05 as it had done in their trials. - [Narrator] Highball was never used in action, but even the Germans had a bouncing bomb. On the night of the dams raid itself, Flight Lieutenant Barlow's Lancaster had crashed north of Gladbeck. His Upkeep bomb hadn't exploded, and the local mayor found himself a souvenir which he mistakenly thought was a fuel tank. German engineers soon worked out the full technical specifications of the weapon and began experiments to design and build their own version. The date of these blueprints, the 26th of May, 1943, just 10 days after the dams raid. The Germans planned a few improvements 45:05 that would've impressed even Barnes Wallis. Their rocket powered bouncing bomb had a range of over four kilometers. It was code named Kurt, but ironically many of the problems with Highball were dogging Kurt at the same time. As these were being worked on, the war was moving into its final months. By that time, Hitler was anxious for his scientists to concentrate on projects like the V-2 rocket. In the end, Kurt was canceled. Like the British Highball, it was never used in anger. Of all the different bouncing bombs developed during World War II, only one was ever used on the night of the Dam Busters' raid. The Moehne and Eder dams were rebuilt the Sorpe had survived, and the devastation had little lasting effect. The Dam Busters' raid has become legend, 46:04 but was it really worthwhile? - Looking back at the raid one has to say that its immediate effect was not that great, and certainly not as great as its proponents had expected. It did produce a certain amount of dislocation in the industries of the Ruhr valley, but that was very quickly put back. And the point I think that Harris always made, the attack on the dams was just a small part of a general campaign that he was waging against Ruhr industry, and arguably the conventional bombing attacks on heavy industry in Essen, for example, and (mumbles) was as damaging during this period as the Dam Busters' raid. - I don't care what anybody says. 50 years later to sit back and say, 'Ah, it wasn't worth it.' I say the opposite. It was worth it, especially for the morale of the people. 47:03 You could walk into a pub and never buy a drink, really. - Was it worth it? Well I lost a lot of friends. Do you want me to jump up and down and say, 'Yes, it was well worth it?' I was sorry to lose my chums. To me, personally, it wasn't worth it, but as far as the moral buildup of the whole country I'm sure it was well worth it. It was well received in America, as well as in England. It was a real booster. There's no doubt about it. It had a tremendous effect. (suspenseful music)

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