The Dambusters /Channel 5
Last week Dan Snow presented a three-part series on the World War Two raid on the dams that protected the Ruhr Valley the industrial heartland of Germany.
Snow like his father Peter on election night with his swingometer is given to somewhat histrionic hand gestures. He is not a calm presenter and adopts the irritating technique of making an important point front of camera and then bolting off.
Nonetheless it’s a story worth retelling.
A squadron which came to be known as 617 squadron, carrying the bouncing bomb devised by Barnes Wallis, was to drop the payload on the dams causing a torrent of water that would devastate the German industrial infrastructure.
Although, as one now expects, diversity issues determined the historical input Sir Max Hastings – a noted authority on Bomber Command – was conscripted for his expert knowledge.
The leader of the squadron was Guy Gibson, just 25, but already the most decorated airman in the RAF. He set demanding standards and was not that popular but he was a man of extraordinary courage.
The squadron would have to fly low some 60 feet above the water and even at night encounter heavy flak. The test runs at Derwentwater revealed that the operation of the bouncing bomb was not full proof.
On the raid itself not every bomb fulfilled its objective and Guy Gibson showed typical courage in drawing off the enemy fire so others in the squadron, all very young too and some from Australia and New Zealand, had more of a free run.
The Mohne dam was finally breached and the remnants of the squadron flew onto the Eder to breach that too.
Although it claimed many casualties, most fatal from the 48 that flew, the operation was a success.
Unfortunately the dam was repaired quickly and the RAF missed a trick in not bombing during its repair.
This may be because Head of Bomber Command Arthur Harris was never in favour of the first mission. The raid must have scared the Germans who by 1943 had surely realised the end was inevitable.
It claimed many lives in the Ruhr valley but a high proportion was recruited slave labour.
The raid has passed into lore because of the 1957 film starring Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave; the spirited Dambusters March composed by Eric Coates; the unfortunate naming of Gibson’s beloved Labrador ‘N-gg-r.’
Gibson returned safely from the raid. There was much celebrating back at the RAF base in Lincolnshire. There was some possibility of a political career as Gibson was offered the Macclesfield constituency.
One could hardly imagine such an active man adapting to Civvy Street but it was never tested as he was shot down over Steenhagen a year later in 1944.
At least this documentary will ensure that such a courageous man who gave his young life for his country is remembered for something more than the naming of his pet dog.
I must declare a personal interest in the RAF as my late father served in the airforce shortly after the war and was married in his uniform.
He was not a man given to displays of emotion nor swearing but well do I remember his reaction to a cleric on the radio attacking the Dresden raid.
He retorted:
“55,000 men lost their lives in the War many of them younger than you. They did that so that this effing idiot could spout his drivel.”
It is an irony lost on those that defaced the statue of Churchill or those in the National Trust who patronisingly seek to educate the better-informed on his life would be the first to finish up in a concentration camp but for the Great Man and his stoic resistance and inspiring rhetoric and the courage of men like Guy Gibson.
