70th Anniversary of the Dambusters Raid

[icarus]

70th Anniversary of the Dambusters Raid
BBC: Has a cool interactive map

Each plane could only carry one bouncing bomb, so there were no second chances. After Gibson's bomb missed and a plane was shot down, Gibson flew a decoy run alongside the third plane to distract enemy gunners. When four bombs had been dropped with no breach, the Mohne dam mission looked in jeopardy. But the fifth Lancaster made a textbook drop and the dam wall began to crumble. The remaining bombers went on to successfully breach the Eder dam but the Sorpe dam withstood all attacks.

My grandfather flew a Lancaster bomber but didn't participate in the Dambusters raid (luckily, else I might not be here) but a number of Canadian airmen took part in the decisive and daring raid.

Here at my desk at work, I sit about 150 metres from the top-secret miniature model of the Mohne dam used by Barnes Wallis to carry out the calculations and experiments to determine the amount of explosive that would be required in his famous bouncing bomb. The footage in the BBC video above of the bouncing bomb is incredible.

[icarus]

In case anyone is interested (you would probably have to be a serious history buff or engineer), my company has put up a webpage describing our model Mohne dam and role in preparing the raid.

[Wormius]

Also if anybody is interested, I believe there was an Ice Pilots episode last year or the year before that was all about recreating this for a documentary and research.

[Puppet Guy]

My father-in-law remembers hearing about the raid on the news the next morning when he was a kid.

a clip from the 1955 movie about the raid:

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by icarus

In case anyone is interested (you would probably have to be a serious history buff or engineer), my company has put up a webpage describing our model Mohne dam and role in preparing the raid.

Ah there it is, nice try.....you should be disgusted using the memory of these brave men to market you company.........I kid.

Thanks for posting this.