Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 29

from the day at boarding school
when I first thrilled to richard
Todd’s portrayal of Gibson in the
most popular British war film of all
time, with its stirring march
composed by Eric Coates.
Both the 1955 film and the book
which preceded it made a profound
impression on me. I memorised
the names of 617’s pilots; assem-
bled and painted plastic models of
the Avro Lancasters they flew;
became intimately familiar with
Enemy Coast Ahead, Gibson’s
posthumously published memoir.
I perceived — as did millions of
other Britons — a nobility about
the bravery displayed that night as
these young men, almost all of an
age with modern gap-year adoles-
cents, or students at university,
lifted their big, clumsy bombers
into the air, barely four decades
after the Wright brothers initiated
heavier-than-air flight, and
embarked in cold blood on a mis-
sion that would require excep-
tional courage, skill and luck to

succeed, and which many recog-

nised was likely to kill them.

For two and a half hours they

raced through the moonlit sky

towards Germany, at a height that

made power cables as deadly a

menace as anti-aircraft fire.

They then attacked Hitler’s

dams, flying straight and level at

220mph, much lower than the tree-

tops and less than a cricket pitch

length from the lakes below, to

unleash those revolutionary weap-

ons created by the brilliance and

persistence of Barnes Wallis. Half

of 617’s aircraft which got as far as

Germany failed to return, but two

of the biggest man-made struc-

tures in the world collapsed into

mud and rubble.

The fliers contrived a feat that

caused all the world to wonder —

the Allied nations with pride, the

German people and their leaders

with horror and apprehension.

But I now blush to remember

how I embraced The Dam Busters

with special enthusiasm because

the raid seemed victimless, save

for the 53 dead among the gallant

young men who carried it out.

In truth, however, as we will see

in more detail later, something

approaching 1,400 civilians

perished, more than half of them

foreign female slaves of Hitler.

Alongside our continuing awe

for the fliers who breached the

dams, the enormity of the horror

that they unthinkingly unleashed

upon a host of innocents has to

be confronted.

THErE was never an easy route

from Lincolnshire to the Möhne.

Gibson’s aircraft were obliged to

brush the ruhr, the most heavily

defended region of Nazi Germany,

in order to reach its water supplies

in the rural Sauerland beyond.

The received wisdom of bombing

operations was that height

conferred improved prospects of

survival, yet for this one mission,

the squadron was flying all the way

to the target below the threshold

at which German radar would pick

them up and send in the night-

fighters to slaughter them.

This, though, put them at the

mercy of anti-aircraft guns, which

were clustered in belts between

the Dutch coast and the dams.

Gibson’s three lead aircraft —

G-George, P-Popsie and M-Mother

— approached Holland but the

ground defences, surprised, stayed

mute at first as they swept over-

head, navigating by map, compass

and landmarks: a windmill here, a

communications mast there.

Fleeting glimpses of houses,

factories, railway lines were

punctuated at intervals by an

intercom yell of ‘Pull up!’ from the

nose, signalling a power line in

front. They were flying so low that

M-Mother — piloted by ‘Hoppy’

Hopgood, a 21-year-old who still

began his letters home ‘Dear

Mummy’ — passed beneath one

set of power lines.

They spotted the Wilhelmina

Canal, and followed it eastwards

until they turned north-east and

passed over the German frontier.

The flight to the dams was a

remarkable affair in its own right,

demanding the highest

skill, courage and luck, even

before the Lancasters launched

their attacks.

Already for five crews, fate had

run against them and they had

either crashed (one into a power

line) or returned home.

The strain for the remaining 14

was immense, dodging flak,

becoming briefly lost, flying 30 tons

of metal, Perspex, fuel, armament

and human flesh as if the

Lancasters were stunt planes.

But they surged onwards, fields

and villages flashing beneath them,

until the rhine came into view and

they knew that the industrial

conglomeration of the ruhr lay

beyond. The sky erupted as

searchlights and light flak raked

the darkness around them.

Identifying their last turning

point just 19 miles from the Möhne,

they swung south-east for the last

— mercifully uneventful — six

minutes of the flight.

Just after midnight, Micky Martin

in P-Popsie was first to glimpse

the Möhne dam, followed

seconds later by Gibson, to

whom it looked ‘squat and heavy

and unconquerable’.

He was relieved to see no sign of

searchlights, from which the dazzle

could have been fatal to attackers

making low-level bomb runs.

Instead, there were only angry

stabs of light flak, green, yellow

and red, streaking up from

six German gun positions, the

gunners puzzled by the appear-

ance of enemy aircraft.

Surely they weren’t hoping to

breach the vast Möhne? ‘Bit

aggressive, aren’t they?’ muttered

one of Gibson’s crew.

Over the VHF radio link, Gibson

ordered Hopgood and Martin to

orbit the valley while he examined

the approach to the dam. Then he

joined them as they circled over-

head, with three more Lancasters

that had just arrived.

Of the three target dams, the

Möhne offered by far the most

open approach, but to fly a heavy

bomber head-on towards the guns

on the dam walls nonetheless

represented an immensely

daunting challenge.

Gibson told his crew, ‘Well, boys,

I suppose we’d better start the ball

rolling.’ Since much about Bomber

Command’s fliers echoed the mood

of students attempting some

DAMN

HEROES!

Devastated: The massive damage inflicted by the bouncing bombs on the Eder dam in Germany

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