What makes you think that the British obsess about the Dambusters Raid (Operation Chastise) which was carried out by 617 Squadron in May 1943? Come to that what makes you think that the raid was a failure?
There was a book Enemy Coast Ahead written by the commander of the raid, Guy Gibson, in 1944 and a film based on that book and Paul Brickhill’s The Dam Busters, published in 1951, made in 1955. That was sixty-nine years ago you know. Great film though. More recently, Max Hastings published a book on the raid, Operation Chastise in 2019.
As to losses, Operation Chastise cost the British eight aircraft and fifty-three aircrew. Are you aware that the German armed forces lost an average of around 2,150 men per day during WW2? Doesn’t look heavy to me in context. However, the raid itself experienced 40% losses which was indeed high for a Bomber Command Raid.
Lancaster bombers carrying the bouncing bomb
As to the success of the raid, it flooded mines, factories and houses for 50 miles downstream and over 1,600 people were drowned. Unfortunately about 750 of these were foreign conscripted workers or prisoners of war. Eleven factories and two power stations were destroyed and one hundred and fourteen factories and seven power stations damaged. The flood washed away roads, railways and bridges, and more than 7,000 workers had to be redeployed from other tasks in order to repair the dams.
The impact on German power generation and coal and steel production was significant in the context of eight aircraft lost. Unfortunately, as with the Schweinfurt raids, there was insufficient follow up and the damage was relatively soon repaired.
Damage to the Eder Dam after the raid
German internal monitoring, the equivalent of the British Mass Observation programme revealed that the German population regarded the raids as a legitimate attack on military targets and thought they were "an extraordinary success on the part of the English".
In fact, if you watch the film, I think that it struck a chord with the public was for two different reasons.
Firstly, the heroism demonstrated by the British, Canadian, and Australian bomber crews (plus two Kiwis and an American flying in the RCAF) in their incredible low level attack, aided by spotlights to help them keep exact altitude and other ad-hoc bomb-aiming devices.
Lancaster bombers using spotlights to keep at the critical altitude during the run
Secondly, the depiction of Barnes Wallis, his extraordinary invention of the bouncing bomb and, even more so, his one-man struggle against bureaucracy to get his ideas accepted. The lines from the film that stick in my mind are when he is asking for an aircraft to test his ideas.
You say you need a Wellington Bomber for test drops. They're worth their weight in gold. Do you really think the authorities will lend you one? What possible argument could I put forward to get you a Wellington?
Well, if you told them I designed it, do you think that might help?
Not a failure by any conceivable standard and the Germans certainly weren’t laughing. Good show chaps.
Writer: Richard Meakin
