Last of the Dambusters dies.

daygo

Well-Known Member
"Johnny" Johnson was the last survivor of the RAF bomber squadron known as the Dambusters.
In May 1943, three formations of Lancaster bombers were sent to attack a series of dams in Germany's industrial heartland.
Their targets provided Hitler's war machine with hydro-electric power and water for steel production. They were well protected, with anti-aircraft guns and torpedo nets.
The RAF's 617 squadron carried specially-developed "bouncing bombs" devised by the inventor Barnes Wallis. They were designed to skip over the dams' defences and explode against the sides.
Two targets - the Möhne and the Eder dams - were destroyed, causing 1,600 casualties and catastrophic flooding which hampered the German war effort. A third - the Sorpe - was badly damaged.
 

Wally

Choose Your Words Carefully...
See Operation Chastise. Wiki

8 planes lost including most crews.

I remember the Tamaya/MRC model with the rig to get the depth charge spinning so as to bounce over the anti-torpedo nets, hit the dam, then sink and explode to blow out or weaken the the base so that the water did the rest.

I'm thinking they tried later with Tall Boy or some precursor to a JDAM, but that may have been some other raid on a hardened installation.
 
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ItIsFinished!

Blood bought child of the King of kings.
My father and I used to watch the TV show called Combat and we loved it, then a helicopter crashed on set killing the star, Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese children in a filming of an episode.
Vic Marrow and the two child actors died during filming of the movie Twilight Zone in 1982.
 

Tall Timbers

Imperfect but forgiven
@daygo , I watched the movie The Dam Busters. It was pretty interesting and they showed the story in a very realistic format where the aviators practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced until they were proficient in what they were setting out to do.
 

athenasius

Well-Known Member
"Johnny" Johnson was the last survivor of the RAF bomber squadron known as the Dambusters.
In May 1943, three formations of Lancaster bombers were sent to attack a series of dams in Germany's industrial heartland.
Their targets provided Hitler's war machine with hydro-electric power and water for steel production. They were well protected, with anti-aircraft guns and torpedo nets.
The RAF's 617 squadron carried specially-developed "bouncing bombs" devised by the inventor Barnes Wallis. They were designed to skip over the dams' defences and explode against the sides.
Two targets - the Möhne and the Eder dams - were destroyed, causing 1,600 casualties and catastrophic flooding which hampered the German war effort. A third - the Sorpe - was badly damaged.
Thank you for posting, I told George. He knows all about them and their heroism. There is a Canadian company that was hired to reconstruct that flight and documented the difficulties faced by this crew. (Buffalo Airways on Ice Pilots Dambuster episode) The engineering had to be very precise. It was an amazing effort, and I think owes more to God answering prayer than the engineers would like to admit.

The last of the Canadian Dambusters died in 2019-- about 1/3 of the Dambusters were Canadians. https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the...en-were-key-to-the-wwii-dam-busters-1.4888985 The rest were British
 
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