Summary Operation Chastise bombed German dams to disrupt resources for the military-industrial complex. The bouncing bomb invented by Barnes Wallis successfully breached the dams. The Avro Lancaster bombers carried the mission, leading to a significant morale boost for Britain.
The Dambusters Raid, or to give it its official name, "Operation Chastise," was a daring raid by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command to destroy the Möhne and Edersee dams in the Ruhr valley. The reservoir behind the Möhne dam not only supplied water to the surrounding area but also generated electricity for Nazi Germany's military-industrial complex. The Germans were well aware of the dam's importance and fiercely defended it with anti-aircraft guns.
They even placed torpedo nets under the water to prevent the British from trying to destroy them by dropping torpedoes from an aircraft. For the British to succeed, they would need to develop a new weapon designed for the job. Barnes Wallis and the bouncing bomb At the time, English engineer and inventor Barnes Wallis worked as an assistant chief designer for British engineering conglomerate Vickers-Armstrongs Limited.
Wallis was responsible for helping to build the Vickers Wellesley and Vickers Wellington bombers. He was also working with the British Royal Navy to design an anti-ship bomb when the government asked him to create a bomb to destroy the dams. His first thought was to drop a 22,000-lb earthquake bomb from an altitude of 40,000 feet.
However, they would also need to build an aircraft that could carry such heavy armament to do this. The government dismissed the plan and told Wallis that a lighter weapon had to be used. A smaller bomb would have to explode against the dam's wall for it to succeed.
The second problem was the torpedo nets, which meant the bomb had to clear them before hitting the wall. Rather than build a bomb, Wallis came up with the idea of creating a large cylinder depth charge armed with a hydrostatic fuse. It was designed to be given a backspin of 500 revolutions per minute when dropped from an aircraft 60 feet above the reservoir.
Flying at 240 mph, the bomb would skip across the water, clearing the torpedo nets to hit the wall, sink, and then explode. The military concluded that a 7,500-lb bomb would be sufficient to breach the dam and that the existing Avro Lancaster could carry a bomb of that weight. With all the puzzle pieces coming together, the Royal Air Force (RAF) began testing the bomb in the sea off Chesil Beach in Dorset.
Avro Chief Designer Roy Chadwick was tasked with modifying several Lancaster bombers to carry an oversized mine. The planes' existing bomb bay doors and internal armor had to be removed so that they could handle the massive weight. In 1943, the head of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, was about to start a strategic bombing campaign against Germany and objected to removing 30 of his Lancaster bombers.
Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal told Harris that the planes were needed for a mission of great importance and that he would have to do without them. About the Avro Lancaster Developed from the existing Avro Manchester, the Avro Lancaster was powered by four Rolls-Royce Merlin liquid-cooled V-12 piston aero engines. It entered service with the Royal Air Force in 1942 and became the main bomber used by the RAF for nighttime raids over Germany.
The Avro Lancaster's unique capabilities proved superior to most four-engined allied bombers. Specifications and general characteristics of the Avro Lancaster Crew 7: pilot, flight engineer, navigator, bomb aimer/nose gunner, wireless operator, mid-upper and rear gunners Length 69 feet 4 inches Height 20 feet inches Wingspan 102 feet Wing Area 1297 square feet Empty Weight 36,900 lbs Gross Weight 55,000 lbs MTOW 68,000 lbs Powerplant 4 × Rolls-Royce Merlin XX V-12 liquid-cooled piston engines Propellers 3-bladed Performance Maximum Speed 282 mph Cruise Speed 200 mph Range 2,530 miles Service Ceiling 21,400 feet Rate of Climb 720 feet per minute The Dambuster mission When the mission was drawn up, three targets were selected: the Möhne Dam and the Sorpe Dam, upstream from the Ruhr industrial area, and the Eder Dam on the Eder River. While the loss of hydroelectricity was significant, the flooding and loss of water would hurt the region the most.
Because it was critical to drop the bomb from a height of 60 feet while the Lancaster was flying at 240 mph, the RAF mounted two spotlights, one under the nose and the other under the fuselage. They had to do this because barometric altimeters lacked accuracy at the time. The spotlights were placed so that when the two light beams converged on the surface, the aircraft would be 60 feet above the water.
After testing on several UK reservoirs, the bombs were delivered to the squadron on May 13, 1943. The following day, the pilots, navigators, and bomb aimers received their final briefing. A British heavy bomber that the RAF used for night-time raids over Germany.
Three formations would carry out the raid: Formation One consisted of nine aircraft in three groups and was tasked with destroying the Möhne dam. If, after the raid, any of the planes still had their bombs, they were to target the Eder Dam. Formation Two consisted of five aircraft tasked with destroying the Sorpe Dam.
Formation Three was a mobile reserve that took off two hours later than the other two formations and targeted the dams the other aircraft had failed to destroy. The Dambuster Raid On the evening of Sunday, May 16, 1943, 19 Avro Lancaster bombers took off from RAF Scampton near Lincoln, heading for the Ruhr valley in North Rhine-Westphalia. Formations one and two flew a different route to avoid known locations of German aircraft guns and were timed to cross the Dutch coast simultaneously.
When they reached their targets, they prepared to release their bombs, as seen in the video above. The Möhne and Edersee dams were successfully breached, but the large earth mound Sorpe Dam only sustained minor damage. Following the collapse of the dams, the flooding is believed to have killed 1,300 Germans and enslaved Soviet laborers.
During the raid, the RAF lost eight aircraft and 56 aircrew, of which 53 died, and the Germans captured three. While the raid only proved to be a temporary setback for the Germans, it gave a significant morale boost to the people of Great Britain..
