The Valour and the Horror

In the first four years of the war, Bomber Command seldom tried precision strikes against key industrial targets in Germany. The dams on the Ruhr river were a much celebrated exception. The dams provide power to run nearby factories and water to irrigate the surrounding farm land. In 1943 British defence headquarters though it would be marvelous if these dams could be blown up. The mission became one of the most famous adventures of the Second World War. It was hailed as a spectacular success. It earned Canadian pilot Ken Brown a decoration for bravery, and yet looking back on it now, he's not sure the mission was worth its terrible cost.

In 1943, Bomber Command had a problem. The Royal air force had a reputation to uphold...a reputation for excellence, daring and precision. The dropping of bombs from very high altitudes was not very glamorous, or very effective... most bombs missed their targets by at least five miles. Most of them were falling in city streets, and killing civilians. Bomber Command wanted to focus public attention on something that would create a much better impression than the haphazard bombing of cities.

Along came just the ticket.. a new weapon that could be called a "smart bomb". It was a powerful depth charge that would bounce along the surface of the water and evade torpedo net defenses... perfect for attacking ships... or perhaps even dams!

But the public relations side benefits of the plan were undeniable... and so Harris was persuaded to give it a try. The mission was going to be very tricky, requiring low altitude flying of heavy bombers at night.

And so a new squadron was formed drawing the best pilots from all of Bomber Command. The squadron leader was Guy Gibson, a perfectionist who set strict standards for his men.

When the pilots first saw the new weapon demonstrated, they were swept up in the technical marvel of it. They saw why a low level was critical to the trajectory, and they noticed another key requirement - backspin. The bomb had to revolve backwards to correctly bounce and impact the target.

The massive bomb was slung under a Lancaster...along with an electric motor to rotate it.

For weeks the squadron trained without any knowledge of what the target would be. Because the training was at night over water, the men thought they would be attacking a German battleship.

The raid was portrayed as a gigantic success in Britain. And it was a great morale booster. Squadron leader Gibson received the Victoria Cross. But the damage to Germany was nowhere near the predictions. There were almost 1300 people killed in the flood, but most of them were the inmates of a Prisoner of War Camp just below the dam, Ukrainian women who had been enslaved by the Nazis...

The damaged dams were quickly repaired, and steel production actually rose that year in the Ruhr valley. The real success of the mission depended on the destruction of the Sorpe dam but there was never a chance that the skipping depth charge could destroy this massive wall of earth and stone ...

Ken brown won a conspicuous gallantry medal for the dams' raid but lost many close friends that night. Now he wonders why an attempt was even made to knock out the Sorpe Dam.

The real lesson that could have been taken from the dam's raid is that the precise bombing of industrial targets was possible. The appropriate bomb for the job, the 12,000 pound tall boy, was eventually developed by Barnes Wallis. The scientists at Bomber Command figured a method of delivering the bombs right on to industrial targets from 5 miles in the air, significantly reducing the risk to crews.

In the second half of the bomber war, Harris would turn the killing of thousands of people into a science but his air crews would pay the price for his obsession..

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