Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943

by James Holland

The night of 16 May, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9000lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it. Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine.

From the outset it was an almost impossible task, a suicide mission: to fly low and at night in formation over many miles of enemy-occupied territory at the very limit of the Lancasters' capacity, and drop a new weapon that had never been tried operationally before from a precise height of just sixty feet from the water at some of the most heavily defended targets in Germany.

More than that, the entire operation had to be put together in less than ten weeks. When visionary aviation engineer Barnes Wallis's concept of the bouncing bomb was green lighted, he hadn't even drawn up his plans for the weapon that was to smash the dams. What followed was an incredible race against time, which, despite numerous setbacks and against huge odds, became one of the most successful and game-changing bombing raids of all time.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Military History, Aviation, Military Fiction, War

437 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2012

About the author

Librarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name

James Holland was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and studied history at Durham University. He has worked for several London publishing houses and has also written for a number of national newspapers and magazines. Married with a son, he lives near Salisbury.

Reviews

[Jill H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A combination of scientific innovation and heroism led to one of the lesser known but extremely important bombing raids of WWII. It was all due to the imagination of a civilian engineer/airplane designer named Barnes Wallis and his commitment to the idea of the destruction of the three major dams in Germany's Ruhr Valley. He felt strongly that the loss of these dams which provided the majority of the power for the manufacturing industry would do massive damage to the production of weapons and matériel and shorten the war. Unfortunately the dams were practically indestructible ....but Wallis had an idea.

The "bouncing bomb".......explosives encased in a cylindrical shell that, when dropped by a low flying Lancaster bomber, would bounce across the top of the water like a skipping stone and, if positioned correctly, would hit the dam wall, sink, and then explode. The combination of the explosion and the water pressure created by the explosion should breach the dam. But the key word here was "should" and the military was less than enthusiastic about the idea. But Barnes had friends in high places and after much toing and froing the creation of the Upkeep (bouncing bomb) became a reality.

The author introduces the reader not only to Barnes and the experiments that led to success but as well gives an in-depth look at the pilots of the RAF 617 Squadron who were hand picked and trained for this dangerous mission which verged on the suicidal. (Lancaster bombers were not built to fly 100 feet above the ground/water which was the necessary height needed to release the bombs.) So on the night of 16 May, 1943, two flights of 9 Lancasters each flew toward the coast of Holland and history.

A fascinating book, although a bit slow in places where the testing is described in detail. I would highly recommend it and also recommend the 1955 film starring Sir Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd.

[happy · Rating 4 out of 5]

With this book, Mr. Holland not only tells the story of the men who flew the famous mission in 1943, but also tells us why it was flown and how the bombs used on the dams came to be. He not only highlights the men who flew the mission, but the designer of the bomb they carried – Barnes Wallace.

Starting with a disastrous low level mission to Augsburg in 1942, after which the RAF basically shut down daylight and low level bombing missions, the author takes the reader through the whys and wherefores of bombing the dams on the Roer River. As he does this he looks at the genius of Wallace and also maybe more important his stubbornness. The RAF had long thought the dams where priority targets. They supplied much of the power that made the Ruhr River industrial Complex possible. However no one had come up with a method of accurately bombing them with an acceptable possibility of success. Wallace, a mainly self-taught aeronautical engineer working for Vickers comes up with the idea of a bouncing bomb that would strike the dams and sink to a level (50 or 60 feet under the surface of the reservoir) explode and cause sufficient damage to rupture the dams. To say the Bomber Command wasn’t really impressed is an understatement. Air Marshall Arthur Harris, BC commander, wrote on the first memo he received explaining the idea, “This is tripe of the wildest description. There are so many ifs and buts that there has not the smallest chance of it working.”

However the idea for the bomb was approved with a very short time frame for delivering it. From the activation of the 617th squadron with no aircraft and no personnel, to flying the mission was approximately 3 months. Mr. Holland does a good job of telling the personal stories of many of the men in the squadron. For example the Squadron commander’s, Guy Gibson, story is well told. Gibson is shown to be a highly demanding commander who is tightly wound and having recently completed a combat tour, and in normal circumstances wouldn’t have been given command of the squadron. His personal life was a mess, and the story of romancing a young nurse, not his wife, brings some sympathy to his story. One note, he had a black Lab with the name of N****r. The dog is brought up frequently and the name is a little jarring to modern sensibilities. The author also includes the personal stories of many other members of the squadron. The story of the squadron’s training is well told with lots of anecdotes.

The story of the actual raid is also fascinating. 19 crews in three different waves spread over 3 hours flew the raid. The problems they faced were enormous. Those problems included navigating to the dams. They were flying so low that for the most part they could not use navigational aids. This low altitude also contributed to two aircraft actually colliding with power lines and crashing. Another difficulty was the bomb runs themselves. The winding lakes made it difficult to be at the proper height for dropping the bombs. Several crews had to make multiple bomb runs. Somehow these problems were solved and two of the three targeted dams were breached.

The final sections of the book look at what the breaching of the dams did to the people living downstream. There stories are very emotional. Whole villages were wiped out from the torrents coming from the dams. In accessing the effect of the Ruhr factories, Mr. Holland says production for the most part wasn’t affected, but in repairing the dams, so much material and man power were diverted for constructing the Atlantic Wall in France, the invasion the following year was made much easier.

All in all an excellent look at one the most spectacular bombing raids of World War II, 4.25 stars rounded down to 4 for GR.

['Aussie Rick' · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Holland has once again produced a well-written and detailed account on a World War Two subject that should never be lost to history - the RAF Bomber Command's raid against The Möhne and Edersee Dams. The mission was called Operation Chastise and was an attack on the German dams that was carried out on 16-17 May 1943.

The squadron raised for this mission and led by Guy Gibson, was No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters". Barnes Wallis, a quiet and unassuming man developed a special "bouncing bomb" which was revolutionary for its time and which took some convincing within the RAF hierarchy.

Eight of the nineteen Lancaster bombers sent on the mission failed to return, with the loss of most of their crews. The massive big bombers were flying as low as 50 feet off the ground in the dark, with basic navigational aids, if any! These brave men did their upmost to complete their mission, in the process suffering 40% casualties.

The book covers the idea that slowly took form with Barnes Wallis in trying something to stop the war by attacking the source of Germany's economic power. The author also covers RAF Bomber Command and its nighttime missions against the Ruhr and the men who flew those missions and also those later selected to fly with 617 Squadron.

We also read about those civilians caught in the wake of the breach of these dams and also the many sad tales of those who lost their lives flying the mission and the many they left behind. This was a great story and I really felt for those involved in this mission and the many families who lost loved ones as a result.

The author also provides information to show that this mission did indeed cause major disruption to Germany’s war effort and he tells us what happen to those who survived this mission and what happen to them during the war and after. Overall a great story, well worth the time to read.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy this as much as I expected or hoped to. It’s a solid and detailed account, but for my taste too much time was spent on wrangling and infighting between the various personalities, departments and armed forces - and not enough on the development and execution of the raid itself.

At the end of the book the author tries to set the record straight about the significance and impact of the raids, and he makes an interesting and reasonably convincing case.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Holland has an exuberant and combative style and he writes with insight as well as panache. Although his narrative is primarily concerned with the events of May 1943, and the six weeks of intense training undergone by the newly created elite 617 Squadron at RAF Scampton, this work places the raid on the Ruhr Dams firmly in the context of its importance in bringing about victory for the Allied powers in WW2.

The success of Operation Chastise and the work of Barnes Wallis in preparing his five ton cylindrical ‘bouncing bomb’ apart from being of morale boosting significance to the long suffering British people, undoubtedly played a vital contribution in the successful outcome of the war.

The work interweaves official documents with private papers, diary entries, and poignant letters from air crew to loved ones, none more so than those of Navigator Charlie Williams to Gwen Parfitt (‘Bobbie’).

The epic ordeal of the nineteen specially adapted RAF Lancasters , and their young crews, flying at 250mph, at low-level, beneath the radar, barely sixty feet off the ground, and navigating their way across heavily defended Nazi Occupied Europe, avoiding heavy flak and Luftwaffe night fighters, and executing their tortuous bomb runs is a story of courage and bravery that will long live in the memory.

And the pivotal leadership played by the outstanding Wing Commander Guy Gibson, VC, DSO & Bar, DFC & Bar, and veteran of more than 170 ‘sorties’ is a tale that will never tire in the telling. And James Holland certainly does justice to this iconic war hero and a stirring tale of derring-do.

[Cropredy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written for the 70th anniversary of the raid, I picked this up in Foyles book shop in London. It had been decades since I had read anything about this raid and only dimly remembered the movie. So, this was new material for me. A good story with attention equally spent on the inspiration, the development, and finally the mission. The stories from the planes that made it and returned are gripping.

The only downside to the book was Holland's attempt in the final chapters to claim the raid as a significant success even though not all the targets were hit and the dam was rebuilt long before the war ended. His arguments are 'reaching' but in no way diminish the achievement of the planners, inventors, and crews.

Holland admits that he brings little new information to the story so if you're deeply knowledgeable about the subject, you won't learn anything new. But I knew none of the details so the book added a lot to my knowledge.

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

I watched the 1955 Dam Busters movie on tape repeatedly as a kid, and the movie has become iconic, as well as the source of the Death Star trench run in Star Wars, but as Holland points out, only a handful of historical books have been written about the operation (subsequently, Hastings published his Chastise). This one aims to correct the record, focusing primarily on the pilots who carried out the attack, though there is a solid delve into organizational and technical details.

An attack on the Ruhr dams was the obsession of Barnes Wallis, who had focused on the strategic chokepoints of natural resources. His initial plan involved a six-engined super bomber and multiton earthquake bombs, but an afternoon playing with his children made him realize that a specially designed bomb could be skipped over the surface of the reservoir like a stone. It'd sink and explode in contact with the dam face, where the magnifying effects on an underwater explosion would enable a charge of a few thousands pounds to crack the dam.

This was an easier lift. All it'd require is developing an entirely new type of weapon, modifying Lancasters to carry it, training crews in precision low-level attack, and doing it during the full moon when the dams were highest, which meant the operation had to be mid May 1943, or not at all. Bomber Command Chief Arthur Harris was profoundly against any panacea superweapon attack, which he regarded as a distraction from his strategy of night area bombing. "Bomber" Harris believed that only constant bludgeoning of cities could meaningfully disrupt Nazi military production and shorten the war, and in 1943, he finally had a force that was just barely capable of finding and destroying cities in night raids. Pulling twenty precious Lancasters and elite crews wasn't in the offing.

Barnes Wallis was far from the brilliant rogue outsider he's portrayed as, and along with F.W. Winterbotham, maneuvered the byzantine British defense establishment, into approving the raid. Once he'd been ordered to carry out a job, Harris put his reservations behind him and set one of his favorite commanders, Guy Gibson, as commander of the new specialist 617 squadron. The problem was it was now February 1943, and there were barely 10 weeks to figure out the raid.

Training and development was one of those continuous brilliant improvisations which characterized the best of British success in World War II. Gibson's pilots practiced flying the mighty Lancaster at 100', just above the ground. Elementary trigonometry, in the form of angled spotlights that merged at the right altitude, and fixed pin bombsights that aligned with towers of the dam for range, helped the crews drop their bombs at the right distance and altitude. The bomb had worked exactly once, in testing, by the time mid-May arrived, but that was enough to give the go ahead.

19 Lancasters took off late on May 16th, headed for the Ruhr. Low-level navigation was a channel, and Holland argues that a failure in the weather reporting system means that the crew was unaware of winds over the English challenge, meaning that many of them crossed into Europe over flak concentrations rather than the planned weak spots. Two planes turned back with critical damage, two flew into power lines, and six were shot down, for nearly 50% casualties on a single attack. And while bailing out of a Lancaster at 10,000 feet was hardly safe, it was possible. When things went wrong at low altitude, they were inevitably fatal.

The survivors made their attacks on the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams, destroying the first two. The devastation was incredible, spreading miles downstream. Thousands were killed (many of them slave laborers, unfortunately), bridges were torn away, and steel manufacturing severely impacted. The end effect was less than Wallis had hoped, as Albert Speer embarked on a crash plan to rebuild the dams, but the propaganda was spectacular, and the systemic effects may have impeded building Atlantic Wall defenses before the Normandy invasion.

Holland has presented a fascinating and informative exploration of the famous raid, and its human cost.

[Susan Paxton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This new book about Operation Chastise is well timed to memorialize the 70th anniversary of the raid. Curiously, it and Paul Brickhill's well known book from the 1950s on the same subject (The Dam Busters rather than Dam Busters) compliment one another nicely and both deserve to be read. More information has come to light in recent years, but Brickhill had the advantage of talking to more survivors; Holland includes a very interesting section describing the efforts of the indefatigable Albert Speer to repair the dams (in the process diverting money, concrete, steel, and workers from efforts to reinforce the defenses of Europe) and also the terror faced by those downstream, while Brickhill covered the rest of the war career of 617 Squadron, including raids against the Tirpitz and using Tallboy and Grand Slam against fortified targets. Holland's book is very thoroughly researched and written (although at least twice he mentions that the Lancaster bomber was made of steel; in fact it was, like most aircraft, made of aluminum); his sympathetic portrait of the difficult Guy Gibson and his bittersweet sort-of-love-affair with a nurse is well done, as is his portrayal of the doomed love between a radio operator and the woman he hoped to marry and take home to Australia after the war. His discussion of the development of the Upkeep mine (and parallel development of a smaller version for the Mosquito called Highball) is thorough, as is his navigation of the complex politics of getting the weapons made and the raid approved. Great reading for those interested in the topic, or anyone who enjoys tightly written nonfiction with a heart.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the famous raid on the Mohne, Eder, and Sorpe dams by the R.A.F.'s 617 Squadron in May of 1943. The trials and tribulations of this operation consume a good part of the book. The designer of the UPKEEP device, Barnes Wallis, had to battle long and hard against many nay-sayers, including the head of Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, before being allowed to complete his work.

Because time was of the essence, the training of the Lancaster crews went ahead at a stiff pace even though they were not positive the mission would be flown. In the end, Wing Commander Guy Gibson and 19 crews made the daring raid. Eight crews never returned. Two dams were heavily damaged, causing considerable repairs to be made, and a vast amount of money to be spent on those repairs.

To be sure, mistakes were made, particularly in weather prediction as unexpected winds and mist made the mission more hazardous. Also, there was not enough consideration given to the importance of the Sorpe Dam, which was an earthen dam, not a gravity dam. Still, it was an amazing feat, and one that deserves to be remembered.

[Campbell Mcaulay · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Holland tells us that only one book has been written about the dams raid - Brickhill's "The Dam Busters". A quick search on Amazon suggests that the assertion isn't entirely correct; Max Arthur wrote "A Landmark Oral History" in 2008 and several others have been published in 2013 alongside Holland's treatment. Nevertheless, it's a little surprising that so few have been written before now and the main problem with Brickhill's 1954 classic is that many of the details of the raid were unavailable to him so soon after the war. Clearly it is about time that the story was brought up to date, and with several documentaries on the subject surfacing in the last few years and a new film in the pipeline, now seems to be as good a time as any.

In the 70 odd years since the raid, the work of RAF Bomber Command has come in for intense scrutiny and not inconsiderable criticism. This is unsurprising; in the years since the war it was natural for public opinion to look with some discomfort on the horrors visited on the civilian population of Germany. Then again, in this age of precision bombing and surgical strike, it is hard to appreciate the daunting technological and operational difficulties faced by the RAF, and the immense political imperatives faced by the Allied leadership in maintaining pretty much the only concerted offensive against the enemy until D-Day*. Whatever the justification of modern attitudes to the bombing offensive, the achievements of Operation Chastise are easily tarred with the same brush. However, as Holland makes clear, it was a very different proposition than the contemporary area bombing campaign and it presaged the more discriminatory approach that we see today.

I admit that it's been quite a few years since I read Brickhill so it's hard to tell just how much more access Holland had to the truth than his predecessor or how better our understanding of the raid is because of that. Nevertheless, it's an epic story and Holland presents it very well indeed. He is also fastidious in presenting the "good side" to the dams raid story - the astonishing speed with which the Upkeep weapon was turned from a hazy concept into a working bomb and the similarly astonishing speed with which the squadron that carried it was formed and trained. Of course there is also the great courage and skill of the crews who delivered Upkeep. Holland is also careful to include a discussion of the impact of the raid and it is clear that he is no revisionist. Although it can - and probably will - be argued from both sides until the War fades from memory, Holland makes a reasonable case that the raid, at the cost of a few aircraft and their crews, had a disproportionate effect on the on the Nazi war machine.

Nor does he ignore the human factor - Holland paints a vivid and, in places, moving picture of the bomber crews, the scientists and politicos who developed the bomb and some of the German civilians who suffered the consequences of the raid. To be honest the latter is de rigeur these days (and rightly so) but in The Dambusters, Holland does rather pay it lip service. By contrast, there is an interesting inclusion of the testimony of one of the flak gunners at the Moehne Dam which adds a nice perspective to the story. Also interesting is the description of Guy Gibson; very much a "warts and all" treatment.

This IS a very well written book and a highly recommended read. The Kindle version is well presented with few (if any) typos or formatting glitches and a nice set of well reproduced photos. Perhaps a few more maps would have helped.

=========================

If this is your first foray into the WW2 Allied bombing offensive, you will find a huge selection of other titles to try, but my personal favourite (and rather in the "look back in shame" camp) is Len Deighton's novel "Bomber" - just as epic a read as The Dambusters, but presenting the more workaday face of the war. Martin Middlebrook's expansive series (The Peenemunde Raid, The Berlin Raids, The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission etc) on the campaign is also well worth a look - perhaps a little dated but remaining both accessible and detailed.

* Yes. I know that's a simplification

[Reds_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dam Busters is the story of the RAF mission to destroy dams in the industrial heartland of Germany in 1943. The strength of this book is that it tries to tell the whole story, from the initial idea of attacking these industrial targets, to the development of the technology required, the political manoeuvres needed to gain backing for the raids and the training of the crews. Finally the book describes the mission itself and it's aftermath.

All of this additional information created a real sense of tension, it seems strange to say that as we all know the outcome of the raids, but the author made plain the uncertainty that surrounded this mission right from it's inception. The reader gets a real sense of the tight timescales involved to develop the the technology and flying skills needed, and the varying levels of political support and horse-trading between the services.

Whether it offers much new information to the dedicated WWII buff, I do not know, but I found it an informative read that was clearly written and full of interesting details.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had basic knowledge of the Dam Buster's story but this book provided me with a lot more detail. It is more of a 3.5 star book. There is a lot of set up info so the book doesn't really get rolling until about the 120 page mark. The last quarter of the book, the raid and the aftermath, were the most interesting to me. There is a cast of thousands, lots of names to keep track of. Between all the military politics and procedures it is surprising the raid happened at all. A worthwhile book if you are looking for an up to date telling of this familiar story.

[Daniel Bratell · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is now 72 years and 1 weeks since Operation Chastise, the crazy idea to use bouncing bombs to destroy some of Germany's most important dams during World War 2. This book takes you through the story from sketch at a napkin (figuratively speeking), through months and years of convincing and political games until the British war ministry gives the final go ahead. With only a few weeks to go until the water is too low in the dam for the idea to work, the hardware must be built and tested and fixed. The people need to be found, trained and trained even more.

In 20 Lancasters there are 140 crew and this book follows a number of them through this time. The training, the personal conflicts, the fear, the love and the result.

The book will not change your view of the war or give any deep insights. Rather it's an interesting data point of what the result can be of one man's vision and many men's will to give it a go. If you are interested in all things World War 2, then this could be an interesting side lecture. It's easy to read (foregos most of the source references for a more flowing prose) and it was a spectacular idea.

[Dave Parry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw James Holland signing books in the bookshop at the Hay Festival in 2019 & picked this out & joined the back of the queue; he signed it graciously, even though I’d not heard his talk & when I said I was disappointed that visitors to the Imperial War Museum can’t clamber over their front section of a Lancaster bomber he grumbled that the museum has lost its way, which was quite validating!

I’d not realised that before this there was no proper, historical account of the ‘Dambusters’ raid, & this sets out to fill the gap; it’s certainly full of historical detail, both of the large scale inception & implementation of the raid & of smaller scale, incidental details; I’d imagined that there was a lot of creative licence in the film & have read Paul Brickhill’s book of almost the same name, which Holland says was written without access to official records; but as long (528 pages) & full of information as this is, I didn’t find any great revelations here, certainly not of my understanding of what happened & why; maybe I’ve seen later documentaries which have filled out or corrected my knowledge.

Better than the exhaustive detail & historical research are the excellent descriptions of what it was like to fly on allied bombing missions in the 2nd World War; the account of the ‘Dambusters’ raid itself is exhilarating; the use of first-hand accounts, personal letters & detailed flight records from the crews involved add to the character & close-up realism of these descriptions. There’s also extensive discussion of the different personalities, motivations & relationships of the characters involved... we discover how flawed, if heroic, Guy Gibson was & get some interesting insight into what it took to be a wartime commander at all levels. If anything it feels as if there might be a lot more to hear than is included from individual people involved in all aspects of what happened...

Holland seems to have a dogmatic belief that the raid was more than justified; yes, his arguments are backed up with strong evidence & maybe it’s right to counterbalance the previous belief that the big losses outweighed the achievements, but the assessment still seems a bit unsatisfactory; there’s no real appreciation that the real human losses from the raid were suffered in Germany; faithful Christian Barnes Wallis’ agony over having caused so much human suffering appears to be only over the bomber crews, not the many more civilians who died or were traumatised by it...

Stylistically this was informal & conversational which added greatly to the descriptions of the action & made a long book an easy read; but the language did often feel unnecessarily old fashioned & we could have done without little assertions that things were justified or understandable; I can make my own mind up about Gibson’s Victoria Cross & early resistance to Barnes Wallis’ ideas... (Actually, I think I probably have anyway, so never mind!)

With the proviso that it’s unashamedly pro-British & forgiving of deplorable attitudes due to the wartime conditions rather than critical of those attitudes which lead to war in the 1st place, this is an excellent book! I needed to have read it & I’m glad I have; overall better than might have come across from what I’ve said!

[Richard Olney · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a first chapter putting RAF Bomber Command and its "mission statement" during the Second World War into context, the rest of the book, including the designing, building and testing of the weapon together with the training of the crews takes place over only a few months. How did they do it? I think that might be the purpose of the book.

The chapter concerning the raid itself reads as though from a thriller, while i will have seen the film , it's not those images that that chapter brought to mind, it comes alive through Mr Holland's words.

The effects of the raid; how the Germans suffered but adjusted, how good it was for Allied and particularly British morale are dealt with together with answering the question that has previously come to my mind when i had a brief working knowledge only of the subject, namely "why didn't they use the weapon again?'

As with most of Mr Holland's earlier books, this one from 2012, I do like the chapter dealing with what happened to the main characters after the War, and its very nice that many are quoted in the present tense in the book as they were alive and kicking to tell the tales. It's very sad indeed that there are surely fewer and fewer of these people around with every day that goes past.

Finally, on a personal note, i now realise that when working in Hull for a month in 2018 that my drive up there took me past RAF Scampton. That added to my enjoyment of the book.

[Laurence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible feat of planning, execution and courage.
And British at that. I am reminded that the British effort during the war is now largely obscured by the seeming neverending and often completely fabricated American WWII movies.

Knowing this story inspired the death star run at the end of Star Wars, I couldn't help but have dramatic leitmotifs playing in my head as the bombs are dropped or planes go down.

The details of the building of the dams and the aftermath give valuable context for the effect of the raid.

Nice job of combining personality of the crews and the strategic results.

[Marshall Snyder · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all of Holland’s books, a well researched and well written book. One interesting aspect of the book is how this raid on dams in Germany might have impacted the success of the Normandy invasion a year later. Albert Speer, leader of the Reich’s industrial effort, decided on a round-the-clock effort to repair the dams and pulled 7000 Todt Organization workers off the Atlantic Wall construction project. Did the loss of those workers for 6 months diluted the anti-landing defenses enough to ensure an Allied victory at Normandy?

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read James Holland’s book about Operation Chastise after rewatching Michael Anderson’s 1955 film about the British effort to destroy the Ruhr Valley dams. Seeing it again sparked my curiosity about the attack, and I wanted to learn how closely the history matched up to Anderson’s fictionalized account. Holland’s book was a natural choice for me, as I sought to steer clear from some of the older works on the subject, and I had enjoyed reading his general history of the war between Britain and Germany.

It proved an excellent choice in every respect. Holland begins his book with the Royal Air Force’s low-level raid on Augsburg in April 1942, one that was conducted by the newly introduced Lancaster bombers. The high loss rate of this raid relatively early in Bomber Command’s campaign against Germany pushed them away from such attacks in favor of ones at much higher altitudes. This highlights the unusual nature of Barnes Wallis’s idea of the bouncing bomb, which was not just a novel weapon delivered in an unusual way, but one that required the heavy bombers to employ low-level flying with which their crews were largely unfamiliar — and this was well before factoring in the challenges of doing so at night over water and with the precision needed.

Holland then walks the readers through both the development of the bouncing bomb and Wallis’s efforts to win over the RAF to its use. As he shows, a key factor was the enthusiasm of the Royal Navy for the concept, as they wanted to use similar bombs for an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz then sheltered in the fijords of Norway. It was their interest along with the support of Charles Portal, the head of the RAF, that led to the decision in March 1943 to develop the bomb over the objections of Arthur Harris, the head of Bomber Command, who saw the idea as a distraction from the strategic bombing campaign that was only then achieving the scale he wanted. Nevertheless, Holland credits Harris with the professionalism of fully supporting the plan once the decision was made, with his authorization the diversion of precious Lancasters and the reassignment of experienced men to a secret new unit formed to bomb the Ruhr Valley dams.

The description of the formation of 617 Squadron is one of the strengths of the book, as Holland goes to considerable lengths to describe the lives of the men involved. Central to his focus is the squadron’s commander, Guy Gibson, who as Holland shows was a much more complicated figure than his public image as an earnest young man. Still in his mid-20s, he was nonetheless entrusted with the challenging tasks of forming a unit and preparing it for a mission unlike anything the Lancaster pilots had ever flown before, all while coping with emotional exhaustion after having just completed his tour of missions. His complicated personal life is one of several that Holland explores, which humanizes the men and underscores the depths of the sacrifice they were making.

In detailing the mission itself, Holland explains well the unique challenges posed by bombing each of the three dams. With the Möhne Dam, the problem was the flak protection which, while stripped down in favor of priorities elsewhere, was still a threat to the bombers. With the embankment dam on the Sorpe, its design meant that direct hits on it were necessary. And for the Eder Dam, the lack of flak protection reflected the difficulties posed by the geography, which made successful approaches difficult. Though only the Möhne and Eder dams were breached in the attack and both were subsequently repaired within months, Holland underscores both the destruction caused by the breaches and the enormous diversion of resources necessary to rebuild the dams to argue that the attacks were a lot more successful than many analyses of them have concluded, fully justifying the effort the British made to destroy them.

Holland bases his account of the raid on both the available archival records and the considerable literature that has been written about it. He does not limit his perspective, either, as he includes the Germans’ experience of the raid in ways that enrich his narrative and provide important support for his arguments. Though his effort to develop the stories of the men of the 617 Squadron doesn’t always fully distinguish them from each other, they do help to humanize them and highlight the extent of what they were risking by undertaking such a dangerous mission. Together it makes for a superb study of the raid that should be read by anyone interested in learning the history of it.

[nicholas cozens · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like James Holland as a new, refreshing eye on recent history.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Generally I don't consider an audio book to be a text that one 'reads', and this means I have up until now not included any such titles in my reviews. They can be, as in the case of the audio book version of 'World War Z' be analogous to a dramatic presentation, and one's reception of the text is not going to be the same as reading a book. Even an audio book such as this one, narrated by the author him or herself, is not the same kind of reading process. When one has the pages in front of him or herself you are engaged in a very different physical experience, and there is the ability for author, publisher and reader to interpret and interact with the information printed therein in numerous ways. An audio book is, by its nature, very linear in its narrative and also not capable of responding as flexibly to its audience. Notes, bibliographies, addenda etc are to be excised, all so story is king. Even going back to revisit something you heard in an audio book is an issue, whereas one can retrace reading tracks with the merest effort when reading a book.

Having said that there is one huge benefit to the audio book as a literary medium for the avid reader, and that is they can be consumed readily with the active voice of the author (who may or may not be the narrator) brought to life in ways that a printed text can't match. It is valid to challenge the audio book on certain grounds, however it is still a valid literary medium and as seen in the case of Holland's 'Dam Busters', it can be as rewarding, informative, enjoyable and detailed as its printed version.

There can be no argument as to the overall impressive nature of Holland's book. This may be (without having read Max Hasting's book on the subject) the definitive history of the Dam Busters, including those who developed the weapons, doctrine and organisation to launch Operation Chastise and the men who flew it. I am a fan of both the Brickhill book and the British film that both celebrated and commemorated the achievements of Wallis, Gibson and the men of 617 Squadron, yet it is very easy to see that neither version of the story suffices. Holland has produced a magisterial and authentic epic history and it would be most surprising to consider there is much else to tell about the operation. From first plans and early raids through to the final legacy of the attack on the Ruhr dams Holland gets it all and tells almost all.

There are plenty of reasons to commend this book. First off Holland fills in huge gaps regarding the research and development of Wallis's bouncing bomb idea, as well as the operational development of bombing strategy by the RAF high command during the first four years of WW2. That Holland starts his history with an account of the Augsburg Raid, a progenitor of the Dams Raid is just one indication of his desire to give as complete an account of his chosen subject. Holland also sheds much needed light on several key scientists and RAF officers who have been either sidelined or excluded from past histories of Chastise. That the Admiralty held such a pivotal role in the endorsing of the bouncing bomb project is going to surprise many. Then there is Wallis's work on the Windsor, a bomber that he and Vickers saw as the ideal weapon for waging the strategic bombing campaign against the Third Reich, which was sidelined somewhat by the Chastise project.

Where Holland truly excels in 'Dam Busters' is his focus on the human experiences of the men who flew on the raid, and in some cases the people who were most impacted by their efforts in aerial combat on the raid. It is relatively easy for Holland to concentrate on Guy Gibson, 617 Squadron's leader and VC recipient. In Holland's narrative he is not the relatively simplistic hero character as depicted and played by Richard Todd in the Dam Busters film. Holland's Gibson is a complex, conflicted and tired veteran who struggles to maintain his professionalism. He, like many of his colleagues, are young men tasked with a huge undertaking that could (and did) lead to many of them dying, and Holland does an excellent job of reminding the reader/listener of this.

Perhaps it is Holland's recounting of the experiences of Charlie Williams that is the most affecting, the most effective. Through the frequent citation of letters Williams wrote to his English girlfriend Bobbie Holland finds the perfect way for his audience to connect with one of the Dam Buster heroes. Not only is this a highly commendable approach to writing narrative history and a lesson in integrating primary source material into a text, the sub-plot of Williams' romance and premature death is dealt with as summarily as one would expect in such a dangerous context. Williams dies on the raid and Holland notes this fact as a matter of fact, as seen in the other deaths he recounts, whether Allied or indeed German.

It must also be noted that 'Dam Busters' does a lot to rebut those arguments that have been posted re the supposed failure of Operation Chastise. In the final chapters Holland posits several important historical considerations re the impact of the destruction of the Mohne and Eder dams on the Third Reich's war effort, including psychological, agricultural and the diversion of industrial effort in the lead up to Plan Zitadelle on the Eastern Front. The positive impact of the raid on British war efforts is also given due recognition, and whilst 617 Squadron may have failed to deliver a knock out punch to Hitler's war machine, it certainly was a reminder that Germany was assailed by enemies that could and would defeat it. This is brought home by Holland's considered and detailed discussion of the reaction of the Third Reich to the raid, and the cost paid by those who were directly impacted by the flooding from the breached dams.

Before this review concludes there are some minor irritations that must be mentioned. As this is an audio book Holland's voice is key to the listener/reader. For the most part Holland succeeds brilliantly in his narration. Unfortunately though he has some serious lapses when he tries to mount a Canadian, Australian or other non-British accent. He should've left this out; no one would've complained if he kept to his urbane English tones for the entire book. Also, he makes a reference to Article XV squadrons being Canadian; no, they were Commonwealth squadrons raised through the EATS program yet part of the respective RCAF/RAAF/RNZAF.

In conclusion, 'Dam Busters: The True Story of the Legendary Raid on the Ruhr' is a major achievement in WW2 narrative history. It expands previous accounts, corrects misconceptions and enriches the past history. There is no way that anyone who is a student or lay expert on the Dam Busters or military aviation history will find it easy to dismiss or ignore this text. Highly recommended indeed.

[Dave DeWitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

In college, I spent a year and a half in Navy ROTC and got straight A’s in the Naval Science courses. This led to a strong interest in military operations in general, and specifically in complicated missions that resulted in spectacular losses for the enemy. One such mission occurred in 1943, when nineteen specially fitted Lancaster bombers took off from an RAF field in Lincolnshire, England. Each of those bombers carried a single 9,000 pound bomb, and their mission was to destroy three German hydroelectric dams that powered the Third Reich’s munitions and aircraft factories. James Holland tells this thrilling story in his book Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943 (New York: Grove Press, 2012). It is a tale of great logistics, with scientists working closely with the Royal Air Force commanders to plot the raid across Germany at tree-top heights. Of the nineteen bombers, eight were shot down or crashed, and of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack, 53 were killed, a casualty rate of almost 40 percent. But the Germans lost three dams and about 1,600 people drowned from the resulting flooding. Holland does a great job with this book, and it’s military history at its finest.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well researched and gripping account not just of the raid itself but of the months and years leading up to it as Barnes Wallis makes his vision a reality and Squadron 617 put his theory into action, breaking new ground as they do. Holland pulls together all of the political wrangling that went on to get this mission through and the monumental efforts made by Wallis, Gibson and many others to convince the higher ups that not only was it a great plan but it was worth investing in and would change the course of the war. Holland includes many personal details for all of those involved showing the personal costs to the mission as well as the military costs and he even looks at the events from a German perspective, both in terms of its military and war effort but also of the people the mission effected, the families in the Ruhr valleys. Holland also looks at how the mission affected the Nazi war effort and how it helped turn the tide, giving the mission and the men who achieved it the ultimate recognition for their hard work, dedication and sacrifices, many of whom gave their lives to make this a success.

[Richard Starks · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of 617 squadron - the dam busters - is a well known one, especially in the UK, where it's popular because it combines two qualities the British like to ascribe to themselves. One is brilliant quirky eccentric genius - which, in this case, yields a highly improbable bouncing bomb - and the other is understated resolve and courage under fire - personified here by the airmen who flew the dam-busting mission (many of whom were, in fact, from Australia, New Zealand, Canada or the US). The story has been told many times before - most notably in Paul Brickhill's 1950's classic - but author James Holland does an excellent job of telling it again - with, as he states, additional information drawn from sources that were not available to other authors. Highly recommended.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

With an emphasis on the human experiences surrounding the preparation, execution and aftermath of the famous raid this new book provides a solid insight in the amazingly fast (5 months from idea to bombs away) project, that including developing the new skipping bomb, modifying the aircraft, assembling and training the squadron plus navigating through the bureaucratic rivalries to ensure the eventual go-ahead.

Especially interesting - but somewhat fragmentary - is the attempt to challenge the official assessment of the raids as having limited impact on German war production, partly due to the succesfull efforts to rebuild the dams in 5 months.

[Sylvia Langford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. I didn’t know anything about this escapade until I happened to be in Willersey, England, right after the 80th anniversary. I saw a bouquet of roses remembering their brave sons who did this daring raid, and I’ve been curious about the story for a year. I am glad I chose this novel by this author: it is a thorough retelling of the before, during, and after events, with an insightful analysis at the end. I heartily agreed with the author’s conclusions.

[Chris Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another barnstorming book from James Holland, and although it has been out for a while, it seemed appropriate to read it this year, with it being 80 years since Guy Gibson and his comrades launched their famous raid to destroy the Ruhr Dams. As expected, if you have read any of his other non-fiction, this book combines meticulous research and analysis, a keen eye for interesting and illustrative personal stories, and an accessible and entertaining writing style. I wouldn’t categorise it as revisionist, but James does seek to add a fresh perspective to the surprisingly sparse number of books written about Operation Chastise. It also picks up on a contention that he (correctly) makes in many of his books, that the Allied approach to fighting the war was both reasonable and effective, and that their performance on the battlefield was better than how it is often perceived in the popular imagination. As such, he stands within the ranks of a group of Second World War historians who are seeking to push back against a declinist view, particularly of the British (or more correctly, DUKE) forces throughout the Second World War.

With such a well-known story, it is hard to cut through the layers of myth and misconception, but James does that very effectively here. One aspect of the Dams story where he applies a corrective is in the common notion of Barnes Wallis as a bumbling boffin, a lone voice against an uncomprehending RAF bureaucracy. While there is some merit in the latter (though even this requires much more nuance), the former is wholly incorrect. As he explains, “Wallis had always been a deep thinker and a particularly inventive engineer…although first impressions may have suggested he was the archetypal absent-minded professor, nothing could have been further from the truth. Wallis had a brain that was both highly organised and pragmatic. He was a brilliant mathematician and draughtsman, and something of a perfectionist - a man who could remember figures and details with extraordinary precision. He also possessed steely resolve and determination; after all, this was a man who never went to university, who learned many of his skills through experience and huge amounts of dedicated hard work, and who later completed a degree, in his spare time, in three months. Learned and widely read, through his combination of talent, brains, hard graft and determination, he had become one of Britain’s best-regarded aircraft designers.” Wallis was also a highly effective networker with a wide range of connections that he could and did leverage to complement his areas of expertise. In the context of the Dams raid, his thinking had led him to a startling conclusion: “that the key to ending the war was to take out Germany’s power source. If its coal mines, oil depots, hydro-electric stations and water supplies – or ‘white coal’– could be destroyed, then there would be no war industry. With no war industry, Germany would no longer be able to wage war.” Wallis saw this as a much more efficient use of air power, but it lay beyond both the limits of current technology and weaponry and the operational capability of the RAF. The story of overcoming the former is, of course, the story of the development of the Upkeep bouncing bomb. The latter is intimately connected to the forming of 617 squadron, and that is the second area where Holland seeks to peel away layers of misconception.

Foremost among these is the idea that what the RAF needed was an elite squadron that could achieve feats of flying that others simply couldn’t. The reality was a need for a switch in emphasis, and a willingness to try something that didn’t align with Harris’s priorities for the bomber offensive. As James rightly points out, “Far from the special squadron being made up from volunteers and ‘special’, highly experienced crews, Gibson and Whitworth, in their desperation to stick to the strict timetable set for them, were now accepting crews with way, way less than the minimum requirement of operations. Whether this would come back to haunt them later, only time would tell.” This, rather than 617 being an elite squadron, is the most remarkable part of their story: the whole raid was a massive race against time, with untried technology and mostly untried crews. I hadn’t appreciated the extent to which the whole lead-up to the raid was rushed, with only a single live Upkeep being dropped in advance and with many of the crews never even having dropped a dummy. Describing the raid itself is where James truly hits his stride, and the jeopardy, danger and fear faced by the crews come across palpably in his writing. Rather than 617 being an elite who had skills that other squadrons lacked, the main requirement was for strong leadership and determination to see through a difficult and unprecedented mission. This is reflected in the massive casualties suffered, even by the standards of Bomber Command in 1943, with 8 of the 19 crews failing to return. And while the ‘big bomb’ principle would be taken forward by Barnes Wallis with new designs, Upkeep would never be used again, and the naval Highball variant was never used operationally at all. Ironically, it is 617 squadron who developed into a truly elite squadron under Leonard Cheshire, and who would become even more famous for their raids using the Grand Slam and Tallboy ‘earthquake’ bombs designed by Wallis - one of which was the successful sinking of the original Highball target, the Tirpitz.

The final misconception that James addresses, and the one where he comes closest to being a revisionist, is in the question of the legacy of Operation Chastise - and in this, he makes a simple and very valid point. It is wrongheaded to look at how quickly the dams were repaired and conclude that the raid was therefore futile; rather, the importance of the dams means that repairing them was a priority, and resources were redirected accordingly. He comments that, “If as much energy had been put into building the Atlantic Wall as had been dedicated to reconstruction work on the dams and in the Ruhr, the Allied invasion of June the following year might not have been so successful. As it was, Rommel’s defences were still woefully inadequate. The cost of repairing the damage wrought by the Dams Raid of 16/ 17 May 1943 was absolutely enormous – psychologically, materially, logistically and financially. It was also one the Germans simply could not afford. In no way should the achievement of the extraordinary Dams Raid ever be belittled.” The point is a good one - the effort expended on repairing the dams (and on defending both them and similar installations across the Reich) was badly needed elsewhere. Given that this level of devastation was caused by a single raid by a single squadron, it emphasises Chastise as a striking application of the principle of ‘steel not flesh’. While he acknowledges the missed opportunity of utilising follow-up raids to disrupt the repair efforts, James also highlights three main problems caused by the Chastise raid itself: “First, there was the material damage. Factories, bridges, railways, buildings and, of course, the dam itself would all have to be replaced…Second, there was the water shortage. Water was needed both as a power source and for the extraction of coal…and for cooling in other industrial processes. Water was also greatly needed for drinking and sanitation - without it the area’s large population would ultimately die or become diseased - and for the fire services. Third was the issue of manpower…the Allied bombing campaign had left many dead, wounded and homeless, which in turn meant there were fewer people to go down mines or work in factories.”

Finally, the conclusions he draws are compelling:

“Despite the failure to destroy the Sorpe, there is no question that the raid was a phenomenal achievement. It was true that the squadron had accrued around 2,000 training hours, but, really, the preparation was decidedly patchy in parts. Only one, lone live Upkeep had been dropped before the raid; half the crews had never even dropped an inert one. That they should have been expected to head over enemy-occupied territory to drop a weapon that had been dropped once before by some and by many not at all is astonishing…Barnes Wallis has often been portrayed as a lone voice desperately arguing his case in the face of a wall of po-faced bureaucracy, but this was hardly the case. That Operation CHASTISE ever happened at all is testimony to the many people from different services and from different ministries and departments who helped support his idea and who ensured it bore fruit…It has been argued that the lasting effects of the Dams Raid were minimal because they were rebuilt so quickly. This, however, is to look at it the wrong way round: they would not have been rebuilt so quickly or at so much cost had they not been important targets. The tragedy is that the post-war downplaying of their importance affected the way those who flew on the raid viewed what they had done.”

This book is a worthy addition to the vast quantity of literature on the Second World War and is a timely reminder of the astonishing achievement of Operation Chastise. As well as a riveting account of the Dams raid itself, the background on the scientific effort to develop Upkeep, the political wrangling to ensure the raid went ahead, and the perspective of some of the survivors who lived through it are all fascinating. This is a first-class piece of narrative history, and well worth your time to read.

P.S. My only quibble, and it is a minor one, is with one stylistic decision. I found the method of repetition used to make an emphatic point to be a bit irritating (the timing was going to be close. Very close indeed.) It’s not something I’ve noticed in any of his other books, and certainly not in his more recent ones, but it was quite annoying here!

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid to Smash the German Dams in 1943 by James Holland is the story of one of the more interesting innovations of World War II and the brave men who carried out the mission. James Holland was born in Salisbury in 1970 and educated at Durham University. He is the author of Fortress Malta, Italy's Sorrow, The Battle of Britain and The Sergeant Jack Tanner series of historical fiction.

As I read this book, I couldn't help thinking, "Where have I read this before?": long distance bombing mission, nearly impossible target, near seat of the pants navigation, and British fliers. Then I remember reading Vulcan 607 (the 1982 bombing mission of the Falkland Islands) and the parallels are remarkable. I am beginning to think these types of missions just might be a RAF tradition. This story takes place in World War II and involves the newly formed 617th Squadron.

Britain is looking for a way to bring the war to an early close. Germany is stalled in Russian and the tide is beginning to turn. In Germany, the population is suffering from seemingly endless bombings from the British and American bombers. They are beginning to doubt Hitler and his leadership but something needs to be done to give the German people the final push and break their spirit and their will to continue the fight. Factories have been bombed, oil reserves have been bombed, coal mines have been bombed, the last source of power is “white coal.” White coal was water power: hydroelectric dams. Holland takes time in the book to give a brief history of German hydroelectric and dam building. Barnes Wallis, Assistant Chief Designer at Vickers-Armstrong,has and idea how to bring and early end to the war by attacking the dams.

“The commander-in-Chief of the RAF's bomber force could not have been clearer. No matter what was being discussed in the corridors of the Air Ministry and the MAP, there would be no such operation taking place if he had anything to do with it. His machines – and his bomber boys – were too valuable to be wasted on mad schemes cooked up by half-baked scientists.”

Holland takes time to introduce the major players the story and relate some information of their personal lives. Many people have seen the movie and most recall only Wallis, Gibson (wing commander), and his dog. The lives and history of the other pilots and crews are discussed in some detail. Wallis' battle to bring his bomb into the war is a major part of the book. Like most great ideas, it takes a serious effort to bring the bomb from the design stage to put on planes flying over Germany.

Dam Busters is a very worthwhile read. Holland writes an excellent history and documents his as well as the introduction players from higher ups in the government and military to all the pilots and crew members of the nineteen planes. Recommended to anyone interested in World War II, the RAF, and secret war time missions.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book. It's probably the most comprehensive account of the events before, during and after the raid I've read, although Paul Brickhill's 'Dam Busters' (1951) remains well-worth reading.

What James Holland does well is to pull together all the separate threads: the design and engineering, the strategic and military, the political and administrative and - perhaps most importantly - the personal. He introduces us to the key figures at every level and every so often we're introduced to a new member of 617 Squadron. We get to know a little about a lot of them and a lot about a few of them. We become attached to some of them so that there death or survival actually matters to us. You also begin to get an idea of the danger these men put themselves through even before they joined 617 Squadron.

Being part of Bomber Command must have been terrifying, but still, these men did it. There's a quote from the book, which is worth putting out here: "...less than half the crews survived their first tour of thirty ops, & only one in five made it through a second twenty." (p278) Each man seems to have dealt with his fears in their own way. I remember reading, in Richard Morris's biography of Leonard Cheshire - Cheshire: The Biography of Leonard Cheshire, V.C., O.M. (2000) - that Cheshire felt there were two types of people when it came to dealing with fear. There were those who didn't seem to care (and he put himself in that category) and those that were terrified but went on anyway. He thought the latter were the braver men. I don't think I could have done it. And these were young men too. Guy Gibson was only 26 when he died in 1944 for heaven's sake. And Holland does a good job of showing what Gibson was like and the strain he was under.

Eight aircraft and fifty-six crew members were lost in the raid, which has sometimes been portrayed as nothing more than a PR coup with the implication that it wasn't worth it. However, Holland puts the best case I've read that shows the raids success. As he says 'In no way should the achievement of the extraordinary Dams Raid be belittled.' (509)

I can't recommend this book highly enough. If you want a comprehensive account of the Dam Busters raid then this is the best place to start. Then go and read Bomber Command (1979) by Max Hastings, Lancaster: The Second World War's Greatest Bomber (2009) by Leo McKinstry, Bomber (1970) by Len Deighton or perhaps most logically Return of the Dambusters: What 617 Squadron Did Next (2016) by John Nicol.

[Garth Mailman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a 500 page book is a lot like the experience of the participants here, long periods of waiting and testing followed by bursts of absolute terror and stress. What worked in theory depended ultimately on the ability of the pilots who had to execute the project under fire. Getting the project approved was an exercise in glad handing and diplomacy.

The author’s treatment of the process is exhaustive and painfully detailed. Although the ultimate mission must seem breathtaking getting there is a long slog.

First comes the approval process followed by the building of the bombs and the modification of the Lancasters that would drop them. Assembling and training the crews who will perform the mission coincides along with the need for utter secrecy.

Not the smallest issue was having large four-engine planes flying 100 feet over civilian areas.

It is ironic that two weeks before the mission the pilot least ready to make the flight is the captain who is supposed to be leading it, since he was tied up in meetings and procurement issues.

War is hell and people die. Balanced with the 50 some who failed to return from the raid are the thousands who died when the dams collapsed. Poignant is the bride to be who did not receive word of her man’s death because failure to get leave had prevented their marriage. Suddenly 8 maintenance crews had no lancs to look after. That those who returned had no chance to suffer survivor’s grief as they took their week’s leave but were forced to grin and bear the loss of comrades as a fact of war and not let it interfere with the ongoing effort. And then there were the men who had to send telegrams and write condolence letters to the wives and parents of the men they had lost, and those letters were hand written.

Significant that the King and Queen came to visit the base.

Hindsight is 20-20 and the final chapter dissects the mission whose failings can be laid squarely at the feet of ministry flunkies who failed to supply navigators with accurate weather maps, supplied insufficient information, and set the take-off times; not the heroic flight crews who, on a day’s notice performed an impossible task with experimental equipment.

[Nicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written, thorough account of the Dam Busters raid on the German dams in the Ruhr heartland in 1943.

It starts with the first low-flying raid involving Lancasters, the RAF's heavy bombers, following the crews on the ill-fated flight, highlighting the problems of flying such large, cumbersome aircraft at low heights. From there, we follow the evolution of the idea for the bouncing bomb and how Barnes Wallis used his connections to fight to get the weapon approved by the military powers that be.

Until the Dams Raid, there was no such thing as precision bombing, so there was a fair degree of scepticism that - even if the weapon worked - RAF crews would be able to master the complex skills needed to drop a bomb at a precise speed and height at night and likely under enemy attack.

Enter the men of 617 Squadron, a newly formed unit, scraped together in lightning-quick time and charged with training to attack a target that was unknown to all except the squadron leader, Wing Commander Guy Gibson. The book brings several of these men to life again. From Gibson, the charismatic yet often harsh disciplinarian who led the raid despite being physically and mentally exhausted when he took command of 617 Squadron to Charlie Williams, an Australian flyer, desperate to marry his English fiancee, and more in between.

The heavy burden placed on their young shoulders was immense. Gibson was only 24 when he attacked the German dams, winning a Victoria Cross for the courage and leadership he showed. Yet he'd already flown 172 operations. It's mind-boggling what we asked of our young men and women during this period of history.

The book lags a little when describing some of the science, although it never gets too complicated with its descriptions. It comes to life when we're in the planes with the crew, flying across Occupied Europe into the heart of the Reich, roaring through the skies at between fifty and one hundred feet above the ground. These were brave young men and the skill they showed in carrying out their mission was phenomenal.

If you're interested in the Dam Busters and what they did on that spring night eighty years ago, this is well worth reading.