Breaking the Dams: The Story of Dambuster David Maltby and his Crew

by Charles Foster

This is the story of the author’s uncle, David Maltby and the crew with whom he flew on the famous Dam Raid in 1943. Just five months later, on their return from an aborted mission to bomb the Dortmund Ems Canal, they all died when their aircraft went down in the North Sea. Only David’s body was recovered, washed ashore a day later, and identified by his 18 year old sister – the author’s mother.

David was the pilot of the fifth Lancaster, J-Johnny’ to drop a bomb on the Möhne Dam and cause the final breach in the dam. He was then just 23 years of age, but already had 30 operations and a D.F.C. to his name.

This book tells the story of the crew, what made them join the RAF when they new the risk was so high, how fate threw them together, what it was like for one crew to take part in the raid and what happened to them in the five months between Operation Chastise and their deaths. It goes beyond the raid to look at what happened afterwards and how the families left behind were affected. Their sons, brothers and fathers might have become famous but they had to cope with life and loss in the same way as did thousands of other British families.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2008

About the author

Charles Foster is a Fellow of Green Templeton College at the University of Oxford. He is a qualified veterinarian, teaches medical law and ethics, and is a practicing barrister. Much of his life has been spent on expeditions: he has run a 150-mile race in the Sahara, skied to the North Pole, and suffered injuries in many desolate and beautiful landscapes. He has written on travel, evolutionary biology, natural history, anthropology, and philosophy.

Reviews

[Susan Paxton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charles Foster's book Breaking the Dams is short - right around 200 pages - but it's a unique and moving look at a subject that has become somewhat stereotypical: Operation Chastise, the raid on the Ruhr dams in May 1943 by 617 Squadron. Foster's uncle, David Maltby, was a pilot in 617, and it was his Upkeep that completed the destruction of the Mohne dam. Maltby and his crew were killed only months later, and the stories of his uncle and the often distorted public memory of same along with the mystery of his death encouraged Foster to write this small, often jewel-like book.

Foster ably tells Maltby's story but at the same time weaves his own journey of discovery around it in a moving, effective way. Through a combination of family sources, interviews, and careful research in the original documents Foster has made a number of very important contributions to the 617 Squadron story; for one, a detailed timeline of the formation of the squadron that goes far in debunking some of the mythology that has plastered itself thickly around the subject. In addition, he's made an exceptionally effective selection of illustrations, avoiding as many of the common photographs and images as possible, digging into family sources and the archives to find those that are unique and fresh - including a very rare family photo of David flying his Dams raid Lancaster over his wife's home just a few days before the operation.

After telling the story of the Dams raid, Foster looks more closely at the summer of 1943 than most authors do, covering the excitement that followed in the press, the various ceremonies, and then the return to training and action. 617 flew a couple of fairly desultory operations in the summer of 1943, but as Foster reveals, testing and experimentation with Upkeep continued, though the weapon would not be used again. Towards the end of summer a new weapon arrived - a 12,000 lb. light-case blast bomb that RAF planners thought might be used against the Dortmund-Ems canal, a vital German waterway that was a major RAF target throughout the war. It was hoped that 617 Squadron, using their low-level flying skills, would be able to drop these huge bombs on a vulnerable portion of canal bank and empty it. The costliness of the Dams raid in lives seems to have been discounted, and so the Dortmund-Ems operation killed many of the aircrew who had been fortunate to survive Operation Chastise. 617 would never operate at low level again, a lesson learned at a terrible price. Among the dead was Charles Foster's uncle David Maltby and his crew.

Their loss has always been somewhat mysterious. The first attempt to attack the Dortmund-Ems canal was called off due to bad weather over the target and, in the process of returning to base, Maltby's Lancaster crashed into the North Sea. Only an oil slick, some tiny bits of floating wreckage, and Maltby's body were found. Was the cause pilot error - did Maltby clip the sea turning back? Did the 12,000 lb bomb shift? Was there some mechanical failure? Foster's close and careful investigation, going back to the original sources, suggests the cause may have been a midair between Maltby and a Mosquito returning from a raid on Berlin the same night. The evidence is largely circumstantial, as Foster readily admits, but he discovered that rumors of a collision started immediately after the crash. There the story remained until the release of more information and the studies of researcher Len Cairns, who was able to identify the Mosquito and crew who were likely involved.

Life for the Maltby family went on after the war, as it did for the families of his crew, although it’s clear that Maltby’s parents were sorely affected by the loss of their only son. Foster fills in the story of what happened to everyone, and covers the evolution of the Dams raid mythos after the war through Paul Brickhill’s book and the 1955 film, right up to recent left-wing revisionism suggesting it was all a waste, and right-wing attempts to use the Dams raid to bash Germans and immigrants. Foster sees it all in a more equitable way, and in this lovely book has illuminated much through the story of his uncle and the men who died with him.