Trenchard lecture The Dambuster legend in Wartime Britain is now online.

[Downwind.Maddl-Land]

Originally Posted by pr00ne

HHHmmm,

What strategic benefit? Chastise set out to destroy four Ruhr dams, the Mohne, the Eder, the Sorpe and Schwelme. Only the first two were breached, despite 5 aircraft in the 2nd wave being dedicated to breaching the Sorpe alone, which remained intact, the Schwelme not even being attacked. Whilst local devastation was widespread, strategic impact and destruction to industry was not, with most of the dead being Ukrainian female slave labourers. Speer had the damaged factories back in full production in just over a week.

Oddly, despite the Upkeep weapon being kept a closely guarded secret in the UK for the next 19 years, the Germans had the full capability and specification, including mode of operation, fully established by the end of May 1943.

Perhaps the revisionist tone is seen by some as distasteful, but in reality it is merely correcting the propaganda and fake news put out, understandably, at the time, when the British authorities trumpeted with triumph about a 'successful operation to breach the Mohne and Eder dams', which was never the case, and massively exaggerating the damage and strategic impact of the breaching of the 2 dams.

None of this takes away one single jot of the courage and determination of the crews who carried out the raid, at a very high cost.

“Chastise set out to destroy four Ruhr dams, the Mohne, the Eder, the Sorpe and Schwelme.”

Wrong: The Primary targets were the Mohne (target X), the Eder (Y) and the Sorpe (Z). The Secondary targets (regrettably referred to as 'last resort' targets, using the service writing conventions of the time) were the Lister (D), Ennepe (E), Diemel (F) and Henne dams; the latter was included in the draft Op Order but omitted from the final version. Source: John Sweetman; The Dambusters Raid ch 7 and illustration.

There isn’t a Schwelme dam; which puts the truth and accuracy of the rest of your post into sharp relief.

“Only the first two were breached, despite 5 aircraft in the 2nd wave being dedicated to breaching the Sorpe alone, which remained intact, the Schwelme not even being attacked.”

Of the 5 aircraft in the 2nd wave targeted against the Sorpe (Z), 4 didn’t reach the dam. Barlow and Byers were both shot down on the way in, Rice clipped the sea and lost his mine (lucky to survive) and RTB’d, and Munro was hit by flak that rendered his intercom U/S and unable to coordinate an attack and also had to RTB. Consequently, only 1 aircraft (McCarthy’s) from Wave 2 reached the Sorpe to undertake a successful attack that failed to breach the dam. One aircraft (Brown) from wave 3 also attacked the Sorpe (Z) dam with similar results. Source: Historical record, correctly and accurately recounted.

You can’t attack a target the does not exist, ie a mythical ‘Schwelme’ dam.

It should be noted that Wallis was not in favour of using UPKEEP to attack the Sorpe (Z) dam due the it’s earthen and shallow-faced construction and only agreed to its use in a ‘dumb’ mode (ie dropped, unspun, from an approach along the length of the dam) at the insistence of the Air Ministry who stated in a Note:

[destruction of the Sorpe] “would be worth much more than twice the destruction of one”.

Wallis, reluctantly, agreed that a chance of “real success” might be possible when the attack method was changed but would require multiple - at least 6 – hits to undermine the earth support and crack the core, leading to seepage, resulting in eventual failure. Accordingly, it is likely that 6 aircraft were to be allocated to the Sorpe (Z), but the inability to repair Maudslay’s aircraft (damaged a few days before by water splash) in time, together with the crew sickness (Divall) meant that only 19 airframes and crews could be mustered. It was always likely that at least one of wave 3 would be directed to the Sorpe (Z) to make the number up to Wallis’ minimum of 6 UPKEEPs.

(It is of interest to note that Wallis was exactly right in not favouring the Sorpe dam as a target for UPKEEP. Seventeen months later, the Sorpe survived 8 direct hits from TALLBOY bombs, including one plumb in the centre on the crest.)

“Speer had the damaged factories back in full production in just over a week”.

Verification and Source?

I have three:

Eleven war-production factories were totally destroyed (you don't replace those within a week), 114 others damaged, 25 rail and road bridges were totally destroyed (ditto) and a further 21 severely damaged in the area affected by the Möhne breach alone. Source: John Sweetman; The Dambusters Raid ch 10.

Josef Goebbels wrote: “The attacks by the British bombers on the dams in our valleys were very successful………….Damage to production was more than normal.” Source: James Holland; Dam Busters – The Race to Smash the Dams ch 28.

Albert Speer: “[the Dams raid was] a disaster for us for a number of months.”

“That night, employing just a few bombers, the British came close to a success which would have been greater than anything they had achieved hitherto with a commitment of thousands of bombers.” Source: Max Arthur; Dambusters - A Landmark Oral History ch 10, itself taken from Albert Speer’s own book – Inside the Third Reich.

“Oddly, despite the Upkeep weapon being kept a closely guarded secret in the UK for the next 19 years, the Germans had the full capability and specification, including mode of operation, fully established by the end of May 1943.”

And? Despite having an intact UPKEEP, they didn’t appreciate the requirement for backspin and their development along similar lines, ‘Kurt’ – spurred by the success of UPKEEP – could not be brought to operational fruition.

“Perhaps the revisionist tone is seen by some as distasteful, but in reality it is merely correcting the propaganda and fake news put out, understandably, at the time, when the British authorities trumpeted with triumph about a 'successful operation to breach the Mohne and Eder dams', which was never the case, and massively exaggerating the damage and strategic impact of the breaching of the 2 dams.”

I don’t find your revisionist tone distasteful – I find it repugnant and insulting. It’s not correcting propaganda and ‘fake news’ – it is ‘in reality’ - attempting to re-write recorded history (examined and verified by many diverse sources – see above) with the sole purpose of denigrating worthy achievements in defeating one of the most evil administrations ever to see the light of day with manifestly inaccurate falsehoods and half-truths, which – despite how many times they are repeated - remain just that; falsehoods and half-truths.