The Big Anniversary

[Whenurhappy]

Here’s an extremely good analysis of the raid by Dan Snow, courtesy of the BBC. Reappraisal of OP CHASTISE

In many respects this Operation presaged many facets of the Revolution in Military Affairs of the early 1990s, such as Effects based operations, the use of elite crews, precision weapons, discrete and scientific targeting…


And pause to remember the 52 aircrew – all volunteers - who died and the thousands of civilians, POWs and forced labourers who also perished during the attack and in the aftermath.

One comment, however: Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, as CinC Bomber Command, according to the article above, was dismissive of the effects of the raid. I have Sir Arthur Harris’s ‘Bomber Offensive’ in my office; quite the contrary – he stresses the impact on canal navigation and industrial production as a result of the raid and explains why there weren’t follow-up attacks. He also wrote his book at the end of the war, when UPKEEP – the ‘bouncing bomb’ - was still on the Secret list.