Dambusters: All the men who took part

[Alpha Two Zero]

Hi Guys,
A daring World War II night time raid on three dams in the early hours of 17 May 1943 immortalised the RAF's 617 Squadron as the "Dambusters (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22544568)". This is the the first time that photographs of all the men who took part in the mission have been published.

[stovall]

Nice one Alpha Two Zero, you probably know there is a really good movie called Dambusters available on DVD. One gets to see the fabulous Avro Lancaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lancaster) do what it was meant to do.

[stiz]

whats really chilling is when you click the "killed" filter :frown:

[SSI01]

Yes indeed - I wonder what the montage would look like if they added another category - "Survived to VE Day"?

Most of the survivors went on to fly again with Bomber Command and quite a few failed to survive their tours.


Sobering.

[IanHenry]

Interestingly 617 squadron are being disbanded after there deployment to Afghanistan ends in spring of next year. They will be reformed when they are re equipped with F-35.



Ian.

[aircav1970]

I just recently watched a program on "Nova" called "Bombing Hitler's Dams" where a modern day British engineer recreated all of Barnes Wallis's experiments to create the "bouncing bombs" that finally got the job done.They used a DC-4 owned by Buffalo Air in Canada to play the part of a Lancaster and actually built a dam to bust using the new bouncers they created.An extremely interesting show,I recommend watching it if you are interested in the whole story....available on Netflix.... (at least that where I found it):cool:

[Matt Wynn]

yeah Gibson himself was killed about a year and 4 months later flying a Mosquito over Steenbergen in the Netherlands, there is a road named after him and the other crewman (Warwick) near where the mossie came down and a mosaic of bricks (in Union Flag and with 1944) where it fell.... Barnes Wallis was said to never have really gotten over the loss of so many aircrew in one raid...