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didactylos's review against another edition
dark
informative
medium-paced
4.25
Well up to his usual standard, Holland combines great research with a narrative that is readable.
catherine_t's review
adventurous
emotional
informative
tense
medium-paced
4.0
In 1943, an audacious plan was hatched to bomb several important dams in Germany's Ruhr industrial region. The weapon, codenamed Upkeep, was the brainchild of Barnes Wallis, an engineer with A. V. Roe (builders of the Lancaster bomber). With the formation of elite bomber squadron 617, led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, Bomber Command had a method of delivery. The operation, codenamed Chastise, was a feat of ingenuity and daring.
Although there have been a couple of previous books on the subject (and a Hollywood movie), Holland has the advantage of declassified documents. He was also able to interview the four surviving (at the time) members of 617 Squadron. His book is well researched.
While Holland's writing is a bit uneven at times, his pacing is very good. The reader is carried along by the story of the men involved and the task they have had set for them.
I have a strong interest in World War II history, especially as it pertains to Britain and Canada in the European theatre. The "Dam Busters" raid was pivotal to the war effort, interrupting Nazi Germany's production of war materiel and forcing the temporary withdrawal of labourers intended to build the Atlantic Wall back to the Ruhr to rebuild the dams. Had the raid been unsuccessful, or if it had never happened at all, the D-Day invasion might have been as much of a disaster as the Dieppe raid.
If you too have an interest in European WWII history, this is a fine resource.
Although there have been a couple of previous books on the subject (and a Hollywood movie), Holland has the advantage of declassified documents. He was also able to interview the four surviving (at the time) members of 617 Squadron. His book is well researched.
While Holland's writing is a bit uneven at times, his pacing is very good. The reader is carried along by the story of the men involved and the task they have had set for them.
I have a strong interest in World War II history, especially as it pertains to Britain and Canada in the European theatre. The "Dam Busters" raid was pivotal to the war effort, interrupting Nazi Germany's production of war materiel and forcing the temporary withdrawal of labourers intended to build the Atlantic Wall back to the Ruhr to rebuild the dams. Had the raid been unsuccessful, or if it had never happened at all, the D-Day invasion might have been as much of a disaster as the Dieppe raid.
If you too have an interest in European WWII history, this is a fine resource.
jwest87's review
4.0
The middle is very dry and tough to get through. That might be because, I'm very new to this period of history and a lot of the plane terminology and people involved were hard to memorize. Nevertheless, this was a fantastic story that seems to be overlooked when learning about WWII.
mburnamfink's review
adventurous
informative
5.0
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 channel, 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.
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 channel, 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.
gautamsing's review
5.0
The Dambusters of 617 Squadron, are probably the most famous wartime air force squadron in the world.
Their raid on the Ruhr dams that flooded the area, caused great destruction & diverted large resources from the Nazi war effort, is one those amazing stories of World War2. The heroes are undoubtedly Barnes Wallis, Guy Gibson, and of rest of 617 squadron I cannot forget Joe McCarthy’s doggedness in getting airborne & his 10 attempts on the Sorpe dam when he finally got there.
The story starts with Wallis thinking of out of the box ways to attack the German war effort and his idea to send bouncing bombs to breach dams and cause horrible downstream disruption. Conventional methods wouldn’t do it.
Starting with his bizarre idea, these “science-fiction” bombs had to designed & built, Lancaster bombers to be modified to carry & launch them spinning fast to enable the bounces, a special squadron formed to fly at 60 feet above water at 250MPH at night to do so, and all of this done within 3 months to ensure maximum effect given the water levels. Sounds impossible, but they did it.
The book starts with an account of the Augsburg raid on April 17 ,1942, 13 months less 1 day before the Dam Busters raid. While reading it, I thought Holland was describing this to link it to people. But then I found his goal was to link it with the key aspects of navigation & timing. In today’s world of GPS, we forget how difficult it was for planes to find their way 73 years ago.
Wallis enters the story when on January 28, 1943 he shows a film at the Vickers HQ where “What they witnessed was a new weapon” seeing a Wellington bomber launching a bouncing bomb that could bypass torpedo nets and hence attack ships and dams protected by them.
But Wallis’s story actually starts much earlier, at the start of the war, thinking of unconventional methods to attack German war production. He reached out to many to flesh out his ideas, including Group Captain Fred Winterbotham of MI6, who vitally arranged an introduction to Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s Scientific Advisor, who also saw the film on February 2.
Once approved, Guy Gibson is chosen as squadron commander. Then he chooses the crew, and crucially the support staff, of 617 squadron. Quite amazing how training is done in just 3 months, with practice flights at 60 feet over England enroute to lakes similar to the ones near the dams. Due to shortage of time, training with the actual bouncing bomb is only done by some crew & in fact the squadron takes off on just bravado.
The squadron is split into 3 parts, and the experiences of each is very different. The one thing I recall is Joe McCarthy’s struggle to get airborne when he did not give up, and the 10 attempts of him & his crew on the Sorpe dam.
An aspect of this that always puzzled me was, despite the ingenuity & the bravery of the attack, how it didn’t seem to make a lasting impact. It appears that there was no subsequent bombing campaign to ensure the damage persisted.
I bought this book from this lovely shop called Heywood Hill in Mayfair (www.heywoodhill.com), a place I was introduced to by its longtime former Manager, John Saumarez Smith.
Another personal aside is the questions I get from my 5 year son who asks about the word “Dam” in a book on my bedside table, as he has been told that “damn” is a bad word!
Their raid on the Ruhr dams that flooded the area, caused great destruction & diverted large resources from the Nazi war effort, is one those amazing stories of World War2. The heroes are undoubtedly Barnes Wallis, Guy Gibson, and of rest of 617 squadron I cannot forget Joe McCarthy’s doggedness in getting airborne & his 10 attempts on the Sorpe dam when he finally got there.
The story starts with Wallis thinking of out of the box ways to attack the German war effort and his idea to send bouncing bombs to breach dams and cause horrible downstream disruption. Conventional methods wouldn’t do it.
Starting with his bizarre idea, these “science-fiction” bombs had to designed & built, Lancaster bombers to be modified to carry & launch them spinning fast to enable the bounces, a special squadron formed to fly at 60 feet above water at 250MPH at night to do so, and all of this done within 3 months to ensure maximum effect given the water levels. Sounds impossible, but they did it.
The book starts with an account of the Augsburg raid on April 17 ,1942, 13 months less 1 day before the Dam Busters raid. While reading it, I thought Holland was describing this to link it to people. But then I found his goal was to link it with the key aspects of navigation & timing. In today’s world of GPS, we forget how difficult it was for planes to find their way 73 years ago.
Wallis enters the story when on January 28, 1943 he shows a film at the Vickers HQ where “What they witnessed was a new weapon” seeing a Wellington bomber launching a bouncing bomb that could bypass torpedo nets and hence attack ships and dams protected by them.
But Wallis’s story actually starts much earlier, at the start of the war, thinking of unconventional methods to attack German war production. He reached out to many to flesh out his ideas, including Group Captain Fred Winterbotham of MI6, who vitally arranged an introduction to Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s Scientific Advisor, who also saw the film on February 2.
Once approved, Guy Gibson is chosen as squadron commander. Then he chooses the crew, and crucially the support staff, of 617 squadron. Quite amazing how training is done in just 3 months, with practice flights at 60 feet over England enroute to lakes similar to the ones near the dams. Due to shortage of time, training with the actual bouncing bomb is only done by some crew & in fact the squadron takes off on just bravado.
The squadron is split into 3 parts, and the experiences of each is very different. The one thing I recall is Joe McCarthy’s struggle to get airborne when he did not give up, and the 10 attempts of him & his crew on the Sorpe dam.
An aspect of this that always puzzled me was, despite the ingenuity & the bravery of the attack, how it didn’t seem to make a lasting impact. It appears that there was no subsequent bombing campaign to ensure the damage persisted.
I bought this book from this lovely shop called Heywood Hill in Mayfair (www.heywoodhill.com), a place I was introduced to by its longtime former Manager, John Saumarez Smith.
Another personal aside is the questions I get from my 5 year son who asks about the word “Dam” in a book on my bedside table, as he has been told that “damn” is a bad word!
briang_67's review
5.0
Masterfully narrated by John Lee, this is an emotional journey about the men and women behind the great raid. As iconic in its impact as Waterloo, Gettysburg, Trafalgar, or Crecy.
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