My name is Charles Foster. I’m a writer, editor and designer and I live in Dublin, Ireland.
I’ve set this blog up as a service to anyone who would like to find out more, or share material, about the RAF’s 617 Squadron between its formation in March 1943 and the end of that year. I occasionally stray into events which occurred later in the Second World War, but I don’t claim any expert knowledge of this period.
The reason for my interest is personal: my late mother was Jean Foster, née Maltby, and was Dams Raid pilot Sqn Ldr David Maltby’s younger sister. David and his whole crew were killed returning from an aborted operation in September 1943.
This led me to write a book about David Maltby and his crew, which was recently published by Pen and Sword. You can find out more about this at my separate website.
Contact me by email here.
Comments policy
All the posts give you the facility to comment, and these are welcome, providing that they are not defamatory, racist or sexist. I reserve the right to edit them.
If you have the urge to write about one particular topic – the name of the dog in any remake of the famous 1955 film The Dam Busters – then please read the next paragraph first.
I don’t publish comments about the name of the dog because, frankly, this is a tedious debate that has happened many times over. It might have been acceptable in the 1950s to use certain words, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hurtful or wrong, even then. The world has moved on, the original name of the dog is offensive and simply cannot be used in the remake of the film, however historically accurate it might be. You can justify using a racist word in other places on the internet, but I don’t want to see it on this blog.
I’ve written more about this in a post from June 2011. Otherwise, comment away!
Interesting Blog Ive always been fascinated with anything to do with the Dams Raids, several years ago I had the extreme honour and privilige to have a small part in helping to find and excavate ED 825″The last Dambuster” in France. Bomb Aimer Johnny Johnson survived this crash and returned to the field for the first time in 63 years. Some incredible finds were made during the excavation and it was later the subject of TV Documentary. The full story of this dig and the relatives in attendance etc is told in a new chapter creating a revised edition to Redkite Books superb volume “Dambusters” which has just been released…just thought anyone interested may like to know.
Kind regards Julian Evan-Hart
attached is FLICKR link showing ideas for the forthcoming remake – hope they are of interst
Thanks Charles for setting up the site.
I am sure I am not alone in developing a great fondness for the Dambusters when I first watched the film as a young boy. In fact I loved it so much that one day I went into the cinema in Bounds Green (NW London) when it opened and with the help of some sandwiches, saw it three times that day alone! It was possible to do it in those days.
Since then I have, when I can, visited Woodhall Spa, read what I can and have even purchased one of Gerald Coulson’s signed prints.
My mother and sister even arranged for a private showing of the film for me in a cinema for my 60th – that was such a brilliant surprise.
I am not sure why I developed this great fondness for all things ‘Dambusters’ but I am sure that one of them is the intense dedication and bravery of the men like your uncle.
Thanks again.
I’m really glad to have found this blog. My Mum and Dad brought me up watching b&w British postwar films on weekend TV, and the film captivated me from an early age. I’ve developed an obsession with the raid, people connected to it, and the film, which I caught as it was meant to be seen at Lancaster’s Duke’s Cinema a couple of years ago. Appreciate the courage of your uncle and his comrades, and your commitment to honouring that here.
As others have mentioned, I to am glad I found your blog, and as many have said before, I to have a great fascination for the ” Dambusters ”
So much so that I join a living history group many years ago called Ops 39-45 who are a bunch of people dedicated and very passionate about keeping the memory alive of all who served in the RAF during the war years. Ops, once a year, generally around the beginning of the year, had our AGM at the Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa, I’m sure I have no need to give any one a history lesson, our president, who has now passed, RIP, was a great man and respected friend by all who ever met him and widely loved and admire by people world wide, Mr Richard ( Toddy ) Todd. You can find Ops 39-45 at many event through out the year at many aviation event, especially Duxford ” Flying Legends ” , come and say hello. Gilly……..Out.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1967218/Fly-past-marks-Dambusters-anniversary.html
Pictures of this years anniversary flypast
Matthew — thanks for pointing this out, but the story relates to the flypast in 2008!
Charles Foster
hi there
congrats for such wonderful blog, feel free in posting in the Dambusters paeg I created in Facebook; it has almost 2,000 followers and is very active
a big hug from Santiago, Chile
Thanks for your efforts on this.
My father W/C D.A.MacLean(interesting initials!) flew as a navigator with Joe McCarthy on the Dams raid. My mother (who is still alive) was a WAAF wireless op for the raid as well.
Hi
I am at present writing the biography of Johnny Johnson, based on many interviews with him. He was the bomb aimer in the same aircraft as your father and would be very interested in any information you might have relating to that plane and it’s crew.
Regards
David bolton
Hi,
Do you have contact details for Johnny Johnson? My Grandfather was the senior intelligence officer for the Dambusters (squadron Leader William Townson). I have been gathering information and research based on him and his work (very colourful) but one of the thiings I am lacking in all of this is accounts of him from people who actually knew him (he died in 1953). Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. You can contact me at conradtownson@hotmail.com or 07795 028524
Thanks
Conrad Townson
I am, for some reason, a person who is fascinated by all things connected to The Dambusters. From almost the first time I saw the film when I was 7 or 8 I developed a tremendous appreciation of the men that flew and put therir lives on the line every time they went on a raid. You must be very proud of what he did during the war. I’m sure I would be.
A few years ago I saw a Lancaster bomber fly over head which I am presuming was the September 2009 fly past of Lords cricket ground. I was with my very young children in a playground off Abbey Gardens , St .Johns Wood. As I gazed upward a gentleman i hadnt noticed before said “it’s a Lancaster, I used to fly them.” I so wish now I had engaged him further in conversation, and had just thought to say thank you. My son, now 7 is obsessed with Lancasters. Do you know any surviving Lancaster crewmen who might now live in or around St. Johns Wood who it might have been?
Just a note to say thanks for a really interesting blog. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and will pop in regularly to keep up with news.
Best wishes,
Alan
Hope this movie gets made, my Dad served at Coningsby from 6th December 1944 to 16th February 1945, before he was sent on to Long Newton in Gloucestershire for Advanced Flying Unit. While at Coningsby which was at that time, home to 83 and 97 Pathfinder Sqdns, since 617 had been transferred to Woodhall Spa. Dad’s job was to be appointed to the dispersal caravan (black and white squares on side you see in the movies), no aircraft could leave the ground without a green flare from the caravan, this is what my father did while still training as a pilot. It was here my father personally saluted Air Vice Marshall Leigh Mallory while out for a stroll. My Dad still has his uniform and his small duffle bag, which we are prepared to allow Peter Jackson’s costume people look at if they want, I have personally not that long ago worked with Mr Jackson on the Hobbit Movie.
Any word on the Peter Jackson re-make of the film?
After I saw the 1955 film my mother told me of how she would watch the test flights of the Bouncing Bomb from the beach near Birchington-on-Sea in Kent, I was yet to be born at Gravesend hospital.
One of the highlites of 2011 was my visit to the Elan Valley in Mid Wales to see the most impressive remaind of Barnes Wallaces coffer dam, the one he built specially to test the explosive charges for his bouncing bomb.
I used to live in Sounth wales and attended the annual Round the Lakes 20mile road race held in Rhayader for five years on the trot without realising the existence of Wallaces dam adjacent to the Caban Coch dam near the Elan Valley visitor centre.
Unfortunately the walk to the remains of the dam are not suitable for the infirm or disabled travelling along a very rocky and steep path on the opposite side of Caban Coch.
Your first view of the dam will remain vivid for the rest of your life, its huge, atleast fourty feet high and well over three hundred feet wide.
Watching the film “The Dambusters” near the begining where Barnes shows the RAF Ministry officials the explosive impact on his mock up of the dam could not be further from the truth.
He chose this very remote part of Mid Wales for the simple fact that it was almost guaranteed nobody let alone the Germans would see what was going on.
It is in such a secluded spot that not even i knew about it, and i must have passed Caban Coch reservoir on the opposite side to the dams remains atleast thirty times.
I can throughly recommend anyone interested in the Dambusters story to take a visit, but you must enquire at the visitor centre just outside Rhyader otherwise you will never know where to go.
Even the original buildings used by Wallace are still there next to the dam, in an almost timewarp.
Considering its part of one of the most significant events in the war it is thought provoking standing next to the dam with its huge gaping hole in the middle.
Many thanks Peter. I will add this to my ‘bucket list’ and make sure I do it.
I am actually ticking off something in my bucket list this Tuesday as I am going to look at and have a ride in the Avro Lancaster based in Licolnshire. It is not airworthy and is able to taxy but that will be just great as far as I am concerned.
Thanks again for the info.
An excellent blog and very informative -thanks.
I have been running Dambuster Motorcycle Tours for five years now as I was based in Germany for a number of years and got to know the dams and Ruhr Valley really well so decided to start tours there. Next year we are running a tour to coincide with the anniversary and will be on the Mohne Dam at midnight on the 16th May to commemorate the raid and then visit the Memorial at Gunne to remember all those lost when the dams were breached. For the tour we have a full itinerary which is available on our website, and we also have a Facebook Group (easy to Google as I don’t wish to advertise on here) which is full of info too.
Keep up the good work, Regards, Tony Dadson – Dambuster Motorcycle Tours.
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The oar referenced on your blog http://dambustersblog.com/2010/03/24/a-wizard-show-rc-sherriff-and-the-dam-busters/#comments was featured on today’s BBC Antiques Roadshow (6th Jan 2013).
Hello Charles, thanks for hosting this web site which I find most interesting. My mother, Irene Brown (Mountney) past away last September, she was a WAAF and a parachute packer for 617 at the time of the raid. She and Charles W. Roberts (Youngs navigator on the raid) were engaged and so I follow the blog with total interest to discover more of Charles. I was lucky enough to be invited to last years reunion of the Dambusters, meeting so many interesting people including Johnny Johnson and the daughter of the great Barnes Wallace. During the evening I also met a dutchman and his rather beautiful daughter who help tend the graves of Young and his crew. I was touched by the kindness still shown to these men, after all the years have past, and how refreshing it is to find folk still willing to give up their time to look after our ‘Boys’ far from home. My chum Glen (ex tail gunner of 617) has invited me again this year to join him at the reunion, I’ll call in at the bar in Petwood to see mother…..as she’s in the large photo of the Squadron (taken after the raid) hanging in the right of the bar. Cheers Mum.
Hi,
Is there a way of finding out when Dambusters reunion events are scheduled for. My grandfather was part of the planning of the raids and I would like to meet with people connected with the Dambusters
Thanks
Conrad
Hello Charles. Just found your web site whilst looking for details of the next possible Lancaster flypast over Derwent Dams as I have to record this for my family history.
My father, Alfred Schofield, was head of the drawing office at Avro Chadderton during the war years working on and designing the machinery that made the Avro Lancaster.
He left AVRO after the war, remaining in engineering, his passion, to go on to be a consulting engineer untill he died in 1966.
As a child I can remember seeing a flying jacket in his workshop at home but it was not untill I was much older I wondered if he had ever test flown in a Lancaster……. wow!
Thank you for making this site.
I am intrigued by a passage in Hugh Trevor-Roper’s Wartime Journals.
“I have never met my cousin Dick Trevor-Roper of Plas Teg but whenever his name drifts into my ken it is attached to some exploit showing a proper spirit of enterprise and adventure – either controlling an extensive underground betting operation …climbing the outside of skyscrapers..being cashiered from the Regular Army, or rehabilitating it by brilliant exploits in the RAF.”
Richard was the son of Captain Charles Cadwaladr Trevor-Roper who was killed in the Great War.
According Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage he gained the rank of 2nd Lieutenant in August 1935 in the service of the Royal Artillery but ultimately was killed on air operations over Germany 31 March 1944.
Does anybody know more?
Hi Adam,
Richard Trevor-Roper went on to fly for the Pathfinders, small groups of parachute soldiers formed into pathfinder units, to parachute ahead of the main force. Their tasks were to mark the drop zones or landing zones, set up radio beacons as a guide for the aircraft carrying the main force and to clear and protect the area as the main force arrive. The units were formed into two companies to work with the two airborne divisions.
Richard sadly died on one of the worst nights for Bomber Command on 30/31 March 1944.
Richard had one son Charles who is my father, i hope this is useful information for you.
Matthew Trevor-Roper
Charles,
When you have completed all 133 Dambusters of the Day, how about compiling them in a book for purchase.
Hi Charles, can I just say that this is a terrific blog and I am loving every update. I have added it to the resources page on WW2 Discovery, I hope that is ok? http://ww2discovery.net/resources
Ross Corbett
Like so many others I have had a passion and fascination for the ‘dambusters’ spanning some 40 years. As a child my father allowed me to stay up and watch the film with him and from that day forward I have been interested in that particular mission and in Bomber Command in general. I am a Lincolnshire Lass and a ‘Granthamian’ so I have also been immensley proud of our county’s rich history of Bomber Command and also Grantham’s close links with the dambuster’s raids. I cannot not mention the Avro Lancaster Bomber and my devotion to it. I have been lucky enough to get up close to the BBMF craft (I work for Lincolnshire Libraries) and for my recent 50th Birthday, my family presented me with a VIP day (16th April 2013) at the Lincolnshire Aviation Centre at East Kirkby where I will taxy down the runway in ‘Just Jane’. I will regard this experience as equal in momentous occasions, as both my marriage and the birth of my daughter. We are reminded every year of the sacrifices that our servicemen and women made in two world wars, and I feel personally that no greater sacrifice has been made more than Bomber Command, who waited a lifetime for recognition. As my father sat me down and told me of his father’s sacrifice, I have passed this on to my own daughter. We have the freedom today because of their actions. ‘Lest we forget?’ I will never forget and thank them from the bottom of my heart for giving me a future. I am paying tribute to the 70th Anniversary of the ‘Dambusters’ by presenting my own display at the local library in Grantham from 20th April to 24th May 2013 in the downstairs foyer. I would like to publicly thank Charles Foster for his assistance with the crew list.
Hi Charles, having a father named Derrick Gibson, (squadron 72 Leonard Cheshire’s) who was in Bomber Command, it was inevitable he would name his son Guy Gibson, and hardly a day has gone by without someone commenting! It used to be where’s the black dog, and I allow close friends to call me Wing Commander! It has however enabled me to talk to and meet a lot of people who just wanted to share their memories, and how they felt about the supreme efforts of The Dambusters and BC. I would very much like to meet anyone who served from 617 if I can? It would be an honour to shake their hand. If this gives anyone the ‘spur’ to contact me, I would like to hear from them through your blog…… Thanks again, Guy Gibson
As we’re coming up to the 70th anniversary of the Dams raid you may be interested in this: in 1967 my father was CO of RAF Scampton. Plans were afoot for a major 25th anniversary reunion of the wartime 617 Squadron survivors… but in May 1968, by which time my father’s posting would have come to an end. The solution? Executive decision in the finest military tradition: change the reunion to a 24th anniversary – after all, what’s in a name? Thus the great event took place during my father’s term of office with virtually all the surviving wartime members of wartime 617 attending. Waddington’s flying Lancaster, City of Lincoln, flew circuits and bumps, young Vulcan pilots sat in awe at the feet of Mickey Martin and Leonard Cheshire after dinner, and we even had Cheshire to stay the night (he came with the wrong medals – picked up his wife’s by mistake – so we never got to see VC, DSO & 2 bars, DFC). I never found out what happened at the “real” 25th anniversary the next year. Probably a damp squib.
Hello Mr Foster
My name is Richard Duhme I am working in a small cinema in Soest, Germany. We are not far away from the Möhnesee and I would like to show the movie ‘”Dam Busters” from 1954.
The problem is I only know who has got the film rights for the DVD. And my problem is I don’t know who has it for public presentation.
The question is, do you have any clue who might has it? Or maybe you have a hint for my research?
Thanks a lot for any answer!
Cheers!
Richard Duhme
Hello,
I am leaving a message here in the hope that someone who visits it might be able to help. I am a teacher at Hutton C of E Grammar School near Preston Lancs. I know that one of our old boys took part in the Dam Buster raid. Unfortunately I cannot remember his name. I have searched through the names you have listed but none match the names on our honours board. I really would like to do some kind of presentation but I cannot get in touch with anyone who might have the information I need. I remember a previous deputy head doing an assembly about him and I know he had a nick name and I am fairly sure he was awarded an honour. can you help at all? thankyou.
My Grandfather was from Bolton (not a million miles away) and he was the senior intelligence officer for the dambusters (Squadron Leader William Townson). Not sure that is close enough for you though.
Regards
Conrad
My father served in Squadron 72 in bomber command, under Cheshire and described him as a extremely easy to talk to person and a great leader, and years later did fund raising for him for The Homes via Variety Club of GB. . My father didn’t have a part in 617′s mission but his emotions were roused as much as all the squadrons were, as what the mission (being celebrated today) accomplished was a massive boost to morale! My father became an aircraft electrician, and talked about ‘patching up Lancaster’s', sometimes within one day to get them out on another mission with bombs loaded, and away they would go, fast turn around. Hence my name – best wishes to all, Guy Gibson (and yes, my Dad had a black dog!)
Margaret, the names of those who flew on the raid are what they are. There are a few possibilities; firstly could your ex boy be one of the crews who did not fly due to illness?
Namely: Wilson, Johnson, Knox, Mieyette, Coles, Payne, Hornby
Divall, Blake, Warwick, Simpson, McArthur, Williams, Rodger, Buntaine
Sadly all of these were later killed in action.
Or, could it be that he subsequently joined 617 Squadron?
Over the years there have been about 500 people who flew on the Dams Raid as the story gets slightly amended in folk law!
The comment from last September by Peter about the Caban Coch reservoir is wrong, he is getting mixed up. It was the Nant y Gro Dam, which was blown up by Wallis in 1942 in order to test his theory and test the amount of explosive required. It was owned by the Birmingham Water Authority who built the Elan Valley in the 1890s.
The Nant Y Gro dam was used to supply water to the workers and the small community that lived there and who built the dams. It now feeds the Caban Coch reservoir. In 1942 it was surplus to requirements and it was this that was blown up. The models were at the Road Research Laboratory at Harmondsworth, London.
Enter these coordinates into Google Maps 52.244677, -3.600015 and you will find the reservoir and the Nant y Gro remains. I agree it is not for the unfit to find it. You can see it better on Google Earth.
Hello,
thankyou for your replies. I have subsequently discovered that the Old Huttiin I was trying to find out about did belong to 617 squadron but he flew on a mission in the Oct 4 months after the Dam Buster \raid.I believe it was to blow up a dam near switzerland. he used his plane to draw enemy fire away from the plane which was going to drop the bomb. he was killed. His name was Wyness and I have now discovered several comments from other members of the squadron who say he lived for the moment. According to our records he once climbed the main school building to hang “something “from the tower! We are proud of him.
This is a reply to Angela Shields. I am sure there are many that feel like you. I am certainly one. I was lucky enough to have the VIP day and had the taxy on Just Jane last year. A memorable day indeed – stayed at the Petworth Hotel as well just to add to the occasion.
Visited the excellent presentation at the RAF Hendon Museum on Friday where they gave a talk on Operation Chastise. I hope we will always remember those brave souls that helped to win the war for us. Without them I am sure I would not be around as being Jewish I would not have been born in 1948.