Tomorrow, 16th May, is the 69th anniversary of Operation Chastise, the Dams Raid. The first aircraft, piloted by Flt Lt Norman Barlow , took off from RAF Scampton at 2128, quickly followed by three colleagues. One of these, AJ-K, flown by Plt Off Vernon Byers, was the operation’s first of eight losses, shot down just over two hours later on the Dutch coast.
The Möhne Dam was breached at about 0049 on Sunday 17th May 1943, and the Eder Dam at 0150. Altogether, 53 aircrew were killed and three more taken prisoner. On the ground, there were 1294 casualties at the Möhne and 47 more in the Eder valley.
These are sobering figures, which we should remember when we commemorate the raid.
It is, however, fitting that Wg Cdr Guy Gibson, 617 Squadron’s commanding officer, is being remembered on the anniversary of his greatest achievement in the home village of his maternal grandparents, Porthleven in Cornwall. As his own parents lived in India, Gibson spent part of his childhood in the village, and by all accounts had a very happy time there. A new bronze plaque will be unveiled, and there will be representatives of the RAF present and, weather permitting, a flypast.

Hat tip: Graeme Stevenson

Not strictly Dambuster-related, but very interesting nevertheless. My friend Dom Howard’s foraging on Ebay has turned up yet another interesting artifact, in this copy of Picture Post magazine from 1942, with an article by Honor Balfour on how the Avro Lancaster was modified and tested. Some of the people identified in the boardroom picture shown in the previous blog entry also turn up here. Go to Dom’s Photobucket site for the full article.

Sometime in late 1943 or early 1944, a number of 617 Squadron aircrew flew up to the Avro works near Manchester. A historic picture taken in the boardroom has recently come to light.

All of the 617 Squadron personnel were in Mick Martin and Joe McCarthy’s Dams Raid crews. They have been identified by Alex Bateman in a post on the RAF Commands forum. Only some of the Avro staff have been identified, including the fitter, Mr Hickson, whose son inherited the photograph. It looks as though the fitters involved were not given much notice as they all appear to be in their working clothes.

Left to right: John Fielding (Avro research manager), Tammy Simpson, Toby Foxlee, Don MacLean, Dave Rodger, Teddy Fielding (Avro production director), (unknown Avro worker), Bill Radcliffe, Joe McCarthy, Mr Hickson (Avro fitter), Ivan Whittaker, (unknown Avro worker), (unknown Avro worker), Mick Martin and (unknown Avro worker). The two Fieldings at Avro were unrelated.

Please get in touch if you can identify any of the unknown Avro personnel.

Photo credit: Ken Hickson via Peter Cunliffe, author A Shaky Do – The Skoda works raid 16/17th April 1943

Pic: Ken Lennox/Daily Mail

Good to see George (Johnny) Johnson looking so well! The last British Dambuster was at Filton in Gloucestershire to meet Simon Dufton, organiser of next month’s charity motorbike run to the Möhne Dam, and current 617 Squadron pilot Tom Hill. Full story in the Daily Mail.

Simon is making good progress towards his fundraising target. If you want to sponsor him, his details are here.

More from the remarkable collection of Dom Howard.

• 617 Squadron 25th anniversary service 1968
• 617 Squadron trip to Derby programme 1980
• 617 Squadron 40th anniversary service 1983
• Mick Martin memorial service, 1989

You can see these items in full here.

On the night of 16/17 May 2012 the 69th anniversary of the Dams Raid will be marked by a fundraising motorcycle ride for the Help for Heroes charity. The four riders will follow as closely as possible the route flown by 617 Squadron Lancaster AJ- J on the raid, from RAF Scampton to the Möhne Dam. They will then return to the UK via the John Frost Bridge, so famously held by the Paras at Arnhem, the ‘Bridge too Far’, arriving back in Scampton before midnight the same day.

The riders plan to lay a wreath at the Möhne Dam at 0019 on 17 May, the exact time and day of the bombing run of  the Lancaster piloted by David Maltby. As this blog has a personal connection to David Maltby and his crew, we are happy to support their efforts.

The riders are a group of four, led by Simon Dufton. If you would like to support this cause, you can go to the donations page set up by Simon and his colleagues.

His mother, Mrs Nellie Knight, visited the grave in about 1954.

Some other members of the Knight family may be in this picture. I would welcome any further information.

Other members of his crew have visited Les’s grave on a number of occasions. Here is Bob Kellow, the wireless operator, probably taken in the 1980s.

Finally, here is the full crew, pictured at Scampton in July 1943, as one of the series of publicity photographs taken by official RAF photographers of members of 617 Squadron.

IWM CH11049

Left to right: Harold Hobday (navigator), Edward Johnson (bomb aimer), Fred Sutherland (front gunner), Les Knight (pilot), Bob Kellow (navigator),  Ray Grayston (flight engineer), Harry O’Brien (rear gunner).

My good friend Dom Howard kindly recorded Stephen Fry’s very brief reference to the Dambusters remake on The One Show on BBC1 last night.

Receiving an award for “Most Consistent Attempt to Remake a Film” the great man revealed that he will be flying out to New Zealand “next Monday” for talks with Peter Jackson on “restarting” the remake. Rest assured, gentle readers, that they will be taking nothing away from the original, “one of the greatest British films ever made… Peter is still passionate about it, and so am I”.

(And, if this is your first time reading this blog, please don’t waste your time writing in about the dog’s name. It won’t be published. See this post for the reason why.)

In the breathless prose loved by publishers’ blurb writers (confession: my first ever job!) HarperCollins tell us:

The Tirpitz, Hitler’s greatest weapon, was reputed to be unsinkable and the battleship inflamed an Allied obsession: to destroy her at any cost.
More than thirty daring operations were launched against the 52,000 ton monster. Royal Navy midget submarines carried out an attack of extraordinary skill and courage against her when she lay deep in a Norwegian fjord in an operation that won VCs for two participants.
No permanent damage was done and the Fleet Air Arm was forced to launch full scale attacks through the summer of 1944 to try and finish her off. But still the Tirpitz remained a significant threat to Allied operations.
It was not until November 1944 that a brilliant operation by RAF Lancaster Bombers, under the command of one of Britain’s greatest but least-known war heroes finally killed off Hitler’s last battleship.

The writer is referring to the raid carried out by 617 and 9 Squadrons, who dropped Barnes Wallis-designed Tallboy bombs which blew the final massive holes in the Tirpitz’s hull. The 617 Squadron contingent was under the command of Group Capt Willie Tait, and a picture of him and a crew which was not his own, taken after the raid, appears in a recent Sunday Telegraph review. However, these are not the five airmen who appear on the cover. Instead, the designer has chosen to use figures from one of the most famous pictures of the war, the photograph taken of Guy Gibson and his crew as they set off on the Dams Raid, 18 months before the Tirpitz was sunk.

(Imperial War Museum, CH18005)

From the left, the figures are Richard Trevor-Roper (rear gunner), John Pulford (flight engineer), George Deering (front gunner), ‘Spam’ Spafford (bomb aimer) and Bob Hutchison (wireless operator). Guy Gibson, on the ladder, and ‘Terry’ Taerum, the navigator, have been cropped out of Harper Collins colour-tinted version.

All five men were of course Dambusters, so they fall into the category mentioned in the book’s subtitle, ‘X-craft, agents and Dambusters’. But it’s a disservice to the real men who were on the raid, and a bit of an insult to the five portrayed on the cover, who couldn’t have been there for one simple reason – they were all dead.

UPDATE: Alex Bateman has kindly pointed out another bit of artistic licence on this cover. The Lancaster shown in the background is in fact Guy Gibson’s usual aircraft from 106 Squadron, known colloquially as ‘Admiral Prune’.

The last wartime loss from 617 Squadron happened on 16 April 1945, when 18 Lancasters set off to attack the German cruiser Lutzow in the Kiel Canal. This was the third mission against the ship. The previous two, in the preceding days had been unsuccessful, due to poor weather conditions. Most of the aircraft attacked the ship and successfully bombed the target. (See this post from December 2009, with an account by the son of Flg Off Joe Merchant).

Even though the war was obviously nearing its end, there was strong German flak near the target. Lancaster NG228 was hit, and crashed in Karsibor woods near Swinemunde (Swinoujscie). There were no survivors.

The aircraft was piloted by Sqn Ldr John Powell, an experienced pilot, who had completed 16 operations on his second tour after joining 617 Squadron on 5 December 1944. Some of his regular crew were not available, so some spare men were added. The crew comprised:
Pilot: Sqn Ldr John Leonard Powell DFC, age 29 from Glamorgan. Joined 617 Sqn 5.12.44. Completed 16 ops of 2nd tour.
Flight engineer: Flt Sgt Henry William Felton DFM, from Teddington. Joined 617 Sqn 19.10.44; Completed 18 ops with sqn.
Navigator: Flt Lt Michael Terence Clarke DFC, age 22 from Farnham. Joined 617 Sqn 3.4.45 (2nd time). 1st op on this tour.
Bomb aimer: Flg Off Alfred Lawrence Heath, from Folkestone. Joined 617 Sqn 8.12.44. Believed to have flown on 8 ops with sqn.
Wireless operator: Plt Off Kenneth Arthur John Hewitt, from Hemel Hempstead. Joined 617 Sqn 28.1.45. Completed 7 ops with sqn.
Mid-upper gunner: Flt Sgt William Knight, from Croydon. Joined 617 Sqn 10.3.45. Completed a tour with 227 Sqn, on 1st op with 617 Sqn.
Rear gunner: Flg Off James Watson, from Peebleshire. Joined 617 Sqn 19.10.44. Completed 20 ops with sqn.

Sandra Foster (no relation of mine) is William Knight’s niece and has been researching his career over a number of years. She recently posted a number of pictures in a thread on the Lancaster Archive forum, and has kindly allowed me to reproduce them here.

Sandra told me in an email:

Will did not come from a privileged background, like many of his generation, he left school at 14. At 16 he tried his luck in Canada but could not find the opportunities and eventually got home by trying to cross into America and got deported. Apparently he was in a very sorry state when he arrived back, just the clothes he stood up in. When the war started he tried several time to join the RAF and was turned down. By this time he worked in engineering and was classed as in a reserved occupation. Eventually he succeeded. When he was lost, his wife, my Aunt Phyl, was first told he was MIA, then that he was safe and was on his way home. On the day he was expected home, she got the telegram saying it was a mistake and he had been killed.

Will had completed his missions and did not expect to fly again, he even returned his lucky rabbit’s foot to Phyl. My mum told me that on the day he was due home, the house was decked with flags and ‘Welcome Home’ banners… From what I remember from my mum, he knew he was to be made up to Pilot Officer but hadn’t told his wife as he intended surprising her when next home.

In this picture of his crew in 227 Squadron, Will is seated on the left, in the front row.

The crew was initially buried in Swinemunde, then still in Germany. It came under Polish control after the war and is now called Świnoujście. In 1949, the bodies were all disinterred and reburied in an official war cemetery in Poznan.

The local people marked the crash site with a tail fin and in the 1990s the aircraft was excavated with the assistance of the Polish Air Force who erected a more formal memorial.

Sandra and her family visited the crash site/memorial a few years ago, and also Will’s grave at Poznan. Here is her picture of the memorial in Świnoujście: