ENEMY COAST AHEAD

Commemorating Operation Chastise – the daring low-level raids against the great dams
of the Ruhr Valley on the night of 16/17 May 1943.

There were many skills required of an RAF bomber crew and none more so than courage. They often flew deep into enemy territory, mainly by night and often in freezing conditions, bad weather and turbulent skies, to face the constant fear of attack from deadly flak, prowling night-fighters or mechanical malfunctions. Each man was a volunteer, but these bomber crews were a special breed. They had to be, for no other Allied unit had a greater casualty rate than the men of RAF Bomber Command. 

One operation, however, demanded something more – the destruction of the great dams of the Ruhr during Operation Chastise on the night of 16 / 17 May 1943. 

The means was provided by Barnes Wallis’s unique Upkeep ‘bouncing bomb’ carried into battle by Roy Chadwick’s specially-modified Lancaster bomber. But the method of delivering Wallis’s bomb required that it be dropped exactly 60ft above the surface, some 400-450 yards from the target at precisely 210 mph. And to evade radar detection en-route to the Ruhr at night would mean flying the entire distance at tree-top height. No squadron existed with enough skilled crews to fulfil those criteria; so for the first and only time in Bomber Command’s history, one was formed. It was numbered 617 Squadron – soon to be known as the Dambusters.

Anthony Saunders, not only one of the best aviation artists in the business but one especially well-respected for his portrayals of the Dambusters, has completed a special painting depicting the moment in Operation Chastise when, having traversed the North Sea at wave-top height, Wing Commander Guy Gibson leads Flight Lieutenants Mick Martin and ‘Hoppy’ Hopgood across the Dutch coast en-route to the Möhne Dam.