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70 years ago today

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

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At 22:01 England time, May 16, 1943, Johnny Johnson and fellow Lancaster bomber crew members took off to bomb the Sorpe dam in Germany.

Here's a link to Johnny's Dambuster story, and how he celebrated his return.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-success-daring-raid--fry-cup-tea-course.html

Johnny is circled in red in this photo of all the Dambuster crews:

article-2294926-18BC44B5000005DC-650_634x260.jpg



Of the 133 men in the crews, 53 did not return. Those were heroic times, with heroic men indeed.


Tom
 
I saw a couple training films on the concept using American crews and aircraft. It's amazing just how far those bombs will roll. One of the terms was skip bombing, which was a slightly different technique than dam busting that we used in the Pacific campaign against the Japanese as the ships were moving not stationary. We mostly used 25s. Worked very well and sank a lot of ships. PJ
 
Tom, this is awful familiar to me. I believe there was a History Channel or Discovery show on it. Had to be several years ago. I found it very interesting. Talked about the design of the bombs up to the actual run.
 
Rhodyspit75 said:
Tom, this is awful familiar to me. I believe there was a History Channel or Discovery show on it. Had to be several years ago. I found it very interesting. Talked about the design of the bombs up to the actual run.
Click to expand...

Good memory! Here's a link to the original History Channel program:

https://dambustersblog.com/2009/04/14/history-channel-documentary/

I remember the scenes showing how they tested the rotation speed of the cylinders, to get them to skip to the desired target. Also how low the aircraft had to fly over the water during the tests, and how the bomb could bounce up and hit the same aircraft which dropped it.

Tom
 
That's it Tom. Now can you help me remember what I had for dinner?
 
BustedKnuckles said:
Unfortunately, as of 5/23/13 the account associated with that link no longer exists.
Click to expand...

Strange - those Youtube folks move fast!

Give this one a shot:


Tom
 
I also remember the old History channel program on the dam busters. Neat stuff.
 
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