Chastise. Max Hastings

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СКАЧАТЬ Robert Oxland, Bomber Command HQ, to Air Vice-Marshal Ralph Cochrane, AOC 5 Group, on 17 March 1943

      ‘One thing,’ said Dim, ‘if we do go and attack … one of us might possibly get a posthumous VC.’

      ‘Who wants that?’ said Taffy.

      ‘Not me,’ said one of the boys. ‘All I want is a Peace and Victory Medal.’

      Most of us agreed.

      Guy Gibson, Enemy Coast Ahead

      After Hollywood mogul Daryl Zanuck was shown the movie The Dam Busters in 1955, he demanded disbelievingly, ‘Is that a true story?’ Yes, he was told. ‘Then why doesn’t it say so?’

RAF Ranks and Army Equivalents

      Marshal of the RAF – Field-Marshal

      Air Chief Marshal (ACM) – General

      Air Marshal (AM) – Lieutenant-General

      Air Vice-Marshal (AVM) – Major-General

      Air Commodore (A/C) – Brigadier

      Group-Captain (Gp. Capt.) – Colonel

      Wing-Commander (W/Cdr.) – Lieutenant-Colonel

      Squadron-Leader (S/Ldr.) – Major

      Flight-Lieutenant (F/Lt.) – Captain

      Flying Officer (F/O) – Lieutenant

      Pilot Officer (P/O) – Subaltern

      Flight-Sergeant (F/Sgt.) – Warrant Officer

      Sergeant (Sgt.) – Sergeant

      Corporal (Cpl.) – Corporal

      Leading Aircraftman (LAC) – Lance-Corporal

      Aircraftman (AC) – Private

      Air Officer Commanding (AOC)

      Ranks attributed to personnel mentioned in the text are those held at the time of incidents or conversations described.

Abbreviations Used in the Text

      AOC – Air Officer Commanding

      ATS – Auxiliary Territorial Service; women’s branch of the army

      CAS – Chief of the Air Staff; head of the RAF

      C-in-C – Commander-in-Chief

      CO – Squadron commanding officer

      Gee – Electronic navigation aid, detecting a grid of radio signals transmitted from the UK, fitted to all Bomber Command aircraft but jammed by the Germans over continental Europe

      HCU – Heavy Conversion Unit

      IFF – Identification Friend or Foe: electronic radar-pulse identification device fitted to all British aircraft

      MAP – Ministry of Aircraft Production

      MEW – Ministry of Economic Warfare

      OTU – Operational Training Unit

      RAAF – Royal Australian Air Force

      RAFVR – Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

      RCAF – Royal Canadian Air Force

      RNZAF – Royal New Zealand Air Force

      SASO – Senior Air Staff Officer; comparable to an army or divisional commander’s chief of staff

USAAF – United States Army Air Force

      WAAF – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force; thus a woman serving at an RAF station would be described as a ‘Waaf’

      w/op – Wireless-operator

      Narrative of operations uses a twenty-four-hour clock, while the twelve-hour civilian clock is used for other timings.

      Bomber Command in February 1943 comprised around two thousand aircraft including trainers – the number varied daily, and significantly fewer were immediately serviceable – of which six hundred were ‘heavies’. Each of seven operational Groups was commanded by an air vice-marshal, and contained variously five to ten squadrons. A squadron was composed of eighteen to twenty-four aircraft, confusingly led by a wing-commander, and subdivided into two or three flights, each commanded by a squadron-leader.

Introduction

      There were dams; a dog with an embarrassing name; a movie; a march composed by Eric Coates. These memories of Operation Chastise, the ‘bouncing bomb’ attack which burst open north-western Germany’s Möhne and Eder reservoirs on the night of 16/17 May 1943, cling to the consciousness of millions of people of all ages, both sexes and many nations, who may know little else about the Second World War. Wing-Commander Guy Gibson’s biographer Richard Morris has written: ‘The story of 617 Squadron’s breaching of the dams has joined that group of historically-based tales – like King Arthur, or Robin Hood – which defy all efforts at scholarly revision.’

Much that we think we know is wrong. Those of us who read Paul Brickhill’s 1951 book, then watched its 1955 screen progeny, the most popular British war film of all time, should blush to remember that we embraced The Dam Busters with special enthusiasm because the raid seemed victimless, save for the fifty-three dead among the gallant young men who carried it out. In truth, however, something approaching 1,400 people – almost all civilians and more than half French, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian mostly female slaves of Hitler – perished in the Möhnekatastrophe, as modern Germans call it; more than in any previous RAF attack on the Reich. That tragic outcome deserves emphasis, alongside our awe at 617 Squadron’s achievement. It is fascinating that Guy Gibson afterwards reflected uneasily about this, as his superiors never did, writing in 1944: ‘The fact that people … might drown had not occurred to us. But we hoped that the dam wardens would warn those living below in time, even if they were Germans. No one likes mass slaughter and we did not like being the authors of it. Besides, it brought us in line with Himmler and his boys.’

      This book represents an emotional journey from my own childhood; from the day when, at boarding school, I first thrilled to Richard Todd’s portrayal of the twenty-four-year-old Gibson, who led 617 Squadron on that fateful May night. Many legendary feats of courage have been performed by warriors who clung to some bleeding piece of earth: the Three Hundred at Thermopylae; Horatius on the bridge before Rome; the Guards’ defence of Hougoumont at Waterloo; Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain’s 20th Maine on Little Round Top at Gettysburg; B Company of the 24th Foot holding Rorke’s Drift.

By contrast, the deed attempted in May 1943 by 130 British, Canadian, and Australian airmen, together with a single American and two New Zealanders, required qualities of a different order. Almost all were of СКАЧАТЬ