One of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force’s 617 Squadron.
The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story—and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron—has never been told in full.
Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis’s mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams—the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron’s valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest.
In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses—making the mission a success. An example of Churchill’s “military theatre” at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology—a story to be told for generations to come.
Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.
Max Hastings is the author of twenty-eight books, most about conflict, and between 1986 and 2002 served as editor in chief of the Daily Telegraph, then as editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes, for both his journalism and his books, the most recent of which are the bestsellers Vietnam, The Secret War, Catastrophe, and All Hell Let Loose. Knighted in 2002, Hastings is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, an Honorary Fellow of King’s College London, and a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He has two grown children, Charlotte and Harry, and lives with his wife, Penny, in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations xi
RAF Ranks and Army Equivalents xvii
Abbreviations Used in the Text xix
Introduction xxi
Prologue xxix
1 Grand Strategy, Great Dams 1
1 The Big Picture 1
2 Harris 4
3 The 'Panacea Merchants' 17
2 The Boffin and His Bombs 24
1 Wallis 24
2 Gestation 32
3 First Bounces 40
3 Command and Controversy 59
1 Targets 59
2 Gibson 63
3 'A Disaster of the First Magnitude' 78
4 Men and Machines 87
1 Fliers 87
2 Flying 110
5 The Brink of Battle 127
1 Sixty Feet 127
2 'No News that Would Interest You From Here' 139
6 Chastise 155
1 Take-Off 155
2 Getting There 174
7 At the Dams 188
1 The Möhne and the Sorpe 188
2 The Eder and After 208
8 The Möhnekatastrophe 236
1 'A Wall of Water, Black as Coal' 236
2 'Close to a Success' 255
9 Heroes 262
1 Garnering the Laurels 262
2 Squandering the Sacrifice 276
10 Landings 289
1 'Goodnight, Everyone' 289
2 Reconciliations 302
Appendix I 617 Squadron's Crews Who Flew on the Night of 16/17 May 1943 309
Appendix II Landmark Dates in the Evolution of Chastise 315
Appendix III A Chronology of Operation Chastise 16/17 May 1943 319
