Operation Chastise

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Operation Chastise
Part of The Second World War
The Möhne dam on the day after the attacks.
Date 16/17 May 1943 Location Eder River, Germany Result Limited British Success
Belligerents
United Kingdom	Nazi Germany
Commanders
Guy Gibson	Josef Kammhuber
Strength
19 bombers	XII. Fliegerkorps
Casualties and losses
Eight aircraft shot down 53 aircrewmen killed, three taken prisoner	Two Dams breached 1 dam heavily damaged 1,294 civilians killed

Operation Chastise was the official name for attacks carried out by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron - subsequently known as the Dambusters - on German dams on May 16/17, 1943, using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis. The Möhne and Eder dams were breached, causing catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley, but the Sorpe dam sustained only minor damage.

[edit] Background

Prior to World War II, the British Air Ministry had identified Germany's heavily industrialized Ruhr Valley, and especially its dams, as important strategic targets: in addition to providing hydro-electric power they also supplied drinking water and water for the canal transport system. The methods used to attack the dams had been carefully worked out. Calculations indicated that repeated air strikes with large bombs could be effective, but required a degree of accuracy which Bomber Command had been unable to attain in the face of enemy defences.

[edit] Concept

The mission grew out of a concept for a bomb designed by Barnes Wallis and developed by his team at Vickers. Wallis was an aircraft designer who had worked on both the Vickers Wellesley and Vickers Wellington bombers. While working on aircraft he had also begun work on a bomb designed specifically with dam-destruction in mind.

Wallis' initial idea was to drop a 10-tonne bomb from an altitude of about 40,000 feet (12,200 meters). This idea was part of the earthquake bomb concept. However, at that time no bomber aircraft was capable of flying at that altitude with such a heavy payload.

A much-smaller explosive charge would suffice, if it could be exploded directly against the dam wall below the surface of the water, but the major German reservoir dams were protected by heavy torpedo nets to prevent such an attack.

Air Vice-Marshal Ralph Cochrane, Wing Commander Guy Gibson, King George VI and Group Captain John Whitworth discussing the Dambuster Raid in May, 1943

Wallis' breakthrough overcame this. A drum-shaped bomb spinning backwards at over 500 rpm, dropped at a sufficiently low altitude at the correct speed, would skip for a significant distance over the surface of the water in a series of bounces before reaching the dam wall. Its residual spin would run the bomb down the side of the dam to its underwater base. Using a hydrostatic fuse, an accurate drop could bypass the dam's defences and enable the bomb to explode against the dam.

After some testing and many engineering meetings, the idea was adopted on 26 February 1943. The bomb was codenamed "Upkeep", and a target date was set for May, when water levels would be at their highest and breaches in the dams would cause the most damage.

[edit] Assignment

The operation was given to No. 5 Group RAF which formed a new squadron to undertake the mission, initially called Squadron 'X' (its assignment had outstripped the bureaucracy responsible for naming squadrons). Led by Wing Commander Guy Gibson, a veteran of over 170 bombing missions, 21 bomber crews were chosen from the Group to join the new squadron based at RAF Scampton, about five miles north of Lincoln, Lincolnshire.

King George VI speaking to Flight Lieutenant Les Munro

.

The targets selected were the two key dams upstream from the Ruhr industrial area, the Möhne Dam and the Sorpe Dam, with the Eder Dam on the Eder River, which feeds into the Weser, as a secondary target. While the loss of hydroelectric power was important, the loss of water supply to industry, cities, and canals would have greater effect. Also, there was the potential for devastating flooding if the dams broke.

The aircraft were modified Avro Lancaster Mk IIIs, known as B Mark III Special (Type 464 Provisioning).^[1] To reduce weight, much of the internal armor was removed, as was the mid-upper machine gun turret. The size of the bomb with its unusual shape meant that the bomb-bay doors had to be removed, and the bomb itself hung, in part, below the fuselage of the aircraft. It was mounted on two crutches, and before dropping it was spun up to speed by an auxiliary motor.^[2]

[edit] Preparations

Bombing from an altitude of 60 feet (18 meters), at an air speed of 240 mph (390 km/h), and at a pre-selected distance from the target called for expert crews. Intensive nighttime and low-altitude flight training began.

An original Upkeep bouncing bomb at the Imperial War Museum Duxford

.

There were also technical problems to solve, the first one being to determine when the aircraft was at optitmum distance from its target. Both the Möhne and Eder Dams had towers at each end. A special targeting device with two prongs, making the same angle as the two towers at the correct distance from the dam, showed when to release the bomb.

The second problem was determining the aircraft's altitude (barometric altimeters then in use lacked sufficient accuracy). Two spotlights were mounted, one under the aircraft's nose and the other under the fuselage, so that at the correct height their light beams would converge on the surface of the water. The crews practised at the Eyebrook Reservoir in Leicestershire / Rutland, at the Abberton Reservoir near Colchester, at the Derwent Reservoir, Derbyshire, and at the Fleet Lagoon, Chesil Beach, Dorset. The bomb/mine itself was first tested at the Elan Valley Reservoirs.

The bombs were delivered to the squadron on May 13, after the final tests on April 29. Given favorable weather reports pilots, navigators, and bombardiers were informed of their targets on May 15; the rest of the crewmen were told the next day.

[edit] Organisation

The squadron was divided into three groups.

Formation No. 1 was composed of nine aircraft in three groups, piloted by Gibson, Hopgood and Martin; Young, Astell and Maltby; Maudslay, Knight and Shannon. Its mission was to attack the Möhn; any aircraft with bombs remaining would then attack the Eder.

Formation No. 2, numbered five aircraft, piloted by McCarthy, Byers, Barlow, Rice and Munro, was to attack the Sorpe.

Formation No. 3 was a mobile reserve consisting of aircraft piloted by Anderson, Townsend, Brown, Ottley and Burpee, taking off two hours later on May 17, either to bomb the main dams or smaller secondary target dams at Schwelm, Ennepe and Diemel.

Two crews were unable to make the mission due to illness.

Operations Room for the mission was located at Group 5 Headquarters in Grantham, Lincolnshire. The agreed mission codes (transmitted in morse) were Goner for bomb dropped, Nigger if the Möhne was breached and Dinghy if the Eder was breached. Nigger was Gibson's black labrador retriever^[3] run over and killed the morning of the attack. Dinghy was a reference to Young: he and his crew had made so many forced landings at sea that he was nicknamed “Dinghy” for the aircraft's inflatable liferafts.

[edit] The bombing raids

Using two spotlights to adjust altitude, a modified Lancaster (in this case AJ-J), dropped a backspun drum-bomb which skipped over torpedo nets protecting the dam. After impact the bomb spun down to the dam's base and exploded.

[edit] Outbound

The aircraft used two routes, carefully avoiding known concentrations of Germananti-aircraft flak, and were timed to cross the enemy coast simultaneously. The first aircraft, those of Formation No. 2 and heading for the longer, northern route, took off at 21:28.^[4] McCarthy's bomber had a hydraulics problem, and he took off in a reserve craft 20 minutes late.

Formation No. 1 took off in groups of three at ten minute intervals beginning at 21:39 at.^[4] The reserve formation did not begin taking off until 00:09 on May 17.^[4]

Formation No. 1 entered continental Europe between Walcheren and Schouwen, flew over the Netherlands, skirted the airbases at Gilze-Rijen and Eindhoven, curved around the Ruhr defences, and turned north to avoid Hamm before turning south to head for the Möhne River. Formation No. 2 flew further north, cutting over Vlieland and crossing the IJsselmeer before joining the first route near Wesel and then flying south beyond the Möhne to the Sorpe River.

The bombers flew low, at about 100 ft altitude, to avoid radar detection. Flight Sergeant George Chalmers, radio operator on the plane "O for Orange", looked out through the astrodome and was astonished to see that his pilot was flying towards the target along a forest's firebreak, below treetop level. (On the return flight over the Dutch coast, German flak shells targeting the planes were seen to bounce off sea. ^[5])

[edit] First casualties

The first casualties were suffered soon after reaching the Dutch coast. Formation No. 2 did not fare well: Munro's aircraft lost its radio to flak and turned back over the IJsselmeer, while Rice flew too low and struck the sea, losing bomb in the water; he recovered and returned to base. Both Barlow's and Byers's Lancasters crossed over the coast around the island of Texel. Byers's bomber was shot down by flak shortly afterwards, crashing into the Waddenzee. Only the delayed bomber piloted by McCarthy survived to across The Netherlands. In addition, Formation No. 1 lost Astell's bomber near the hamlet of Marbeck, Germany, when he flew his Lancaster into high tension electrical cables and crashed into a field.^[4]

[edit] Attack on the Möhne Dam

Möhne Dam after the attack.

Formation No. 1 arrived over the Möhne lake and Gibson's aircraft (G for George) made the first run, followed by Hopgood (M for Mother). Hopgood's aircraft was hit by flak as it made its low-level run and was caught in the blast of its own bomb, crashing shortly afterwards when a wing disintegrated. Three crew members successfully left the aircraft, but only two survived. Subsequently Gibson flew his aircraft across the dam to draw the flak away from Martin's run. Martin (P for Popsie) bombed third; his aircraft was damaged but made a successful attack. Next, Young (A for Apple) made a successful run and after him Maltby (J for Johnny) when, finally, the dam was breached. Gibson, with Young accompanying, led Shannon, Maudslay and Knight to the Eder.^[4]. In the attack on the Möhne one of the bombers made a running commentary on the attack, relayed to base by an airborne TR. 1142 (Transmitter Receiver) manufactured by GEC, the distance being too great for direct VHF transmission.^[6].

[edit] Attack on the Eder Dam

Recent photograph of Eder Dam: note missing sluice-gate channels on the left, which were not replaced after the attack.

The Eder Valley was covered by heavy fog but not defended. The tricky topography of the surrounding hills made the approach difficult and the first aircraft, Shannon's, made six runs before taking a break. Maudslay (Z for Zebra) then attempted a run but the bomb struck the top of the dam and the aircraft was severely damaged in the blast. Shannon made another run and successfully dropped his bomb. The final bomb of the formation, from Knight's aircraft (N for Nut), breached the dam.

[edit] Attacks on the Sorpe and Ennepe Dams

The Sorpe Dam was the one least likely to be breached. It was a huge earthen dam, rather than concrete and steel as were the two dams already successfully attacked. Due to various problems only three Lancasters reached the Sorpe Dam: Joe McCarthy (in "T for Tommy”, a delayed aircraft from the second wave) and later Brown ("F for Freddie") and Anderson ("Y for York"), both from the third formation. This attack differed from the previous ones in two ways: the "Upkeep" bomb was not spun, and the approach was made along the length of the dam, not at right angles over the reservoir, due to the topography of the valley.

McCarthy's plane was on its own when it arrived over the Sorpe Dam at 00:15 hours, and realised the approach was even more difficult than expected: the flight path led over a church steeple in the village of Langscheid, located on the hillcrest overlooking the dam. With only seconds to go before the bomber had to pull up, to avoid hitting the hillside at the other end of the dam, the bombardier George Johnson had no time to correct the bomb's height and heading.

McCarthy made nine attempted bombing runs before Johnson was satisfied. The 'Upkeep' bomb was dropped on the tenth run. (It was just as well the Germans had thought this dam to be invulnerable to air attack: they had placed no anti-aircraft guns in this area.) The bomb exploded, but when he turned his Lancaster to assess the damage it turned out that only a section of the crest of the dam had been blown off: the main body of the dam itself was still functional.

Meanwhile, three of the reserve aircraft had been directed to the Sorpe Dam. Burpee ("S for Sugar") never arrived, and it was later determined that the plane had been shot down while skirting the Gilze-Rijen airfield. Brown ("F for Freddy") reached the Sorpe Dam: in the increasingly dense fog the bomb was dropped hastily and also failed to breach the dam. Anderson ("Y for York") arrived last, but by then the fog had become too dense for him even to attempt a bombing run. The remaining two bombers were then sent to secondary targets, with Ottley ("C for Charlie") being shot down en-route to the Lister Dam. Townsend ("O for Orange") eventually dropped his bomb at the Ennepe Dam without harming it.^[4]

[edit] Possible Attack on Bever Dam

There is some evidence that Townsend might have attacked the Bever Dam by mistake rather than the Ennepe Dam.^[7] Townsend reported difficulty in finding his dam, and in his post-raid report he complained that the map of the Ennepe Dam was incorrect. The Bever Dam is located only about five miles southwest of the Ennepe Dam, and its reservoir has a similar topography. However, the Bever Dam is located on the southern edge of the reservoir while the Ennepe is located on the northern edge of its reservoir. With the foggy mists filling the valleys during the early morning hours, it would be understandable for him to have mistaken the two lakes. The War Diary of the German Naval Staff reported that the Bever Dam had been attacked at nearly the same time that the Sorpe Dam was. In addition, the Wupperverband authority responsible for the Bever Dam is said to have recovered the remains of a "mine". Paul Keiser, a 19-year-old soldier on leave at his home close to the Bever Dam, also reported a bomber making several approaches to the dam and then dropping a bomb that caused a large explosion and a great pillar of flame.

John Sweetman, author of the book The Dambusters' Raid, suggests Townsend's report of the moon's reflecting on the mist and water is consistent with an attack that was heading to the Bever Dam rather than to the Ennepe Dam, given the moon's azimuth and altitude during the bombing attacks. Sweetman also points out that the Ennepe-Wasserverband authority was adamant that only a single bomb was dropped near the Ennepe Dam during the entire war, and that this bomb fell into the woods by the side of the dam, not in the water, as in Townsend's report. Finally, members of Townsend's crew independently reported seeing a manor house and attacking an earthen dam, which is consistent with the Bever Dam rather than the Ennepe Dam. The main evidence supporting the hypothesis of an attack of the Ennepe Dam is Townsend's post-flight report that he attacked the Ennepe Dam on a heading of 355 degrees magnetic. Assuming that the heading was incorrect, all other evidence points toward an attack on the Bever Dame. ^[7]

[edit] Return flight

On the way back, flying again at treetop level, two more Lancasters were lost. The damaged "Z for Zebra" was struck by flak near Netterden, and Young's "A for Apple" was flayed by flak north of IJmuiden. That bomber crashed into the North Sea just off the coast of The Netherlands.^[4]

The nine surviving bombers began landing at Scampton at 03:11 hours, with Gibson returning at 04:15 hours. The last of the survivors, Townsend's bomber, put its wheels on the ground at 06:15 hours.^[4]

[edit] List of aircraft involved

[edit] Bomb damage assessment

Bomber Command wanted a complete bomb damage assessment as soon as possible, therefor the CO of 542 Squadron was informed of the estimated time of the attacks. One of the squadrons's photo-reconnaissance Spitfires, piloted by Flying Officer Frank "Jerry" Fray ^[8], took off from RAF Benson at 07:30 hours and arrived over the Ruhr River immediately after first light. Photos were taken of the breached dams and the huge floods. ^[9] The pilot later described the experience: ^[8]

[edit] After the raid

Memorial to Operation Chastise members at Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire

Three aircrew from Hopgood's aircraft baled out successfully, but one later died from wounds while the others were captured. One of the crew in Ottley's aircraft survived its crash. In total, therefore, 53 of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack were killed, a casualty rate of almost 40%. Of the survivors, 34 were decorated at Buckingham Palace on 22 June, with Gibson awarded the Victoria Cross. There were 5 Distinguished Service Orders, 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and four bars, 2 Conspicuous Gallantry Medals, and 11 Distinguished Flying Medals and one bar.^[10]

Memorial to the German dead in Neheim, 7 kilometres (4 mi) from the Möhne dam

Initial German casualty estimates were about 1,300 killed, including 749 French, Belgian, Dutch, Ukrainian prisoners of war and labourers.^[11][12]

After a public relations tour of America and time spent working in the Air Ministry in London writing the book which would later be published as Enemy Coast Ahead, Gibson returned to operations and was killed on a Mosquito operation in 1944.

Following the Dams Raid 617 Squadron was kept together as a specialist unit. The squadron badge ("on a roundel, a wall in fesse, fracted by three flashes of lightning in pile and issuant from the breach, water proper") was chosen and a motto "Après moi le déluge" (After me the flood). According to Brickhill there was some controversy over the motto, with the original version Après nous le déluge (After us the flood) being rejected by the heralds as having inappropriate provenance (having been coined, reportedly, by Madame Pompadour), and après moi le déluge having been used by Louis XV in an "irresponsible" context. The motto having been chosen by the King, the latter was finally deemed acceptable.

The squadron went on to drop Wallis' massive Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, including an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz, using an advanced bomb sight which enabled the bombing of small targets with far greater accuracy than was routinely obtained with conventional bomb aiming techniques. The squadron is still active today.

In 1977 the Protocol I amendment to the Geneva Conventions outlawed attacks on dams if it might cause severe civilian losses.

[edit] Effect on the war

[edit] The tactical view

The Möhne and Eder lakes poured around 330 million tons of water (equivalent to a cube 687 m on each side) into the western Ruhr region. Mines were flooded and houses, factories, roads, railways and bridges destroyed as the flood waters spread for around 50 miles (80 km) from the source. The Eder drains towards the east into the Fulda, flooding farmland and several villages. Estimates show that before 15 May 1943 water production on the Ruhr was 1 million tonnes, which dropped to a quarter of that level after the raid.

In terms of deaths: according to the latest sources,^[13] at least 1,650 people were killed: around 70 in the Eder Valley, and at least 1,579 bodies were found along the Möhne and Ruhr rivers, with hundreds missing. 1,026 of the bodies found downriver of the Möhne Dam were foreign prisoners of war and forced-labourers in different camps, mainly from the Soviet Union. Worst hit was the city of Neheim (now part of Neheim-Hüsten) at the confluence of the Möhne and Ruhr rivers, where over 800 people perished, among them at least 526 female forced-labourers from the Soviet Union. (Some non-German sources erroneously cite an earlier total of 749 for all foreigners in all camps in the Möhne and Ruhr valleys as the casualty count at a camp just below the Eder Dam.^[12])

After the operation Barnes Wallis wrote, "I feel a blow has been struck at Germany from which she cannot recover for several years." However, on closer inspection, Operation Chastise did not have the military effect that was at the time believed. By 27 June full water output was restored, thanks to an emergency pumping scheme inaugurated only the previous year, and the electricity grid was again producing power at full capacity^{[citation needed]}. The raid proved to be costly in lives (more than half the lives lost belonging to allied POWs and forced-labourers), but in fact no more than a minor inconvenience to the Ruhr's industrial output.^[14]

In his book Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer expressed puzzlement at the raids; destruction of one of the dams served no purpose at all, he claimed, and the failure to follow up with additional raids represented a major lost opportunity for the Allies.

The value of the bombing can perhaps best be seen as a very real boost to British morale, proving to people of bitterly embattled Britain they had the ability to strike back.^{[citation needed]} In a very real sense it empowered the entire British populace. Its legacy, during the war years, was one of delivering hope, and belief to a people under constant bombing and bombardments.^[15]

[edit] The strategic view

The Dams Raid was, like many British air raids, undertaken with a view to the need to keep drawing German defensive effort back into Germany and away from actual and potential theatres of ground war, a policy which culminated in the Berlin raids of the winter of 1943–1944. In May 1943 this meant keeping the Luftwaffe and anti-aircraft defence forces' effort away from the Soviet Union; in early 1944, it meant clearing the way for the aerial side of the forthcoming Operation Overlord.

By far the greatest and most unexpected effect was on German food production. The Ruhr Valley below the dams was a major source of vital food for Germany, and large areas of arable land were rendered unusable and huge numbers of farm animals were killed. This had an immediate negative effect on German morale. In addition, the pictures of the broken dams proved to be a propaganda and morale boost to the Allies, especially to the British, still suffering under German bombing. ^[8]

An associated, but equally major effect was that Barnes Wallis's ideas on earth quake bombing, which had been rejected before, now became accepted by 'Bomber' Harris. Prior to this raid bombing practice had been to 'area bomb' with many light bombs, in the hope that one would hit the target. Work on the earthquake bomb theory resulted in the Tallboy and Grand Slam weapons, which caused unprecedented damage to German infrastructure in the later stages of the war. They rendered the V-2 assembly building unusable, buried the V-3 guns, sank the Tirpitz and destroyed many bridges and other hardened installations. Notable amongst their successes were the U-Boat pens at Brest, where they penetrated 20 ft thick roofs of reinforced concrete, and the Saumur Tunnel.

[edit] The diplomatic view

An important reason for planning the raid was to persuade Stalin that Britain was capable of being an effective ally. This was the middle period of the war, when the United States had recently entered the war on Britain's side due to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, had brought the USSR into the war and it was being hard pressed by the German forces. Due to the seriousness of the situation for the Soviet Union during this period, Stalin often called upon the Western Allies to open a second front: the Dambusters raid provided the British with a valuable opportunity to prove that they were harrying the Germans in every way they could while building up forces for an eventual liberation of Western Europe. However, by the time the preparations for the British raid were complete, the USSR had managed to fight back against German forces; the USSR had also found the capacity to begin its counter-offensive on the Don and Volga. The Dams Raid enabled Churchill, in negotiations with the leaders of these new allies, to point to an effective strike against the hitherto apparently invincible German state. As a result, he was taken more seriously as an ally than might otherwise have been the case. This was most relevant in negotiations with Stalin, but also to a lesser degree in the USA. Although Churchill had the sympathetic ear of Roosevelt, many of the US military staff had until then been less persuaded of the value of British experience and capabilities.^[16]

[edit] Popular culture

• A 1955 film, The Dam Busters was made about the raids and was very popular. Its depiction of the raid, along with a similar sequence in the film 633 Squadron, provided the inspiration for the Death Star trench run in Star Wars: A New Hope. The film is also watched on television by the character Pink in the 1982 film, Pink Floyd The Wall.
• In 1984, a Commodore 64 computer combat flight simulator The Dam Busters was made based on this operation.
• A 1989 British commercial for Carling Black Label lager reused footage from the attack sequence of the 1955 film, with a wily German sentry (played by Jon Glentoran, stage name of the artist Jon Dixon) on top of the dam catching the perfectly spherical bombs in the manner of a football (soccer) goalkeeper. The pilot of the attacking Lancaster then delivers the brand slogan: "I bet he drinks Carling Black Label!" The commercial ran for many years, frequently appearing in advert breaks for both the 1955 film and documentaries about Operation Chastise. A subsequent Carling commercial also used bouncing bomb imagery, this time to enable a British holidaymaker to beat the Germans to the sunbeds.
• The PC game Call of Duty features a mission in the British campaign, sometime after Operation Chastise, where the players must suppress the Eder Dam's anti-aircraft defenses and destroy the dam's generators in order to clear the way for the RAF to make an air raid against the dam.
• The console game Secret Weapons Over Normandy features a mission in which the player must destroy a dam and the suggested weapon is the bouncing bomb. However the dam involved is stated to be in Norway and the mission objective is based on the sabotage at Vemork, so the game has conflated this sabotage and the Dambusters mission.
• On 1 September 2006, it was announced that Peter Jackson would produce a remake of the 1955 movie, to be directed by Christian Rivers with production starting in 2008.
• On 16 May 2008, a commemorative event to mark the 65th anniversary was held at Derwent Reservoir, Derbyshire, including a flypast by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane. The event was attended by Les Munro, the only surviving pilot from the original raid, and Richard Todd the actor who played Wing Commander Guy Gibson in the 1955 film. Todd, himself, died on 3 December 2009.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

Notes

Bibliography

[edit] External links

• Official site of the Royal Air Force about Operation Chastise
• Site with details of the raids, full crew listing, links to present day 617 Sqn and much more
• Online Dambusters exhibition at the UK National Archives
• Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Nazi Dams and their link page
• BBC Online - Myths and Legends - Home of the Dambusters
• 60th Anniversary BBC News.
• Video of commemorative fly-by of Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane from D. Telegraph website
• Dambuster & Guy Gibson website in Dutch /
• Dam Busters Filmclips
• Gunner Douglas Webb
• German history website about Operation Chastise (German)
• G for George at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra
• History of the air war in the Ederbergland and Waldeck Frankenberg (German)
• Eyebrook municipal website
• Dambusters site with details of Operation Chastise including video footage and more
• Dambusters: A Landmark Oral History by Max Arthur
• German photography archive (German)
• Website about Flt Lt David Maltby and his crew
• Dambusters weblog
• Picture of a 617 Sqn Type 464 (Provisioning) modified Lancaster B.Mk III
• Picture of Gibson (on ladder entering hatch) and his crew immediately prior to taking-off for the dams raid - 'Spam' Spafford is on the right