Author touts Canada's role in 'dam buster' air raids
Article content
The “dam buster” air raids against the industrial heart of Germany in 1943 provided hard-to-find good news for the Allies early in the Second World War thanks, in part, to the contributions of Canadians.
But, the story of that contribution went largely undocumented until recently.
Canadian author Ted Barris who spoke about his recent book “Dam Busters” at Tuesday’s Central Forum lecture series presentation at Sarnia’s Central United Church.
Barris said that when the raids against hydroelectric dams on Germany’s Ruhr River are being commemorated, “make sure we don’t forget the Canadians.”
Some 14 Canadian airmen were among the 53 who didn’t survive the dangerous raids, and seven of the 16 Canadians who did return received military decorations.
The raids used a “wacky” bomb designed to skip along the top of the water behind the dams to avoid anti-torpedo nets and create enough damage to cause the structures to fail, Barris explained.
The mission, code named Operation Chastise, was carried out over the initial doubts of commanders of Britain’s Royal Air Force and succeeded in breaching two dams and damaged a third, causing extensive damage downstream, including destroying 11 German armament factories, Barris said.
The skipping bombs were designed by British engineer Barnes Wallis who was able to get around RAF commanders who had dismissed his ideas through the help of Canadian, Lord Beaverbrook.
Then serving in the British cabinet, Lord Beaverbrook provided Wallis with access to Prime Minister Winston Churchill to pitch his plan, Barris said.
As well as making up one-quarter of the aircrews on the raids, Canadians were involved in training a large number of the pilots and others involved through its British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, he said.
The raids came early in the war, following a string of setbacks for the Allies.
“There was no good new at this point, and they needed good news,” Barris said.
The crews selected for the raid spent weeks training to fly at “tree top” heights to avoid German radar and drop the specially-designed bombs at exactly 60 feet above the water at the dams during the night raids.
Each of the 19 Lancaster bombers involved could carry only one of the bombs and their approaches had to be precise while the seven-member crews were under fire from anti-aircraft guns.
Barris quoted one of the crew members who said, “We were seven men against the Reich.”
The book documented the planning and the raids themselves, along with the contribution of the Canadian, based on personal accounts, flight logs, maps and photographs taken by those involved.
The raids were the subject of a 1955 film which Barris said got some details right but, he pointed out Tuesday, neglected to mention the contribution of the Canadian airmen.
Uxbridge-based Barris also noted a Sarnia-area contribution to the book through illustrations created for the project by John Lightfoot, an artist living in Camlachie.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.