A well done British documentary that was not as exciting as the 1954 movie with Michael Redgrave, but probably a little more accurate. Interviews with the actual pilots that flew the raid make for interesting observations and added knowledge of the attack.Mixed conclusions of the effect of the raid fail to really answer the question whether it was worth the lives it cost. All in all well worth your time if you are interested in seeing an actual critique on the raid and the effects on the German war machine from the results. World War II buffs and historians should thoroughly enjoy this movie. I rated this a 7.
4 Reviews
Good Documentary
dbeijer26 June 2005
Interesting coverage on the British effort to attack the hydroelectric dams of Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr Valley. If you got through the film version, DAM BUSTERS (1954), you should enjoy the additional information presented in this documentary.
Success eluded those opposing the German juggernaut for much of World War II. After three years of war, the most optimistic characterization of the situation was the advances had been stemmed. Britain faced an occupied Continental Europe and the Soviets were holding deep in their own territory. The United States, a recent addition, had not yet made an appreciable impact.
Aerial bombardment had been touted as the means to destroy the ability and will to make war since the invention of the airplane. The UK was familiar with the receiving end of the premise so the RAF's effort made good copy.
The promise of Strategic bombing exceeded its reality. A contemporary report on RAF performance indicated 100% of the bombs dropped hit the ground but only 10% did so within 5 miles of the intended target. While satisfying Douhet's "Theory of Frightfulness", it did little damage to the production facilities supporting the ability to make war.
Barns Wallis, a gifted Vickers engineer, submitted a plan to attack the dams providing water and electricity for Ruhr industry with huge penetrating bombs. Cute idea but it also required the development of a new bomber with six engines. The plan was dismissed as just another of those silly engineer ideas.
Further investigation showed smaller bombs, placed against the face of a dam, could do the job. The four motor Lanc could deliver such a bomb. The Air Staff reluctantly approved the plan but the need to attack the dams at spring high water allowed very little time for development.
The movie presented the development as a singular effort by Barns Wallis. This documentary indicates rather more support. The spinning, bouncing bomb and the crews trained to deliver it were ready just in time.
Two of the three dams targeted were successfully breached. The experts presented in this documentary deemed the raid a failure. The third dam was considered most important and air crew loses, at 50%, were excessive. War production was only minimally effected. The boost to morale in a beleaguered nation was significant.
New to me was the coverage of smaller bouncing bombs for use against ships. Ocean swells significantly affected accuracy and these were never used. Additionally, German reverse- engineering of a captured big bomb and the addition of a rocket motor was interesting.
Rather a bit much for a comment, eh? If you got this far, you will enjoy the viewing.
Success eluded those opposing the German juggernaut for much of World War II. After three years of war, the most optimistic characterization of the situation was the advances had been stemmed. Britain faced an occupied Continental Europe and the Soviets were holding deep in their own territory. The United States, a recent addition, had not yet made an appreciable impact.
Aerial bombardment had been touted as the means to destroy the ability and will to make war since the invention of the airplane. The UK was familiar with the receiving end of the premise so the RAF's effort made good copy.
The promise of Strategic bombing exceeded its reality. A contemporary report on RAF performance indicated 100% of the bombs dropped hit the ground but only 10% did so within 5 miles of the intended target. While satisfying Douhet's "Theory of Frightfulness", it did little damage to the production facilities supporting the ability to make war.
Barns Wallis, a gifted Vickers engineer, submitted a plan to attack the dams providing water and electricity for Ruhr industry with huge penetrating bombs. Cute idea but it also required the development of a new bomber with six engines. The plan was dismissed as just another of those silly engineer ideas.
Further investigation showed smaller bombs, placed against the face of a dam, could do the job. The four motor Lanc could deliver such a bomb. The Air Staff reluctantly approved the plan but the need to attack the dams at spring high water allowed very little time for development.
The movie presented the development as a singular effort by Barns Wallis. This documentary indicates rather more support. The spinning, bouncing bomb and the crews trained to deliver it were ready just in time.
Two of the three dams targeted were successfully breached. The experts presented in this documentary deemed the raid a failure. The third dam was considered most important and air crew loses, at 50%, were excessive. War production was only minimally effected. The boost to morale in a beleaguered nation was significant.
New to me was the coverage of smaller bouncing bombs for use against ships. Ocean swells significantly affected accuracy and these were never used. Additionally, German reverse- engineering of a captured big bomb and the addition of a rocket motor was interesting.
Rather a bit much for a comment, eh? If you got this far, you will enjoy the viewing.
Balanced View.
rmax3048233 May 2015
Warning: Spoilers
The extraordinarily popular feature film, "The Dam Busters", was a history book written by the winners. It was mostly accurate but tilted in the direction of myth. This superior documentary is a valuable corrective.
The feature film itself is a little confusing. A handful of dams supplying water to the factories of the Ruhr were to be attacked. The two most important were the Mohne, a stone wall with control towers at each end, and the Sorpe, which was of an entirely different construction, a cement core surrounded on both sides with dirt slopes.
Two of the dams were destroyed by Barnes Wallace's "bouncing bombs", including the Mohne, the chief subject of the feature film. The Sorpe held.
The outcome was a kind of victory with appalling losses to the aircraft and crews, but the Mohne dam was less important than the untouched Sorpe because the former did little more than flood the agricultural valley below, sweeping away whole villages as well as camps holding POWs and Russian women. Almost all the more than thousand deaths were of civilians. The industries of the Ruhr valley drew most of its water from the Sorpe.
The propaganda value was enormously helpful to the British and their Allies, the United States and Russia. The German press called it a "terrorist raid" that had been prompted by the Jews. Any people at war seem to need those myths. They're sources of energy to the combatants and if they are partially fabricated, that's not the point. In its recent wars in the Middle East, the US has been known to build the same sorts of heroic tales involving Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. The controversies can be found in Wikipedia.
In any case, the damage was dreadful but its effect was temporary. The dams were rebuilt and operating normally in a period of weeks. Electricity and other parts of the infrastructure were available in a matter of days. One of the greatest inconveniences caused by the raid was the German's need to withdraw so many force laborers from the Atlantic Wall in order to repair the structures.
None of this, of course, detracts in any way from those who planned the raid or those who carried it out. I enjoy the feature film because we really DO need our myths, fixed features of a changing and disappoint universe.
The feature film itself is a little confusing. A handful of dams supplying water to the factories of the Ruhr were to be attacked. The two most important were the Mohne, a stone wall with control towers at each end, and the Sorpe, which was of an entirely different construction, a cement core surrounded on both sides with dirt slopes.
Two of the dams were destroyed by Barnes Wallace's "bouncing bombs", including the Mohne, the chief subject of the feature film. The Sorpe held.
The outcome was a kind of victory with appalling losses to the aircraft and crews, but the Mohne dam was less important than the untouched Sorpe because the former did little more than flood the agricultural valley below, sweeping away whole villages as well as camps holding POWs and Russian women. Almost all the more than thousand deaths were of civilians. The industries of the Ruhr valley drew most of its water from the Sorpe.
The propaganda value was enormously helpful to the British and their Allies, the United States and Russia. The German press called it a "terrorist raid" that had been prompted by the Jews. Any people at war seem to need those myths. They're sources of energy to the combatants and if they are partially fabricated, that's not the point. In its recent wars in the Middle East, the US has been known to build the same sorts of heroic tales involving Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman. The controversies can be found in Wikipedia.
In any case, the damage was dreadful but its effect was temporary. The dams were rebuilt and operating normally in a period of weeks. Electricity and other parts of the infrastructure were available in a matter of days. One of the greatest inconveniences caused by the raid was the German's need to withdraw so many force laborers from the Atlantic Wall in order to repair the structures.
None of this, of course, detracts in any way from those who planned the raid or those who carried it out. I enjoy the feature film because we really DO need our myths, fixed features of a changing and disappoint universe.
Superb documentary of the daring dam raid of WW II
SimonJack5 October 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This 49-minute documentary is an excellent background look at one of the most innovative and daring efforts in World War II. Operation Chastise was an RAF mission organized from scratch in less than two months. Better known as the Dambusters Raid, it involved several firsts. A new bomb had to be invented – a bouncing bomb to skim across the surface of a lake. Aircraft had to be greatly modified. A new method of bombing had to be tried. Special flying methods were needed to deliver the bombs. The planes had to fly below 200 feet to avoid radar and fighter attack. Then, they had to drop their bouncing bombs just 60 feet above the water at a precise distance from the dams. And flight crews needed to be trained in all of this and ready in seven weeks. It would be the first time in history that an air force used low-level nighttime precision bombing.
The 1955 movie, "The Dam Busters," is an excellent portrayal of the operation. When it was made, some of the details were still classified. So, the movie omitted some things and changed others. This documentary, "The Dambusters Raid" of 2001, gives the facts and more details of the mission. It has film clips from the movie and from the actual testing and training. It has aerial photos of the three Ruhr River Valley dams before and after the raid of May 16, 1943. It has newspaper headlines of the raid and film footage that the RAF shot the following day. That shows the widespread destruction from the two dams that were breached – the Möhne and the Eder. And it has live interviews with many people. These appear to have been recorded around the 50th anniversary of the raid – in 1993.
Among the interviews are surviving crew members of 617 Squadron which became known as the Dambusters Squadron. Other interviews include military historians, ground survivors of the flooding, and family members of Barnes Wallis. Wallis was the English engineer who had the idea of a special bomb to destroy dams. Some British officials had been thinking of a way to cripple Germany's war production as early as the mid-1930s. It was apparent then, that Hitler was re-arming Germany for war. Wallis was charged with developing the bomb to do the job. A special, larger bomb was needed, because the standard 500-pound bomb "was about as useless as bouncing peanuts off a structure," says military historian, Dr. John Sweetman.
Among those interviewed are Wallis' children – sons Barnes Wallis and Christopher Wallis, and daughter Mary Stopes-Roe. Others are Prof. Richard Overy of King's College, military historians Sweetman of England and Dr. Horst Boog of Germany, and English engineer Noman Boerer. Crew members of Squadron 617 interviewed are navigator Dudley Heal, bomb aimer Sgt. Steve Oancia, flight engineer Basil Feneron, and pilots Flt. Lt. J.C. McCarthy, Flt. Sgt. Ken Brown, and Flt. Lt. Les Munro. Sq. Ldr. Jerry Fray flew the camera plane the following day that filmed the destruction. The dam raid survivors on the ground who were interviewed are Martin Loetzer, Franz-Josef Coer, Luc Hoesen (a Dutch laborer), and Frau Gustel Schulte.
The raid was carried out with 19 Lancaster bombers, each with a crew of seven men. Eight of the planes and their crews were shot down. The Sorpe dam, with sloping earthen banks on either side of a concrete core was not breached. Only two bombs hit it and they did some serious damage, as the following day's film showed. But, Germany was quick to repair and restore it. The Eder dam was breached and flooded the valley below it with moderate damage. But, the breached Möhne Dam caused widespread destruction. Houses and buildings were swept away for miles downstream. Some 1,600 people were drowned. Of those, about 700 were forced labor people – mostly Dutch, Belgian and Russian.
The military would normally restrict aerial reconnaissance film taken during war as classified. But the film of the raid damage was so graphic that Britain released the photos and story right away. The raid was hailed as a huge success from England to the U.S. and Russia. The raid, of course, did not noticeably cripple Germany's war production. That has led some to question its effect. The film narrator asks the question, "So, was the raid a failure?" He then answers his own question, "Not necessarily. In warfare, physical destruction is not always the most effective weapon."
Germany moved quickly to repair the dams. It diverted 27,000 laborers from crucial work on the Atlantic coastal defenses for nearly five months. Widespread measures and equipment were put in place to stop future attacks. And Hitler moved 10,000 front line troops to the defense of German dams. The British saw the huge diversion of men and resources by Germany as a major benefit of the raid. Two days later, Winston Churchill was in Washington, D.C. He addressed the U.S. Congress and was given a standing ovation.
Veterans from 617 Squadron sum up the dams raid. Flt. Sgt. Ken Brown said he lost a lot of friends. "But as far as the morale buildup of the whole country it was well worth it. It was well received in America as well as in England. It was a real booster had a tremendous effect." And Flt. Lt. J.C. McCarthy says, "I don't care what anybody says really, 50 years later, to sit back and say, 'Oh, it wasn't worth it.' I say the opposite. It was worth it. Especially to the morale of the people. You could walk into a pub and never buy a drink "
This is a major film to accompany the 1955 movie as part of a World War II film collection.
The 1955 movie, "The Dam Busters," is an excellent portrayal of the operation. When it was made, some of the details were still classified. So, the movie omitted some things and changed others. This documentary, "The Dambusters Raid" of 2001, gives the facts and more details of the mission. It has film clips from the movie and from the actual testing and training. It has aerial photos of the three Ruhr River Valley dams before and after the raid of May 16, 1943. It has newspaper headlines of the raid and film footage that the RAF shot the following day. That shows the widespread destruction from the two dams that were breached – the Möhne and the Eder. And it has live interviews with many people. These appear to have been recorded around the 50th anniversary of the raid – in 1993.
Among the interviews are surviving crew members of 617 Squadron which became known as the Dambusters Squadron. Other interviews include military historians, ground survivors of the flooding, and family members of Barnes Wallis. Wallis was the English engineer who had the idea of a special bomb to destroy dams. Some British officials had been thinking of a way to cripple Germany's war production as early as the mid-1930s. It was apparent then, that Hitler was re-arming Germany for war. Wallis was charged with developing the bomb to do the job. A special, larger bomb was needed, because the standard 500-pound bomb "was about as useless as bouncing peanuts off a structure," says military historian, Dr. John Sweetman.
Among those interviewed are Wallis' children – sons Barnes Wallis and Christopher Wallis, and daughter Mary Stopes-Roe. Others are Prof. Richard Overy of King's College, military historians Sweetman of England and Dr. Horst Boog of Germany, and English engineer Noman Boerer. Crew members of Squadron 617 interviewed are navigator Dudley Heal, bomb aimer Sgt. Steve Oancia, flight engineer Basil Feneron, and pilots Flt. Lt. J.C. McCarthy, Flt. Sgt. Ken Brown, and Flt. Lt. Les Munro. Sq. Ldr. Jerry Fray flew the camera plane the following day that filmed the destruction. The dam raid survivors on the ground who were interviewed are Martin Loetzer, Franz-Josef Coer, Luc Hoesen (a Dutch laborer), and Frau Gustel Schulte.
The raid was carried out with 19 Lancaster bombers, each with a crew of seven men. Eight of the planes and their crews were shot down. The Sorpe dam, with sloping earthen banks on either side of a concrete core was not breached. Only two bombs hit it and they did some serious damage, as the following day's film showed. But, Germany was quick to repair and restore it. The Eder dam was breached and flooded the valley below it with moderate damage. But, the breached Möhne Dam caused widespread destruction. Houses and buildings were swept away for miles downstream. Some 1,600 people were drowned. Of those, about 700 were forced labor people – mostly Dutch, Belgian and Russian.
The military would normally restrict aerial reconnaissance film taken during war as classified. But the film of the raid damage was so graphic that Britain released the photos and story right away. The raid was hailed as a huge success from England to the U.S. and Russia. The raid, of course, did not noticeably cripple Germany's war production. That has led some to question its effect. The film narrator asks the question, "So, was the raid a failure?" He then answers his own question, "Not necessarily. In warfare, physical destruction is not always the most effective weapon."
Germany moved quickly to repair the dams. It diverted 27,000 laborers from crucial work on the Atlantic coastal defenses for nearly five months. Widespread measures and equipment were put in place to stop future attacks. And Hitler moved 10,000 front line troops to the defense of German dams. The British saw the huge diversion of men and resources by Germany as a major benefit of the raid. Two days later, Winston Churchill was in Washington, D.C. He addressed the U.S. Congress and was given a standing ovation.
Veterans from 617 Squadron sum up the dams raid. Flt. Sgt. Ken Brown said he lost a lot of friends. "But as far as the morale buildup of the whole country it was well worth it. It was well received in America as well as in England. It was a real booster had a tremendous effect." And Flt. Lt. J.C. McCarthy says, "I don't care what anybody says really, 50 years later, to sit back and say, 'Oh, it wasn't worth it.' I say the opposite. It was worth it. Especially to the morale of the people. You could walk into a pub and never buy a drink "
This is a major film to accompany the 1955 movie as part of a World War II film collection.
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