From Dambusters to bunker-busters

A brief note dated 3 August 1943 from Air Cdre Sydney Bufton, director of bomber operations at the Air Ministry, to Bomber Command’s Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief is a pointer towards one of the more notable inventions by Barnes Wallis, a “12,000lb deep penetration bomb” that would emerge as Tallboy. Bufton refers back to an earlier letter of 30 June 1943, and has to accept that the original date for the introduction of the bomb — September 1943 — “would