Dambusters!! Download the 1954 Series Now

Rockhopper, that’s useful but I wonder if you misunderstood my my query about who lead each flight? I was not asking about the Dams raid formations, I was talking about later on when the Squadron was broken into three Flights, A Flight, B Flight and C Flight. The actual permanent organisation of the squadron.

I know, I wrote it…

Thanks anyway.

Dave, there’s a cast list in one of the comments on the OTR Dam Busters page:

“I discovered that the cast is mentioned at the end of the final episode. For those interested they are:
Barnes Wallis = James Mills
Ralph Cochrane = David Butler
Guy Gibson VC = Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell
Leonard Cheshire VC = Alan Trevor
James Tait = Barry Cookson
Micky Martin = Max Osbasten
Dave Shannon = Rodney Taylor
Arthur Harris = Maurie Powell
Joe McCarthy = Harp Maguire
Ann Shannon = Coralie Neville
Plus:
David Eady
Alexander Archdale
John Ewart
John Mallion
Richard Davies
Joe McCormick
Len Bullen
Don Crosby
Lionel Stephens
Gordon Chater”.
I hope this helps.

Formation 1 (Moehne Dam then anyone who had not bombed go to the Eder)

Gibson
Hopgood
Martin

Young
Astell
Maltby

Maudslay
Knight
Shannon

Formation 2 (Sorpe)

McCarthy
Byers
Barlow
Rice
Munro

Formation 3 (mobile reserve)

Townsend
Brown
Anderson
Ottley
Burpee

The first name is each group is the section leader

Hope this helps (and is correct!!)

Thanks Adler Tag.

Can anyone put an answer to the other queries? I don’t have any books on No. 617 Squadron and am at a loss for finding answers on the internet.

In relation to the actions that earned Gibson the VC, it seems it was down to the fact that he was always in the immediate vicinity of the target during the attack. In all he made three runs at the dam, the first two to judge the visibility and the defences before sending other crews in to attack. He also made runs alongside other attacking aircraft, with his lights on. He then spent much of the rest of the raid orbiting near the dam so that his gunners could supress the anti-aircraft fire coming up from the towers and surrounding area, while other crews who’d dropped thier bombs took up the job of running in alongside attacking aircraft.

Oh and another thing – in the series Wallis refers to the Dams Raid as Operation Downwood. So where does Operation Chastise come into it? I thought that was the name of the dams operation. I’m confused.

Since listening to this excellent series I have been giving No. 617 Squadron a fair bit of thought and I have numerous questions for the experts.

1) The squadron started off with two Flights, ‘A’ and ‘B’ Flights, and they had 21 aircraft and crews. Later it was reorganised into three Flights, ‘A’,’B’ and ‘C’ Flights. I am wondering did they build up over 26 aircraft at this point, and therefore have to add a second set of code letters for ‘C’ Flight? (For example No. 75 (NZ) Squadron had so many aircraft in their Stirling and Lancaster era that they had codes AA- for ‘A’ and ‘B’ Flights, and code JN- for ‘C’ Flight)

2) When the three Flights were formed the series says the Flight Commanders were Joe McCarthy, Dave Shannon and Les Munro. But who led which Flight?

3) The Tamiya 1/48 ‘Dambusters’ Lancaster comes with the option of the Dams Raid configuration or a later Grand Slam bomb configuration. The colour scheme for the later version has a sky coloured undersides rather than black. I always thought that odd when I saw pictures of it till listening to the series and i realised they did a lot of daylight raids with the bigger bombs. Were all their Lancasters painted in daylight colours or was there a daylight Flight and a nighttime Flight as well as their training Flight?

4) As well as their Lancasters of various variants, their Mosquitoes and their Mustang/s, did No. 617 Squadron have any other types assigned to it in WWII? Such as an Anson or Oxford for instrument training, communications or general hack?

5) Does anyone have info on the New Zealander who served on the Dams raid called Len Chambers? He was a Wireless Operator/Air Gunner and served on the crew of Micky Martin’s aircraft. Which position was he? Was he the Wireless Op or was he in one of the turrets? Also I read that he left the squadron to undergo pilot training. Did he qualify for his wings? And did he fly operationally as a pilot? If so, where? In Europe? Or did he return to NZ? Was he on bombers, fighters, flying boats, transport?

5) In the series I noted Micky Martin calling the aircraft Q-Queenie, the actor pronounced it as Quee-Queenie. Was this just and acting fluff? He did it several times. Or was this actual RAF procedure so Q was not confused with U on the radio? Just like 9 is pronounced niner so not confused with 1.

6) I have inerviewed a chap who was an Armourer on No. 617 Squadron. he joined the unit just after the Dams raid and so worked on the Grand Slams and several other bomb types. He told me about a chapter in the squadron’s history that was not recorded in the series sadly. He said Barnes Wallis came up with a scheme to get commandoes into beaches very quickly. He designed a large air-droppable boat that was slung under a Lancaster, and the men would climb from the Lanc into the boat and strap in. The Lanc would drop the boat and parachutes would slow its descent till it touched down on the water just offshore. He reckoned Wallis said 30 or more men would be dropped in one go. He said that he and another Armourer were seconded by Wallis and he worked directly with him, in a secret location on a remote part of the British coast. A couple of Lancs were utilised to test the boat drops. He reckoned that Walis was very prepared to be the Guines pig himself in a drop but I don’t think that happened. Has anyone read or heard of these tests done by 617 Sqn? Is it a well known chapter of the squadron’s history? Is it written about in books?

I think I may have other queries about the squadron too but I’ll leave them for now.

Something about the series I noted was in the dams raid in the film Gibson is seen as being very brave and going in alongside others doing their bomb run to divert/split the flak. In the radio series I got a different impression, his crew seems to be just stooging around with the rear gunner watching the other’s attacks and describing the scenes. Which is true? Has the radio series taken a bit of licence from the truth to help the listener hear what’s happening, yet inadvertantly dropped the very brave VC-winning act from the story? Or was the VC won for something else?

Yes I noticed the end was cut off at a crucial point, but I never took note of which episode so didn’t mention it.

Thanks for posting this Dave. A great find! I’ve sent the link to my sister who, as one of the Gibson biographers, is keen to listen to it.

Can anyone tell me though, is there a complete copy of episode 18 anywhere? The one on the page appears to be truncated.

Ian

263 Squadron are probably best known, aircraft wise, for the Westland Whirlwind, of which sadly no surviving complete airframe exists.

Paul

Yes it was a Whirlwind, I meant it had a presentation name, the one that Si Howard “Sam” Ellis of Cambridge, NZ, donated to the RAF. It carried the name “Comrades in Arms.” It was serial P7102.

Thanks for the lead

I have listened to the first 2 episodes and cant wait for the rest

so far one difference from the film
in the movie they dropped the test bomb from 120 feet and it kept breaking up so they reduced it to 60 feet. in this radio version it was originally requested to drop it at 60 feet

wonderful

I’ll check out the forum Dave and ask my father this week if he remembers the OTR series as he is in his late 70’s and will hopefully have listened to it when he was younger.

263 Squadron are probably best known, aircraft wise, for the Westland Whirlwind, of which sadly no surviving complete airframe exists.

Paul

Hi James, I brought it to Michelle’s notice and she was both surprised and thrilled so i dear say it has probably been well looked at and catalogued since.

I don’t know anything about P/O Brannigan I’m afraid, but post a message to my forum as someone may have info, we have a lot of experts there. The only thing I know about No. 263 Squadron is its most famous aircraft (the one with the name that I cannot recall) was donated to the RAF by a man from my town, along with two other fighters.

Regarding the Dambusters series, I am wondering who Australasian Radio were. Was it a broadcast network that went out to both NZ and Australia? Was it just a production house? I cannot find anything on the net about it. However when I told my Mum about this series she vividly recalls listening to it when she was about 10 years old, back before TV reached this country. It’s neat that something that thrilled her and her family in the 1950’s has thrilled me equally nearly 60 years later.

Thanks for the reply Dave and I hope that you enjoy going through the scrapbook. It is amazing sometimes how the most innocuous of objects can contain such gems of knowledge.

As an aside, and noting that you are from NZ Dave, do you anything about P/O Stewart Gordon BRANNIGAN 404885 RNZAF? I’m particularly interested in his time with 263 Squadron in late 41 early 42. He was only with 263 for a very short time before being posted out. He definitely did not fly the Whirlwind operationally but I’m curious to know whether or not he had the chance to try and fly one.

Paul

PS If Reach For The Sky and The Great Escape are of the same quality as the Dambusters I can’t wait either! Hopefully they will become available.

This made me take a large amount of note.

😀

Thanks for the heads up Dave – And as to the scrapbook, I hope it’s been catalogued since, or did you just offer them a box of pencils for it? 😎

I totally agree with you Paul that the series is very hard to put down, and addictive. I felt gutted after episode 26 ended, wishing there was more. I hope whoever posted this to archive.org can come up with the Great Escape and Reach For The Sky serials from the same makers.

I also agree it was great to hear more about Micky Martin, and also Cheshire, Tait and Farquier, and I really found it interesting the amount of input tat Cochrane had too. He was a grand officer.

I was in the RNZAF Museum archives at Wigram, Christchurch, NZ, in 2009 researching for data for my book project on the General reconnaissance squadrons of the RNZAF. One morning as I arrived Michelle the archivist said “I have found this old scrapbook, there seems to be a little bit in there about the Territorial squadrons which might interest you.” It did as they were our first GR Squadrons. She added, “I don’t know where the scrapbook came from, it’s not yet in the database and I have no idea who’s it is.” I began to have a look through and after a while i realsied there were some significant documents in it as well as many cuttings. One was a letter from the Air Secretary Tom Barrow which stated, along the lines of. “This is to confirm that His Majsty has confirred on you the role of Chief of Air Staff of the Royal new Zealand Air Force.” This made me take a large amount of note. Another page had a Union Airways airline ticket made out to Mr. R. Cochrane. Sure enough I soon realised and confirmed from other letters and cuttings, this was the personal scrapbook of Air Chief Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane! As he was our first ever Chief of Air Staff and is credited with being the ‘architect of the air force’, building it up from nothing to something worthwhile in two short years before war came, I was mightily pleased to be looking at this legend’s own personal keepsake. It had cuttings about his family too, who had a castle and large estate in Scotland, and the fact that his Dad died and he was made the laird. I never knew he was even Scottish till then. An amazing experience.

Back to Dambusters, are there any photos of the No. 617 Squadron Mosquitoes or their Mustang?

Dave

Thanks ever so much for sharing this with us. I’ve just finished listening to episode 16 and like a good book it is almost impossible to put down (switch off!).

The portrails of all the main characters is brilliant. It has been particularly pleasing to hear more about Mickey Martin’s role inthe squadron, especially after having read his rear gunner, Tom Simpson’s book Lower than Low.

I’m looking forward to the last ten episodes and then I’ll be back on the website looking for more. It leaves a lot of today’s visual fair for dead!

Paul

Glad you’re enjoying it Trumper.

The story of Barnes Wallis who was already a well respected designer and scientist always makes me wonder how many other people came up with good new ‘outside the box’ ideas that could have helped the war and they never got anywhere simply because of the gin swelling old by network and their closed mindedness.

Listening to part 4 right now… seems to contain the sounds of “radial Merlins”.. 😉