The Dam Busters â officially No. 617 Squadron â were an RAF squadron who gain the name for their actions in World War Two during Operation Chastise against the German dams. The squadron was formed specifically to attack three major dams that provided power and water to the Ruhr industrial region of Germany. Breaking the dams would cripple the industrial might of the Nazi War machine. During the Second World War the Dam Busters carried out nearly 1,600 operational sorties, losing nly 32 aircraft.
Nearly as famous as the squadron were the weapon they used. In the spring of 1943 a new weapon appeared which promised to succeed where conventional bombs had failed. Its creator was Barnes Wallis whose bouncing bomb was dropped by the Dam busters on their spectacular raid of May 16â17. The new invention, code-named âHighball,â was based on the same principle. It was cylinder-shaped, weighed half a ton, and contained a 500-lb. charge.
Their most famous operation was Operation Chastise, an attack on German dams, carried out on May 16-17, 1943. Their âbouncing bombsâ breached the Mohne and Edersee Dams, flooding the Ruhr valley and villages in the Eder valley. In the wake of the flooding, two hydroelectric power plants were destroyed, along with factories and mines. Over 1,600 civilians drowned: approximately 1,000 Soviet forced-laborers and 600 Germans. German war-time production was severely hampered until September.
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