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Dambusters the Raid revisited...

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Shippo
Posts: 58
Joined: Mon May 14, 2012 11:43 pm

Dambusters the Raid revisited...

Post by Shippo » Fri Jul 14, 2017 3:47 pm

Nineteen specially designed Lancaster bombers took off on 16th May 1943 from RAF Scampton, Lincoln. Their mission was to bomb the dams of The Ruhr valley, Nazi Germany. Nine were to attack the Möhne dam, then proceed to the Eder; five were to attack the Sorpe; and five constituted a "flying reserve".

Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris of Bomber Command gave this order to Wing Commander Guy Gibson who commanded 617 Squadron later to become know as The Dambusters.

To make this possible, the aircraft engineer Dr Barnes Wallis, the designer of the Wellington bomber, was given the task of designing the "bouncing bomb": a missile that would skip across the water, hit the dam and roll to the bottom. The bomb needed only to be dropped at the right speed, at the right distance from the dam and at the right height above the water. This was the task of the specialist 617 Squadron, formed in March 1943.

The Dambusters squadron was retained as a specialist precision bombing unit. During the course of the Second World War 26 year old W/C Gibson was shot down and killed in September 1944 flying a Mosquito aircraft from RAF Woodhall Spa.
The rest is history playing a major part of WW2 and of the Royal Air Force!

Questions have been raised regarding the bombing of the Ruhr dams, operation Chastise, and the crew of 617 Squadron who took part. Paul Stoddart will be looking at aspects behind this bombing mission which took place 74 years ago and will be giving an illustrated talk using the title the DAMBUSTERS THE RAID REVISITED.

Paul served in the Royal Air Force from 1983 to 1991 as an aerosystems engineer officer and has worked for the Ministry of Defence since 1993 after a short stint as a journalist on a car magazine. His work has included the Tornado successor study at Farnborough, managing the Harrier and Sea Harrier trials programmes at Boscombe Down and the Advanced Command & Staff Course at the Joint Services Command & Staff College. He is currently an analyst and scientific adviser RAF Waddington. He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a member of the RAeS Air Power Group committee.

The talk will take place in the WW2 gymnasium called the Peter Scoley Hall at the Metheringham Airfield Visitor Centre on Wednesday, 26th July 2017 beginning 7.30pm

Admission is free to members of Friends of Metheringham Airfield and to 106 Squadron veterans who served at RAF Metheringham. For visitors and non members tickets are available at the door to include refreshments.

For further information please telephone 07486 947 095

John Shipton
Friends of Metheringham Airfield
Lincoln
War time home to 106 Squadron

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