617 Dam buster AEC Matador Sold

[Mike K]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-13742117

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

No comment..just passing along the story..

10 June 2011 Last updated at 12:52 ET


Dam Busters dog renamed for movie remake
Guy Gibson and the Dambusters with 'Nigger' The black Labrador was run over and killed during the planning of the raids


Peter Jackson to film Dam Busters

The Dam Busters' dog will be renamed for a new version of the classic war movie, it has emerged.

Stephen Fry, who is writing the film's screenplay, said there was "no question in America that you could ever have a dog called the N-word".

In the remake, the dog will be called "Digger" instead of "Nigger".

The black Labrador was the mascot for RAF 617 squadron, which during World War II destroyed dams in Germany with Barnes Wallis's famous bouncing bomb.

Owned by the squadron's wing commander, Guy Gibson, the animal was run over and killed during the planning of the Dambuster raids, and was buried at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire - from where the operation was launched.

Fry told BBC Radio 5 live: "It's no good saying that it is the Latin word for black or that it didn't have the meaning that it does now - you just can't go back, which is unfortunate.


The film is not about the dog”

Phil Bonner Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire

"You can go to RAF Scampton and see the dog's grave and there he is with his name, and it's an important part of the film.

"The name of the dog was a code word to show that the dam had been successfully breached.

"In the film, you're constantly hearing 'N-word, N-word, N-word, hurray' and Barnes Wallis is punching the air. But obviously that's not going to happen now.

"So Digger seems OK, I reckon."

Phil Bonner, from Aviation Heritage Lincolnshire, said: "I think for the Second World War generation that word was acceptable.

"But with my daughters growing up in Lincolnshire, they have been taught that the word is unacceptable now.

"The film is not about the dog. My big concern would be if they watered down what the Dam Busters had achieved."

The 1955 film, which starred Sir Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd, told the story of Barnes Wallis' struggle to develop the bomb and the subsequent raids on Nazi Germany - codenamed Operation Chastise.

The remake is being produced by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson.

[chalky]

Doesn't matter to me , did the dog effect the bombing.

[Richard Farrant]

Also a Bedford QL refueller heading to NZ as well, so I hear.

[George McKenzie]

I had a visit from the pilot that just made a renactment of blowing the dam .It was made by the ice pilots from Yellowknife and was on tv last week .He had to fly 80 ft above the lake with an old c4 plane,a little tricky to do. they used a barrel for a bomb and a home made dam .When the barrel hit the dam they set off dinamite .They had alot of fun doing it

[Phil Waterman]

Interesting, keep us posted on the production of the film if you hear more, in particular when it is to be released or shown.

Just to put the size of these bombs in perspective the picture is of Dam Buster exhibit bomb at Duxford. Wife in the picture is 5'7" tall.

Cheers Phil

[Private_collector]

I know it will be a real good movie, but to me there's something really special about the original that can't be equalled. The original Dambusters is such a good movie. The 'special' effects are laughable...........now................but they wern't then


Maybe it's that I prefer the era of the originals.

Seeing this thread has reminded me, I have a photo of one of the breached dams somewhere, signed by one of the bomb aimers, 'Johnnie" Johnson (or Johnston). I must look for it. Johnnie passed away recently I was told.

He was another "Classic" that can never be remade.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony

Speaking of special effects what I always found interesting was that the movie bombs were spheres not drums. So special effects in the name of secrecy

Remember reading about the back spin on the drums when it was declassified.

Cheers Phil

[George McKenzie]

The ice pilots from Yelowknife was on again on history channel Nov 11 bombing the dam again .You might get more information from Buffalo Airways in Yellowknife

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Phil Waterman

Hi Tony

Speaking of special effects what I always found interesting was that the movie bombs were spheres not drums. So special effects in the name of secrecy

Remember reading about the back spin on the drums when it was declassified.

Cheers Phil

Spinning Cylindrical Bomb:
Story of The Dam Busters

During the WW II, a British aeronautical engineer, Barnes Wallis came up with an idea of a barrel shaped bomb released with a back spin to attack German dams. It would bounce on the water and skip over the torpedo net protecting the dam. Following is excerpted from a book called "The Dam Busters" by P. Brickhill (now out of print.)

"If you make something spin fast enough around an axis it needs a surprising amount of force to tilt it off that axis. The earth is one example of spinning on an axis. It stays on that same axis (thank God) but it doesn't have to be a sphere. A lot of youngsters have little gyro- scopes as toys. Yank hard on a string and a caged disc spins like mad, and people are intrigued at the strength it needs to budge it from its axis. Or take a child's top. It stays upright when it is spnning fast enough and falls over when it isn't. (That's a top secret!). A lot of aircraft blind flying instruments depend on gyroscopic action, such as an artificial horizon.

Wallis knew that he had to reduce the diameter of his missile. And he knew it still had to hit the water on every bounce with the same shape surface as before. He already knew his missile had to drop with a lot of back-spin on it to control the bounces, and also to make it crawl underwater flat against the dam wall when it hit. So why not a missile shaped like a portly barrel with enough back-spin to keep it gyroscopically on an identical axis all the way.

That would reduce the diameter without lengthening the 'barrel' shape too much. It seemed all so easy. All one had to do was think it out first.

His assistants carved on lathes a series of fat, barrel-shaped models, each with differing weight-size-shape ratios and all of them with a potential diameter small enough to be carried under a Lancaster.

Wallis tested each repeatedly with varying combinations of back- spin, catapult velocity and height. Consistently they skipped across the water in the tank in little flashes of spray but seldom tilting off their horizontal axis, presenting at each skip the same pot-bellied shape to the water. By trial and error he found at what speeds each model would slither against the far end of the tank and crawl under the water hugging the wall (with the residual back-spin). He filled a notebook with details of each shape, and by simple elimination was able to choose the model with the widest range of reliable performance.

The rest was largely doing sums, such as how fast a five ton 'barrel' could be safely spun backwards before release from an aircraft and achieve enough gyroscopic stability for half a mile or more of bouncing bumps. Wallis made it between 450-500 revolutions per minute backwards.

By the middle of 1942 he was satisfied he could make a five tonner do what he wanted it to. The only thing he didn't know was whether to call it a barrel, a bomb, a mine or a missile. Not that it mattered."

Avro Lancaster Heavy Bomber

Taerum flicked the belly lights on and, peering down from the blister, started droning: 'Down . . . down . . . down . . . up a bit ... steady, stead-y-y.' The lights were touching each other, 'G George' was exactly at 60 feet and the flak gunners had seen the lights. The streams of glowing shells were swiveling and lowering, and then the shell were whipping towards them, seeming to move slowly at first like all flak, and then rushing madly at their eyes as the aircraft plunged into them.

Gibson said tersely: 'Bomb on! '

Spafford flicked the switch and heard the whine of the electric motor starting back in the fuselage. He could hear it winding up speed and a vibration grew through the aircraft as the black barrel under- neath stirred out of its inertia and started revolving backwards, faster and faster, building up to optimum revs., until G George was thrum- ming like a live thing.

Gibson held her steady, pointing between the towers.

Spafford screamed, 'Bomb gone!' loud and sharp, and they rocketed over the dam between the towers.


Moehne dam after the raid

In a few moments the mountain of water erupted skyward again under the dam wall. It was uncanny how accurate the bomb was. The spray from the explosions was misting up the whole valley now and it was hard to see what was happening by the dam. ---

'Hell, it's gonel It's gonel Look at it for Christ's sakel' Wheeling round the valley side Martin had seen the concrete face abruptly split and crumble under the weight of water. Gibson swung in close and was staggered. A ragged hole 100 yards across and 100 feet deep split the dam and the lake was pouring out of it, 134 million tons of water crashing into the valley in a jet 200 feet long, smooth on top, foaming at the sides where it tore at the rough edges of the breach and boiling over the scarred earth where the power house had been."

"The Dam Busters" by P. Brickhill

[George McKenzie]

They boys in Yelloknife did much the same thing . They used a empty barrel and then they filled it with cement to get mor bounces .They had to be carefull not to get hit by the water from the first splash when they droped the barrel .They put a shield on the bottom half of the barrel so the wind would help spin the barrel . They comented that what they did was alot easier then when it was done in the war by not having guns shooting at them

[Phil Waterman]

I have always enjoyed the original movie about the Dam Buster and over the years I have seen bits and pieces in various books about this development effort. One problem with many books is that they take bits and pieces from different sources and connect them correctly or incorrectly. In doing this they sometimes carry forward previously misleading statements. One of the things I enjoy about MLU is that people making post seem to make an effort to document information to original sources and when not sure of a source they say so. All of this is rather interesting for the internet. Having said this here are some more bits to add to the Dam Buster discussion they are from a Large Format beautifully illustrated aircraft book THE GREAT BOOK OF WORLD WAR II AIRPLANES published in 1984, and is actually a compilation of books about individual aircraft.

The first photo is of a Mosquito dropping a barrel or sphere shaped bomb low over water so that it skips, there is a similar sequence in the original movie, but the text describes this as development of an anti shipping bomb. Later in the book it covers the Lancaster bomber and includes the drawings shown of the Dam Buster bomb system, this is the earliest write up that I remember as the Lancaster section of the book was first printed in 1982.

From another source which I have not been able to find again was a statement that a Ford engine possibly a flathead V8, was used to spin up the bomb. Could this possibly been from an old thread on MLU?


Cheers Phil

[Lang]

From what I have read (once again from untested articles) the Mosquito was the first choice for the raid but size of the weapon made it all too difficult. I think the shots in the original movie of the Mosquito were of scaled down "proof of concept" experiments. There were many, many more experiments and tests carried out than the dramatised version shown in the original movie or mentioned in the book.

The Americans became very good at skip bombing from B25 Mitchells in the Pacific on anti-shipping attacks. They used standard 250lb and 500lb bombs and dropped from 50-100 feet. There are many photos and movies of them making successful attacks on Japanese shipping.

Of course this would not have worked on the dams which required underwater explosions.

As a comment I think the back-spin was totally to do with stabilizing the weapon during flight and bouncing. The "crawl up to the wall" theory would not work as it was spinning in a direction to take it back, not forward, once it hit the wall or bottom.

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

Originally yes, in practice no. the following excerpt is from:

http://www.outermarker.co.uk/Article...h/chastise.htm

"The bombs were to be spun by the addition of a Ford V8 engine but this changed such that the hydraulic supply, which normally powered the mid-mounted gun turret that had been removed as part of a weight saving exercise, was used to power a hydraulic motor."

I always assumed it was generated by wind from the airspeed of the aircraft. Wrong again..
Rich.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi All

The NOVA PBS program on the Canadian recreation is being aired at this time in the US. Here is a link which I hope will work outside the US. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/militar...tler-dams.html very interesting program.

Cheers Phil