Driving through Penrith today, which is an area in the Western Suburbs of Sydney-I spotted a car that had a personalised sticker covering the back windshield that said "617 SQUADRON-DAMBUSTERS"
It made me feel so good to know that this driver(who drove a very new car and was only young) was respectful of sacrifices made by such great men-and it made me feel even more proud of achievements produced by such men in WW2...
Hope you all feel the same-I'm sure Martin Bull will appreciate this one!!!

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

He was probably on his way out to Warragamba Dam !!

(Warragamba is THE main water supply catchment for Sydney)

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"What do you take me for, an idiot?"
- General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy

It took me a moment to realise the joke there Sniper-very clever!!! He wasn't heading in the right direction though...

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

Absolutely right, Panzerknacker, and well spotted !

It's great that someone remembers - never forget that no less than 13 Australians flew on The Raid, including four pilots ( 'Mickey' Martin, Dave Shannon, Les Knight, and of course Robert Barlow, who failed to return ).

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

There you are again Martin-I did not know that any Australains had taken part in the raid...and especially to lose one...dear lord, shows how much attention alot of Australia is paying to the gallant sacrifices made by our servicemen and women...

Martin-I must ask, what was the purpose of the raid? They weren't hydroelectricity conductors or anything, so what good would any damage do? Or was it intended to damage factories in the valleys below?

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

Didn't know any Australians took part. . . . ? ?!? Well, I'm glad to have put that right !

The basic idea of the Dams Raid was to cripple the industries of the Ruhr by striking at the source of electricity. Damage caused by the unleashing of the waters was incidental. Barnes Wallis, the civilian scientist and inventor whose concept the revolving depth-charge was, believed throughout the war that devastating, precisely-targeted bombs would be more effective than crpet-bombing in striking at key industrial and military targets.

Sadly, the results of the Dams raid were far less cataclysmic than envisaged - more Dams would have had to be destroyed in order to have had the desired effect. And, as ever, the Germans recovered quickly ( but only by diverting huge amounts of labour and materials from the Atlantic Wall...).

None of which detracts from 617's actual achievement, which even when studied today looks totally impossible !

Incidentally, Leonard Cheshire VC subsequently described Mickey Martin as the best RAF bomber pilot of the war....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Martin we must not forget the moral and progaganda victory of the raid either. Although physically not meeting all its objectives, the effect of the story at home at the time and years to come was immensely gratifying.

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Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

Martin you may have seen this lot already, but UK History channel, Sunday 10pm, repeating the colour of war....Starts off with air war....just seen a clip of Lancs in colour in flight, never saw it first time round looks pretty good, you seen this series?

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Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

Unfortunately, I haven't got History Channel !

But you're right, urqh - the Dams Raid had a tremendous pyschological and propaganda impact at the time on both sides. Several 'revisionist' historians have since tried to deride the whole thing as a waste of effort but this has been refuted by serious scholars such as Dr John Sweetman.

( By pure coincidence for this thread the postman has just delivered a copy of 'An Airman Far Away' published by the Kangaroo Press, NSW, which is the biography of one of the 'unsung' Australians, Charlie Williams, who, as wireless operator on 'Norm' Barlow's Lancaster, died on the Raid ).

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

I think I might have to start reading some of these publications-

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

I think I might have to start reading some of these publications-

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

Panzer, can see your interest in easy coy, hard to miss mate, but the Aussies have given us some damn fine units and servicemen in their own right especially in ww2...

In the air, they shared everything in the air and on the ground with their RAF comrades, as did all Commonwealth nations, intermixing in many a bomber crew or fighter sqn.

New Guinea speaks for itself.

Middle East would simply not have had the ending it did without them.

The Aussies can stand proud on their own violition and answer to no one for their deeds and actions,

Before anyone says it, by Aussies I mean all Anzacs.

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Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

( Too right - I'll just chip in and say there were three New Zealanders on the Dams Raid as well ! )

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Maybe I'm the only one who remembers more the 2,000 civilians killed in this "chastise", rather than the soldiers who killed them.

Ce la guerre: You become a hero if you kill enough people (who doesn't necessarily have to be enemy soldiers, but also women, children, elder).

Cheers,

[ 11. January 2003, 04:50 AM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

Cheers urgh-I am very proud of the Australians who have bled for this great land-especially my pop-PRIVATE ROBERT FRANCIS OXLEY-PRISONER OF THE JAPANESE IN CHANGI POW CAMP-he lived through it...1942-1945

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

'2,000 civilians'....hmmmmm.

Of those 2,000, only 181 were German. 867 were foreign labourers, including a large number of Ukrainian women. Tragic, indeed.

But - were these people working in Germany of their own free will , with privileges accorded to other civilians ? Possibly not.

The heroes of 617 Squadron died in the cause of freeing Europe from tyranny and slavery.

[ 11. January 2003, 05:08 AM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

WAR IS HELL.....regardless of who was right and who was wrong, regardless of which viewpoint we care to respect over another-people will die, and that is fact-it can't be helped.
In this situation-the labourers were fighting for there cause, forced or otherwise-and the fliers were doing what they saw as what needed to be done. The deaths on both sides are what makes it all the more appalling...it is a tragedy, that is why I respect and read about war so much, to honour the memory of otherwise forgotten people...Just Panzerknacker's 2 cents....

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"GARRY OWEN"-Traditional war-cry of the US 7th Cavalry.
"CURRAHEE"-War-cry of the US 506th PIR.
"Everybody thinks that they are going to get the chance to punch some Nazi in the face at Normandy-and those days are over, they are long gone"-Lt Chris Burnett

We could get into this big time I suppose, and maybe its been covered in the archives, but bombing is however we like it an accepted weapon of warfare.

We could go tit for tat for years on the ethics too..

Coventry?

Rotterdam?

Lots afterwards were much bigger I know, but world war 2 was total war, civilians were seen as unfortunate targets if in armanents or war making industry areas or even areas that could be classed as ligistic support or transport heads by all sides.

There is the case against some strategic bombing when its used purely as demorilising factor on civilian populous, and in my view looking at Berlin and London I dont think that works, but goes ahead regardless.

If Gibson and his men had been targetted against civilian populace with regards to killing as many as possible then you could have a case for critisism, however their target was military and industrial, and if we were not to use this weapon as the enemy did too then we would be fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

Force is met with force, London with Berlin, Coventry with Cologne. Tit for tat is the human way.

And we wont even go into the simplistic argument of who started it.

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Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

With apologies to Martin as not an in depth report, but deserves revisititng I think.

The reason these guys are considered heros, is not because of the amount that becuase of their actions were killed on the raid, but in the performance and skills employed and bravery needed to press home such an attack...

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/...ambusters.html

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Prepare to repel borders.
William L. McGonagle, MOH, U. S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS LIBERTY 1967.

Please excuse...I'm German ,so blame me for thinking for the civilian losses... but that's not the cause...I think we're re reaching the very end here...how many killed women, children, elder are are worth a "Victorian Cross "/"Knight Cross"...is the Mosquitto pilot a hero who made the perfect "Christmas Tree" to brown the entire city of Wuppertal or the NSDAP bomber pilot who marked Coventry...?

Actuallly I think a military campaign targeted to kill as many "enemy" civilians as possible is a war crime...no matter if it's made up under a nazi cause or an American 'just war' cause...

Just my 2c...is it an act of anti-Americanism to note that the U.S.A. was the only nation so far who used weapons of mass murder against civilian people and not some nitty-gritty- rouge nations?

Cheers to all those U.S. >niggers< out there who still think they're treated fairly because the current admin is telling it so...

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"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

We're definitely getting off topic here, I think.

The irony of this is that, of all Bomber Command operations of WWII, the primary purpose of the Dams Raid was not to 'kill as many civilians as possible'. Barnes Wallis was convinced that 'strategic bombing' was wasteful and that precise targeting of industrial objectives could be achieved.

One can take this argument to any length - French civilians died in the pre-D-Day bombardment. Ergo does this make the Royal Navy gunners war criminals, and so on. And V1s, V2s and the A-Bomb must be war crimes ....

Ultimately

Bewahret den Frieden
Krieg ist Grausam


On a memorial erected by Geman people on the German crash site of AJ-C, Ottley's Lancaster.

( Maybe I'll suggest to Otto that 'Strategic Bombing/ Morality' should warrant an individual topic heading. It does need to be discussed and revisited and it is of interest to new members also ).

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson