OPERATION CHASTISE
The RAF’s Most Brilliant Attack of World War II
By Max Hastings

“Operation Chastise,” about the so-called Dambusters raid, carries the subtitle “The RAF’s Most Brilliant Attack of World War II.” In terms of sheer daring, and in terms of the inventive power that went into the famous bouncing bombs, this cannot be denied. Yet the tale told by Max Hastings, a renowned military historian and journalist, is more complex and less celebratory than the book’s cover implies. His account of the events of May 16-17, 1943, will keep you on the edge of your seat, but his analysis of their causes and consequences is equally deserving of attention.

As early as 1938, British planners had determined that Germany’s reservoirs and dams were a potential weak spot in the Nazi war machine. But it took the inventor Barnes Wallis — vegetarian, Christian and campanologist — to devise the weapon that could exploit this vulnerability. He faced the skepticism of Sir Arthur Harris, commander in chief of Bomber Command, who believed that large-scale bombing could end the war by destroying civilian morale, and who therefore had little interest in precision targeting.

However, Hastings turns the conventional wisdom — that Wallis faced a lonely battle against uncomprehending officialdom — on its head. What is remarkable, he suggests, is that in the midst of the maelstrom of war and in the face of limited resources, both Whitehall and the military seized upon an unproven idea and quickly tried to put it into effect. Why? Because Wallis, just like Harris, was overpromising. He argued that the destruction of Germany’s natural resources offered “a means of rendering the enemy utterly incapable of continuing to prosecute the war.” It didn’t turn out quite like this in practice, of course, and in fact a better choice of targets might have created a longer-lasting impact on German industry.

Having concluded that May 26 was the last date in 1943 on which the selected dams could be attacked, the British faced a race against time to perfect the technology, produce specially modified bombers and ready the aircrews. It was all a huge extravagance and essentially a gamble, a piece of military theater, Hastings suggests, rather than serious strategy. Even if it worked, it could be done only once because after the Germans had become aware of the threat, they could easily devise countermeasures.

The raid was led by Guy Gibson, who had become a wing commander the previous year at the age of 23. He was fearless but not always kind to his subordinates — perhaps no wonder since he had been given a position of terrifying responsibility at an alarmingly young age. With the actual purpose of the mission shrouded in secrecy, the men began training for what a military directive called “low-level navigation over enemy territory in moonlight with a final approach to the target at 100 feet at a precise speed, which will be about 240 m.p.h.” It is no surprise that 52 of the 133 raiders were killed.

After a nail-biting series of failed attempts, the Möhne and Eder dams were breached (although the Sorpe dam, which was made of earth rather than masonry, was not). Hastings writes movingly of the suffering inflicted on those who lived in the path of the floodwaters: It is possible that as many as 1,600 people died, many of them non-German forced laborers. He does not dismiss the attack’s economic impact as comprehensively as some have done, even if it did not have the decisive effect that had been hoped for. But he sticks to his view, first articulated over 40 years ago, that the costs of the wider bomber offensive outstripped its results. The Dambusters affair was perhaps more justifiable than wholesale “terror-bombing” of cities, but it reminds us that even the most brilliant military raid has its price in human victims.