The Last Dam Buster: Johnny Johnson’s Final Interview

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:18][music] [music] >> Of all the air raids carried out in World War II, none are as enduringly famous as the attack by Lancaster bombers against the dams of Germany's industrial heartland.

[00:00:50]On the evening of the 16th and 17th [music] of May, 1943, using purpose-built bouncing bombs, two dams were breached.

[00:00:58]I was lucky enough to meet the last [music] surviving British dam buster, Johnny Johnson.

[00:01:03]And here is account of that famous night.

[00:01:06]Can I ask first, really, uh about your upbringing because it was quite a quite a tough childhood you had.

[00:01:13]My mother died a fortnight before my third birthday.

[00:01:17]So, I I never knew a mother's love.

[00:01:20]And I had a father whether he blamed me for my mother's death, I don't know.

[00:01:26]But, um the first thing I remember about him was we're at the hospital waiting to go up to see my mother.

[00:01:34]And, uh he was talking to somebody else. I wanted to join them.

[00:01:38]And he explained to this character who I was. I was the sixth of the family, the youngest of six.

[00:01:45]And this character said, "What, another one?"

[00:01:48]My father said, "Yes, he's a mistake."

[00:01:50]Uh thank you very much. I remember that right from that age.

[00:01:55]And from then on as far as I was he was concerned, I was a mistake.

[00:02:00]And as with most men who cut throat way use the cut throat razor for shaving and the strop was hung on the back of the kitchen door.

[00:02:13]And if that strop came down and he wasn't shaving, I knew where it was headed right across my back and that was it.

[00:02:19]And that was the sort of upbringing that I started with.

[00:02:23]And um my sister almost became my surrogate mother.

[00:02:31]She was 7 years older than me.

[00:02:33]My father treated her much the same he treated me, not hitting her.

[00:02:37]But he argued a daughter I was there to look after her father in the way he wanted it done at the time that he wanted it done.

[00:02:46]And that was it.

[00:02:48]And uh what is now Lord Wandsworth College in in Hampshire was Lord Wandsworth Agricultural College in my day and it was bequeathed by Lord Wandsworth for the children of agricultural families who lost one or both parents and everything was free.

[00:03:08]Well, the head teacher of our elementary school heard about this. She applied on my behalf and I was interviewed. I was offered a place.

[00:03:19]My father said, "No.

[00:03:21]At 14, he leaves school. He goes out and gets a job and brings some money in the house."

[00:03:26]The head teacher was so furious about this. We had a squire. Still got a squire in this small village.

[00:03:33]She went to see the the um squire's wife and told her the story.

[00:03:40]And the um squire's wife went to see my father and told him his fortune in no uncertain terms. How he was ruining my chances of a better education and a much better future life.

[00:03:53]He ought to be ashamed of himself.

[00:03:56]Well, I suppose I better let him go then.

[00:03:58]And that was it.

[00:03:59]Do you remember being happy as a child, or was it just hard?

[00:04:04]It was hard at that stage.

[00:04:07]And then at 11, I went up went over to Lord Wandsworth, and that's when life really started.

[00:04:14]And it was so different, and so much different from what I've been used to.

[00:04:22]One interesting thing, there was a junior school there, which I of course I joined in.

[00:04:28]I had a fairly rough skin on my on my face.

[00:04:35]And the matron treated it with with lard.

[00:04:39]I was known as Lardy Face from then on.

[00:04:43]And about almost 50 years ago now, I had a telephone call.

[00:04:49]And the caller said, "Is that Lardy?" I said, "My God, that must be from Lord Wandsworth."

[00:04:54]>> [laughter] >> And he was one of the other old boys as well. Growing up, you as an agricultural laboring family, Oh, yeah. did you ever dream that that one day you might join the RAF, this glamorous aviation service?

[00:05:08]>> Yeah.

[00:05:09]No dream about that sort of thing. I In fact, over at Lord Wandsworth, my original ambition was to be a vet.

[00:05:20]But my school certificate results weren't quite as good as they might have been. I passed, yes.

[00:05:26]Um when I left school, I thought it's time I got into this war.

[00:05:34]Having seen the films of the First World War with the trench fighting, the fighting, the army was out as far as I was concerned.

[00:05:43]I didn't like water anyway, so the navy was out. Just left me the the Air Force.

[00:05:49]But I didn't want to be a pilot.

[00:05:52]I didn't feel I had the coordination or the aptitude.

[00:05:56]At that age, I wanted to go bomber rather than fighter.

[00:06:01]I knew that bomber pilots were responsible for the safety of the crew as a whole.

[00:06:06]I didn't think I had the responsibility for that, either.

[00:06:10]However, I when it came to the selection committee, they changed they made me change my mind and selected me for pilot training.

[00:06:22]And that was a standby for a couple of almost a year before we started the training. Could you join Why did you join the RAF though when war broke out?

[00:06:31]Basically, because I think I'd felt so much anti against Hitler.

[00:06:41]So you even in the 1930s, you abs- you knew Hitler was an evil force in the world. That's right. Yes. Yes.

[00:06:46]Well, only because basically of the reaction what he was doing to this country, the bombing and so on. And that stays out.

[00:06:54]That was the basic reason behind it.

[00:06:57]And uh I felt I wanted to get back to him as much as I could.

[00:07:02]And the only way to do that was joining one of the services.

[00:07:06]Tell me how you came to to be on 617 Squadron.

[00:07:10]Well, with the pilot training, I eventually ended up in America.

[00:07:15]And there were two training schemes out there, the British flying training school and the rest with the American Army Air Corps.

[00:07:24]I got one of the Army Air Corps stations. Nice posting, Florida.

[00:07:30]Uh Arcadia in Florida.

[00:07:32]But I could not stand the Army Air Corps.

[00:07:36]Their petty discipline and their sloppy marching really got up my nose.

[00:07:41]Fortunately, the instructors were civilians and decent people.

[00:07:47]But, um I managed to solo.

[00:07:50]But, my landings weren't quite what they ought to have been.

[00:07:54]And he said to me one day, "I'm sorry, Wilson. I don't think you're going to make it." I said, "Don't be sorry. Neither do I."

[00:08:01]And I joined the group then, about 10 of us, washed out pilots.

[00:08:06]And we was then back to Maxwell Field in Montgomery, still with the Army Air Corps.

[00:08:13]We weren't supposed to talk going into breakfast. So, we sang Colonel Bogey, just for the hell of it.

[00:08:19]And, um on our senior member was a flight sergeant gunner who'd been hoping to reach out as a pilot.

[00:08:27]And, um on the last morning, he said, "Let's show these so-and-so's how to march."

[00:08:33]So, we fell in RAF style outside of the the dining room, then marched back to the billet, 160 paces to the minute, arms swinging waist high, forwards and backwards, just as it'd been at ITW.

[00:08:47]And the looks we got from these people as we went by. At least we felt we'd left our mark on Maxwell Field.

[00:08:53]But, then it was back to, um, Canada to wait for a ship to bring us home.

[00:08:58]And it was January of 1942 by the time I got back into this country.

[00:09:04]No nearer to fighting that war than I had been when I joined.

[00:09:08]What was the shortest course? And it was gunnery.

[00:09:11]So, I took the gunnery course.

[00:09:13]And again, going through the the the acceptance uh the uh the process, the president said, "I think you'd be afraid to be a gunner, Johnson."

[00:09:23]I said, "I don't think so, sir. If I were, I wouldn't have volunteered anyway."

[00:09:27]End of the exercise of that that conversation.

[00:09:30]But, um I trained, I got past the gunnery exam.

[00:09:34]And instead of being posted to an OTU, which is the usual thing, you posted to an OTU when you finished your air crew training and you met the rest of the crew members, joined up a crew and then moved out for further training. But not me. I was posted direct to 97 Squadron at Woodhall as a spare gunner.

[00:09:52]We spent I I had to fly with anybody who hadn't got a mid-upper or a rear gunner for that night's operations for various reasons.

[00:10:00]Quite an inauguration into operational flying.

[00:10:04]But we managed to get through. What was your first operational sortie?

[00:10:10]A failure.

[00:10:11]The first one, I was flying with one of the squadron flight commanders.

[00:10:16]And we were carrying the 8,000-lb bomb.

[00:10:21]And nobody had been successfully dropped one of these up to that stage.

[00:10:26]And we were going to do it.

[00:10:28]So, we took off with it on board.

[00:10:31]Flying across the North Sea, I was in the mid-upper turret.

[00:10:35]So, I'm round, I see petrol streaming out of one of the engines.

[00:10:39]I call up the captain.

[00:10:41]Oh dear.

[00:10:43]I'm sorry, chaps. We'll have to go back.

[00:10:46]So, we didn't drop the 8,000-lb either.

[00:10:48]We just landed with it still on.

[00:10:50]However, however, when I By that time, 97 had been re-equipped with Lancasters and they were looking for the seventh member of crew, the bomb aimer.

[00:11:02]And they were training them locally.

[00:11:04]And since it made a difference to seven and six and 12 and six a day, I thought I'd have a go at that.

[00:11:10]So, I I retrained as a bomb aimer and came back to 97 as a spare bomb aimer. What When did you fire first fire your your your weapon as a mid-upper gunner though before you retrained?

[00:11:22]I only fired in practice, that sort of thing, just to test the guns.

[00:11:25]And I And that was the same as a bomb aimer.

[00:11:29]I had to fly in the front turret on the way out down to drop the bombs at the target back into the into the front turret on the way back as part of the still part of the eyes of the rest of the crew. And that was one of the things about the crews generally I think the majority, I'm sure the majority of the bomber command air crew were there to do the job that they'd been briefed for to the best of their ability.

[00:11:56]And that meant not only the job their individual job but their responsibility to the rest of the crew for the safety where they might be responsible for the safety of the rest of the crew and that was common throughout the whole thing.

[00:12:10]When I after about my 10th trip on this spare body I mean I was told I was joining this crew with an American pilot.

[00:12:22]And my immediate reaction was oh my god, bloody Americans again.

[00:12:27]And then I met German Kathy.

[00:12:29]6 ft 3 and the breadth to go with the height.

[00:12:33]Big in size big in personality but from our point of view big in compatibility which was tremendous confidence.

[00:12:46]Certainly with me I never once thought of Joe not bringing me back. And he didn't of course.

[00:12:52]What's your first memory of being above occupied Europe dropping bombs on on targets below?

[00:13:01]>> [snorts] >> Well, the first memory is that at that time we were flying out of moon supposedly for defensive reasons.

[00:13:12]So, it's pretty dark on the way out.

[00:13:14]I fly 10, 12 maybe 15,000 ft.

[00:13:19]You didn't see anything until you got to the target area.

[00:13:23]Then you saw all the guns that you've got to go through before you went home.

[00:13:28]People say to me, "Were you frightened?"

[00:13:31]I said, "Well, I think anyone who saw that for the first time if they weren't a bit apprehensive were either devoid of emotion or strangers to the truth."

[00:13:45]What's it like looking up at Can you can see flares that the pathfinders have dropped at you and you can see anti-aircraft fire just swirling up all around you?

[00:13:52]>> Yeah.

[00:13:53]I found my concentration was purely on the bomb site and the target.

[00:14:00]I'm concentrating, directing the pilot to get my bombs as close as I could to that particular target.

[00:14:07]Whatever was going on round about me, I just didn't see it. It didn't concern me.

[00:14:13]I was doing my job, so I thought to the best of my ability. And that was what I considered I was there for.

[00:14:20]And so strange as it may seem I didn't notice the flak that was coming around.

[00:14:27]I didn't notice the other aircraft in the area until I'd dropped me bombs. And we then had to fly straight and level for the camera to operate. And so that when we got back the intelligence could see where we dropped our bombs in spite of what we said. And then that was that.

[00:14:47]But um And did you Would you see other Lancasters being hit and that crews bailing out and falling out of the sky?

[00:14:54]>> didn't didn't ever see [clears throat] any of that. Although I understand it happened. I know it happened. I certainly aircraft shot down over the the target area.

[00:15:05]And um either by anti-aircraft guns or there times when they brought the fighters into the the target area as well.

[00:15:14]And it was a a pretty rough old journey basically.

[00:15:18]But you didn't you didn't have time to worry about it. At least I didn't.

[00:15:24]And uh I'm The only time I think I was a bit apprehensive, more than a bit apprehensive, was before I joined Joe's crew. I was flying with a an an old as it happened an old NCO crew.

[00:15:42]And they were coming close to their last trip in the first tour.

[00:15:47]And we'd been up to these small in the north of Germany.

[00:15:52]And as usual, the weather was dead loss when we got there.

[00:15:58]So, it was aerial marking.

[00:16:01]And you had no idea where your bombs went. You just bombed the target and that was the marker and that was it.

[00:16:09]And coming back, as soon as you dropped below 10,000 ft, oxygen off. And usually, cigarettes on as well.

[00:16:18]But um on this occasion, we just dropped out not ourselves, there was a god almighty flash. Absolutely blind all around.

[00:16:29]Couldn't see a thing.

[00:16:31]And I was in the front turret by that time.

[00:16:34]And as eyesight came back, it looked almost as though the perspex had been burnt out. It was just the metal strips there.

[00:16:44]But as the eyesight came back, it came the turret was completely intact.

[00:16:51]And the mid upper gunner was calling.

[00:16:55]I all right, Colin. Colin was the pilot.

[00:16:58]Obviously fighting like mad with the aircraft that was going down on uncertain terms.

[00:17:04]And he kept on with this.

[00:17:06]And then in he said, "My god, they've all gone. I'm going to get out."

[00:17:11]The wireless operator went back to him and told him to be told him to be a bloody idiot.

[00:17:18]And not quite so politely as that.

[00:17:21]How could Colin possibly answer?

[00:17:23]That is oxygen mask on. His microphone was away from his mouth.

[00:17:28]And he was fighting like mad to save the aircraft and us. And you, you stupid son of a uh When we got back and he was in a rather pleasant mood.

[00:17:39]He said he could saw he saw the St. Elmo's fire creeping up the aerial towards his turret and then woof the lightning flash.

[00:17:49]And it really was a hell of a We dropped from 10 or just below 10 to 2,000 ft just like that.

[00:17:56]But Colin got it controlled at 2,000 ft.

[00:18:01]I didn't bother to find out what had happened to the aircraft when we got back. I just just got out of it and that was it. Did Did the Did the experience of flying like that bring you very close Did you make great mates in those conditions?

[00:18:14]Yes.

[00:18:15]Apart from the fact I was the odd one out in that I didn't drink.

[00:18:21]Believe it or not.

[00:18:22]I managed to change that habit but still um the the reason again goes back to childhood where our father being farm foreman dur- during the lambing season he stayed up most of the night nipping out to see that the lambs and the ewes were all right.

[00:18:41]But he'd sleep in his chair in between.

[00:18:44]And he'd have his his beer. And even in those days at that level of of personality we drank the beer out of the glass not out of the bottle. And so the bottle and the glass both empty or thereabouts on the table when I passed.

[00:19:01]I thought well I'll try that.

[00:19:03]I tipped the dregs of one into the last.

[00:19:05]And you god flat as hell tasted horrible.

[00:19:10]But the smell that's what really got me. It made me literally made me sick.

[00:19:16]And that smell stayed with me.

[00:19:17]I couldn't stand the smell of beer from then onwards.

[00:19:21]So I didn't get into the bar, the pubs, or even into the mess bar, except for a quick trip at lunchtime to get me cigarettes and that was it.

[00:19:29]I enjoyed my war.

[00:19:32]I think I felt I was doing what I joined for and I was doing it to the best of my ability. And that was what I was there for.

[00:19:40]But I enjoyed doing it and so much so with the confidence in my pilot and the rest of the crew that I flew with.

[00:19:50]We had a a crew comedian.

[00:19:53]That was Dave Roger in the rear carriage, rear turret.

[00:19:57]He could always make some cryptic comment when the situations were a bit grim.

[00:20:04]Like as we were coming back from the Dams raid, I must have been partially my fault. We obviously got off track and we um ended up on a a railway.

[00:20:16]Not only a railway, but a railway yard.

[00:20:19]But of course it wasn't a normal railway yard. It was the Ham Marshalling Yard where all the ammunitions that were made in the rear were distributed to the various areas of the war.

[00:20:33]Obviously not the healthiest of places to be at the end of May in 1943.

[00:20:39]There again, down goes Joe.

[00:20:42]And from the rear turret, who needs guns?

[00:20:46]At this height, all they need to do is change the points.

[00:20:50]And that was the sort of thing that Dave could come up with at that time. Did Did you ever think about what was going on on the ground? You were dropping these bombs, smashing buildings, killing people. Did you think about that?

[00:21:00]>> No.

[00:21:02]No.

[00:21:04]I think the only the only respect that I thought about it was that it was basically retaliate retaliation what Hitler was doing and had done to us.

[00:21:17]I think that was what it was.

[00:21:20]I think maybe from that childhood upbringing emotion was basically knocked out of me.

[00:21:30]I don't think I had any particular strong emotion at all.

[00:21:35]And that's why I didn't feel I put that on partially. I didn't feel frightened about the flying or the actual bombing.

[00:21:45]And I didn't really appreciate what it meant to those at the receiving end.

[00:21:52]I didn't know that.

[00:21:54]Find that out until after the war when I went back and talked to some German people.

[00:22:01]Let's talk about the formation of 617.

[00:22:06]Was it an Was it an elite force? Was it exciting to be part of this new organization? Yeah.

[00:22:13]Well, the first we heard of it was that um uh Gibson I beg your pardon, Wing Commander Gibson rang Joe and asked would he join this special squadron he was forming for one special trip. We were just coming towards the end of our first tour then.

[00:22:35]Joe said, "Well, I have to ask me, too."

[00:22:37]Which he did and we agreed to go with him.

[00:22:43]After a first tour normal practice was at least weeks leave and then you went went on to a ground tour or an operational flying tour until you were required back on ops.

[00:22:58]In the pan >> I tried again.

[00:23:08]Looking forward that leave.

[00:23:10]My fiance and I had arranged to get married on April the 3rd.

[00:23:16]So so I was fine.

[00:23:18]I wrote Joe and said, "This is what was happening, but don't worry. It won't make any difference."

[00:23:23]I That's what I got back just said, "If you're not there on April 3rd, don't bother."

[00:23:28]I thought I I the first Monday's been issued, but there we go.

[00:23:33]Anyway, what happened then?

[00:23:36]Moved over to Scampton.

[00:23:38]And the first thing we heard was no leave.

[00:23:42]Oh god, there goes my wedding.

[00:23:45]How did Joe took us up with the crew to Gibson's office?

[00:23:49]And he said, "We've just finished our first tour.

[00:23:53]We're entitled to a week's leave.

[00:23:56]My bomber was supposed to get married on the April 3rd, and he's going to get married on April the 3rd."

[00:24:02]We got our leave, and I got my wedding, so that was that.

[00:24:05]But that again was typical of Joe looking after his crew in there. Was Guy Gibson a a terrifying figure, or was he a a great leader?

[00:24:16]My reaction has to be retrospective.

[00:24:19]As we were on the same squadron, that was all I could say about it.

[00:24:24]His basic problem was he was unable to bring himself down to mix and talk with lower ranks.

[00:24:33]Even junior officers on the duty side.

[00:24:38]If they Only time they'd be spoken to was to get a bollocking if they'd done something they shouldn't have done on duty.

[00:24:45]I gather he was quite a boy in the mess with the games and fun that went on in there.

[00:24:51]He was bombastic.

[00:24:53]He was autocratic, a strict disciplinarian, which didn't go down very well with the air crew, of course.

[00:25:02]And on 106 squadron, which he'd commanded before he came over to 617, he was known as the arch bastard.

[00:25:12]And that summed him up pretty well.

[00:25:14]Mind you, he had done >> [clears throat] >> he was he if he wasn't most experienced, well, he was one of the most experienced bomber pilots in the command.

[00:25:25]He'd done two tours of bomber operations and one tour of night operations. And at this stage, he was only 24 years of age.

[00:25:35]So, he had something to be arrogant about.

[00:25:39]So, I think when he came to 617, he realized he could have get more out of that squadron than out of any of the others.

[00:25:48]He didn't know at that stage what the target was, apart from the fact it was just a special target.

[00:25:54]And [clears throat] then, he got everything he could for the squadron.

[00:26:04]There was an instance where something he wanted, and the man group, they said, "Sorry, we can't do that."

[00:26:10]So, he rang command, and they gave him the same answer.

[00:26:15]He said, "Right, I'll ring the air ministry."

[00:26:18]And he did.

[00:26:19]And the air ministry gave him the same answer.

[00:26:22]So, he said, "Right, I'll sit in my office until you change your mind."

[00:26:27]And he did, and they did, and he got what he wanted.

[00:26:31]That was typical of his reaction.

[00:26:33]But, he was obviously an action man.

[00:26:40]And his true indication of his leadership came with the raid itself, Dambusters raid itself.

[00:26:51]Where he and his crew made the first attack on the Möhne Dam, which we knew was the only dam that was defended.

[00:27:02]And apart from dropping his bomb, he wanted to assess those defenses at the same time.

[00:27:11]And then Arthur, as he called each aircraft in, he flew alongside them to attract some of that defense.

[00:27:20]That to me says, "You're doing this.

[00:27:22]I'm doing this. We're doing it together."

[00:27:25]And that to me is [music] the essence of good leadership.

[00:27:45]>> [music] [music] >> 24 years ago this month, an RAF squadron flew into history.

[00:28:07]Lancasters of 617 Squadron flew by night to destroy the dams of the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe, the heartbeat of industrial Germany.

[00:28:15]Each bomber carried a new type of bomb specially devised for the raid by Barnes Wallis.

[00:28:24]Here, Dr. Wallis greets wartime members of the squadron arriving for a reunion at RAF Scampton.

[00:28:29]Fittingly, they came in a Lancaster.

[00:28:32]Trying the feel of a tail gunner's turret again is Jerry Witherick, an air gunner on the mission.

[00:28:38]The flight deck of a Lanc.

[00:28:43]Surviving the mission, Squadron Commander Guy Gibson, one of VC, and his squadron won an immortal title, The Dambusters.

[00:28:54]When you were training up in Derbyshire, what do you think was going on with this strange bomb that was being strapped to the Lancaster, the changes that were made? What on earth was happening?

[00:29:04]I think we were getting more fun out of the actual flying to think about worrying what was happening.

[00:29:10]We knew it was a special time. We'd been told that.

[00:29:13]We'd also been told that there had to be complete security about what we were doing, and we told no one about the type of training that we were doing.

[00:29:23]But the interest in that training, of course, was at low level.

[00:29:27]The prescribed height was 100 ft.

[00:29:30]Very few people flew at 100 ft. It tended to be rather lower than that.

[00:29:35]And there were occasions when the other aircraft came back with a few tree branches stuck in the wings or something like that, you know.

[00:29:44]But in Lincolnshire, there's a town called Sutton Bridge. But as you fly up from the south, the electric cables also cross the bridge.

[00:29:55]This practice wasn't briefed, but every everybody did it just for the hell of it.

[00:30:01]And we flew under the cables and up over the bridge.

[00:30:05]Great thrill that was. Wonderful fun.

[00:30:08]And I learned subsequently that one of the the um our residents there, an old lady living in Sutton Bridge at that time, and she said all the the the the people in Sutton Bridge were scared stiff about all these low-flying aircraft.

[00:30:28]But that's what they that that's what they said.

[00:30:30]And did you drop this strange bouncing bomb in training, or was the first time Never dropped it. No.

[00:30:36]No, we we didn't even spin it. But that comes later.

[00:30:40]Um but um we started off with our only means of navigation was map map reading and dead reckoning.

[00:30:48]Navigator and bombardier each had had a map with track marked out and uh the navigator would indicate what I should be seeing.

[00:30:57]If I saw it, that was fine.

[00:30:59]If I didn't, I picked out something else equally prominent and he could adjust his course as he necessary on that.

[00:31:09]The bombers had to make their their own bomb sight and it consisted of a triangle of plywood with a peg in each angle.

[00:31:20]But, the distance between the base pins had to be specific and the distance from the base to the apex had to be equally specific.

[00:31:29]And on the bombing range there was two poles specific distances apart.

[00:31:36]And the practice was that the bomber had a single pin to his eye and directed the pilot until the two base pins were in line with the two poles and dropped the bomb. Practice bombs I used in that.

[00:31:51]And uh if you got it right, first time, great.

[00:31:55]If you didn't, you did again.

[00:31:57]And again. And again. Until you got it right.

[00:32:00]Until we got to the stage where I think most of us were fairly accurate with our bombing.

[00:32:05]But, we were also using some of the dams in this country for bombing practice.

[00:32:11]Most notably, Derwent Water in Derbyshire.

[00:32:15]And it had towers.

[00:32:18]So, we could use those for sighting.

[00:32:21]It also had a a marker in the reservoir which showed where the bomb should drop.

[00:32:31]And you use the same approach as you did on the range.

[00:32:35]And if your bomb dropped close to that mark, that was fine.

[00:32:39]Did you have any idea what the target was then? What you were practicing on these What did you think it was? We didn't think.

[00:32:46]Too young to worry about anything. That was another thing about >> How old were you at this point? At that stage, I was 20 21.

[00:32:53]But um at this stage, when we first joined the squadron, one of the things that struck it was the experience of the crews.

[00:33:04]Most of them had done one tour. Some were on their second tour.

[00:33:09]The next thing was the aircraft, especially aircraft.

[00:33:13]Yes, the Lancaster, of a chord.

[00:33:16]No mid-upper turret.

[00:33:18]And it seems though the the bomb doors were sealed.

[00:33:21]And there's two legs standing down on either side of the fuselage in the front, just below the nose, just just behind the nose.

[00:33:30]What the hell was that for?

[00:33:32]And then the bomb arrives.

[00:33:34]It was just like a glorified big dustbin.

[00:33:37]But at least it indicated to us what those legs were for. They obviously were going to carry that bomb when it was loaded onto the aircraft.

[00:33:46]And that was as far as we got with it.

[00:33:49]I We went through our training with this cross countries, bombing practices.

[00:33:56]And then we went to do a twilight situation where the front perspex of the cabin and the nose were covered in blue sheeting.

[00:34:07]And the pilot and the wireless operator wore night vision glasses.

[00:34:11]And that created a twilight situation.

[00:34:15]What I never understood was how you were supposed to map read over the North Sea.

[00:34:22]Cuz one of our turning points was over the North Sea.

[00:34:26]However, you had to hold right hell. You crossed our point our coast in the right place, and you hit the right place as you came back on dead reckoning.

[00:34:37]And from there, onto bright moonlight night flying. Had to be bright moonlight.

[00:34:43]Until got to the stage where Gibson thought we're fit to go.

[00:34:49]We still had no idea what the target was. He had He'd been told by then.

[00:34:55]And I think certainly the bombing leader, Bob Hay, had been told.

[00:35:02]And on the Saturday night before the raid, we met as a a squadron. The George of the really met Barnes Wallis for the first time.

[00:35:15]And uh he explained showed his film of his development of the bomb, how it'd been developed, how difficult it'd been to get it right in the first place.

[00:35:28]And then he told us something about the bomb itself.

[00:35:31]It weighed 9,000 lb, of which 6 and 1/2 thousand was explosive within that bomb, fused with two depth fuses to explode at a depth of 25 ft.

[00:35:47]But also fused with a self-destruct fuse.

[00:35:51]And we learned out subsequently why.

[00:35:55]And then, I think it was probably the highest powered briefing I attended throughout my operational career.

[00:36:02]The AOC was there.

[00:36:05]Station commander, Gibson, of course, was there doing the briefing.

[00:36:09]Barnes Wallis and Going in the briefing, too.

[00:36:12]The officers of armament and and engineering from the station were there.

[00:36:19]Intelligence officer.

[00:36:21]And the dear old Metman was there, too.

[00:36:25]Well, Gibson explained the trip to us.

[00:36:31]First thing we saw, of course, when we got in the up range adjusting room, was that the two models were there, one of the Möhne and one of the Sorpe.

[00:36:40]One on the Eder hadn't been fitted, hadn't been completed, so it obviously wasn't >> of the dams.

[00:36:46]>> Yes.

[00:36:47]And that was how we found out what the target is one going to be.

[00:36:52]How wrong can you be? On the previous evening, after Barnes Wallis's talk, their conjecture was it was going to be German battleships, notably the Tirpitz, because when you dropped that bomb, it was being rotated at 500 revs a minute backwards. Yes.

[00:37:13]And it had to be dropped from exactly 60 ft at a ground speed of 200 knots.

[00:37:22]And so it became a sort of um four men flying of the aircraft, navigator watching the lights, um and uh when they can up or down until they were coincident, that was the exact height.

[00:37:39]Flight engineer watching the speed and indicating when it up or down, and the bomb aimer directing the pilot to the target.

[00:37:48]It meant the pilots were being told by three other members of crew how to fly the aircraft, but they didn't seem to complain too much about it.

[00:37:58]And that was the way it was going to be.

[00:38:00]And Gibson, in the briefing, explained that he would take off with two others, and they'd head for the Möhne.

[00:38:09]And uh uh they would attack the Möhne when they got there.

[00:38:15]Six others in two threes would follow him, and they, too, would head for the Möhne.

[00:38:21]And if the Möhne hadn't been breached by the time they got there, they would attack that under Gibson's direction.

[00:38:29]And then that was breached, they would move over to the Eder.

[00:38:33]That was nine of the crews briefed.

[00:38:36]Five, of which we were one, were briefed for the Sorpe.

[00:38:41]And of course, the Sorpe had to be different from the other two.

[00:38:46]It had no towers, so there's nothing to sight on.

[00:38:50]And it was so placed in the hills that a head-on attack was virtually impossible, certainly extremely difficult.

[00:39:00]And so we were briefed.

[00:39:02]We had to fly down one side of the hills with the port outer engine over the dam itself, and fly along the dam and estimate to drop the bomb as near as possible to the center of the dam.

[00:39:18]With the port engine over the dam, the bomb obviously was on the water side.

[00:39:22]With big disappointment because then we were weren't going to use any bombing practices we'd been we'd been doing for the last 6 weeks.

[00:39:30]But that was what we had to do, so that was the job. Went back then to the mess as for the the usual operational bacon and eggs meal before you went.

[00:39:39]And that was a time when in the sergeants' mess some wit would say to I can't think him, "If you don't come back and I'll have your sausage."

[00:39:48]But uh that sort of thing was taking good form.

[00:39:53]But it sort of was then out the aircraft.

[00:39:58]And then came our big shock.

[00:40:00]Because Q Queen, I know it's Quebec now, but it was Q Queen in those days, uh decided he didn't want to go that night.

[00:40:09]And he developed a hydraulic leak on the run-up, which couldn't be fixed in time for takeoff.

[00:40:17]So there was only one reserve aircraft.

[00:40:20]And that had come in on the 3:00 that afternoon.

[00:40:24]It'd been bombed up, fueled up, and it'd done a compass swing with the bomb board to offset the the metal of that that bomb against the aircraft compasses.

[00:40:37]As soon as we knew we weren't going to be able to take Queen, Joe said, "For Christ's sake, get that reserve for someone bugger but I guess that and we don't get to go." So, you guys wanted to go? Yeah. Oh, yes. You're excited.

[00:40:51]>> Oh, yes.

[00:40:52]So, that was him where it went.

[00:40:55]In his hurry to get there, he pulled his parachute. So, it was blowing behind him as he he went off in the reserve aircraft. Did it feel different to other raids you'd been on?

[00:41:06]Oh, yes, very much so.

[00:41:08]We knew how special it was.

[00:41:11]And it was he was explained by the intelligence officer why the raid was so important because of the damage that we do to the German armament industry.

[00:41:22]That was the basic point behind it.

[00:41:24]And uh we When we got to our spare aircraft, the compass card for that last compass swing wasn't in the aircraft.

[00:41:40]Uh Joe, I don't think he used the same had a tremendous vocabulary.

[00:41:45]I don't think he used the same word twice.

[00:41:47]He was so furious.

[00:41:49]He got into the truck and dashed to the flights.

[00:41:52]Fortunately, the squadron adjutant was there on hump, and he said, "For Christ's sake, Joe, calm down.

[00:42:00]If you don't, you'll make a complete pig's ear of the whole thing."

[00:42:04]And that calmed him down a bit.

[00:42:06]However, we had a very good flight sergeant to set Chiefy Powell.

[00:42:11]And he went over to the flights to collect the the compass card.

[00:42:16]He'd heard say Joe say he wasn't going to bother with a parachute.

[00:42:20]So, he did talk to the parachute section and he picked up another parachute.

[00:42:26]Went back to the truck, gave Joe the the compass card in the front.

[00:42:32]Put the parachute in the back and said, "Your parachute, sir."

[00:42:36]Flights on to a flight lieutenant didn't make much difference in those days.

[00:42:39]But there we are. Joe had got a parachute and that was it.

[00:42:43]And so eventually we got back to the aircraft.

[00:42:46]And we were about half an hour late taking off.

[00:42:50]When we got to flying somewhere just in Southampton there was a goods train on traveling up at right angles to our track.

[00:43:00]And because we had no mid-upper turret the mid-upper mid-upper gunner was flying in the front turret.

[00:43:07]Fortunately they'd put in stirrups. So, he wasn't kicking me up the backside all the time.

[00:43:12]But then when we saw this train he said "Can I have a go, Joe?"

[00:43:20]I think somewhat reluctantly Joe said, "Well, yes, all right then."

[00:43:25]And uh Ron opened up with these little.303s.

[00:43:30]That's all we had in the front turret.

[00:43:33]What we didn't know, of course it wasn't just a goods train, it was an armored goods train. And it replied with rather more than.303s.

[00:43:42]We knew we'd been hit. We heard it and we felt it.

[00:43:46]But it didn't seem to impede the aircraft at all. So, we carried on.

[00:43:51]And we eventually found the Zauper. The first thing we noticed which we should have probably, if it was on the model we should have seen was a church steeple on the side of the hill down which we were supposed to come.

[00:44:04]Joe used that as a marker.

[00:44:07]Tried to align the aircraft as best he could at that position and then went down.

[00:44:13]Because we weren't spinning the bomb, it was an inert drop.

[00:44:17]The actual position the conditions for dropping it didn't apply.

[00:44:22]So, it didn't matter about the height or the speed at which he dropped it.

[00:44:28]We hadn't practiced that type of attack at all.

[00:44:31]And it wasn't easy.

[00:44:33]If I wasn't satisfied, I called dummy run.

[00:44:38]If Joe wasn't satisfied, he just pulled away and left me to call dummy run.

[00:44:44]This is where Joe where Dave Rodger in the rear turret came up.

[00:44:48]Not in a humorous vein.

[00:44:51]And so, a voice from the rear turret out about the sixth or seventh of these dummy runs, "Won't somebody get that bum out of here?"

[00:44:59]And I had to realize I had to become the most un popular popular member of crew in double quick time.

[00:45:06]But that was my job.

[00:45:07]And that was what I was there for. So, how many times did you go over the dam to try and get it right? Yeah.

[00:45:13]Then we had to go up again.

[00:45:14]And in retrospect, I can understand to some degree Dave's anxiety. It was his job, basically, to safety of the aircraft from enemy fighters.

[00:45:29]And it each time you went up, came back over the village, there's nothing to stop somebody down there ringing up the authorities and saying, "They're bombing our dam at our dam moment."

[00:45:41]And of course, that would have brought the fights in. Bye-bye McCarthy's crew just like that.

[00:45:46]And that would have been part of it, his apprehension, I think.

[00:45:49]But then, on the 10th run, neither Joe nor I had said anything to us about height each other about height.

[00:46:00]But I'm sure we both realized that the lower we got the less forward travel that bomb would have before it hit the water.

[00:46:08]And secondly, the lower we got the easier it'd be to estimate the dropping point.

[00:46:16]On that tense run we were down to 30 ft.

[00:46:21]And when I said, "Bomb gone."

[00:46:24]"Thank Christ." came from the rear turret just like that.

[00:46:28]And of course we said the Lancaster nose up straight away. So I didn't see the explosion.

[00:46:34]But Dave did in the rear turret.

[00:46:37]And he estimated that the tower of water went up to about 1,000 ft.

[00:46:43]Well, if you imagine 6 6,500 lb of explosive being detonated at a depth of 5 of 25 ft is going to move a hell lot of water in all directions upwards as well as outwards.

[00:46:59]And that was what he saw.

[00:47:01]And yet not only that, but in the down flow flow some of it came into the turret. So I thought I was going to be drowned as well as not drowned by you buggers up there.

[00:47:12]That was just again typical of Dave.

[00:47:15]We circled.

[00:47:17]And we found that we'd crumbled the top of the dam. That was all.

[00:47:24]Barnes Wallis had told us at briefing that he estimated that because of the structure of of the Zöppritz it was like a concrete center with a sort of pyramid building of broken rock earth packed in tight and then concrete again on either side.

[00:47:46]He said it would need at least six bombs to crack it.

[00:47:52]And if you can crack it the water pressure will do the rest.

[00:47:56]And judging from the amount of water in that dam, I'm sure he was right.

[00:48:01]However, it would seem, and this is what surprised us, although we were half an hour late, or thereabouts, when we got there, it didn't seem that any of the other five had been.

[00:48:16]Nor did they arrive once we were there.

[00:48:18]And we didn't find out about that until we got back.

[00:48:21]So, eventually, we just shouldered off.

[00:48:25]And the route home took us over what had been the Möhne.

[00:48:31]And for me, that was probably the greatest satisfaction of the raid.

[00:48:36]In that we were able to see the destructive result of one of each one of those attacks.

[00:48:42]And we knew that the Eder had been breached as well by radio broadcast. What did the Möhne the the Möhne Dam had been breached by your other crews? What did the area look like?

[00:48:53]The area was just like an inland sea.

[00:48:55]There was water everywhere, and it was still coming out of that dam.

[00:49:01]20 minutes, maybe half an hour, since it had been breached.

[00:49:05]It had been difficult to breach it, but they'd made it.

[00:49:08]And the Eder was even more difficult.

[00:49:11]But the last one to attack it, that was Knight's, an Australian.

[00:49:19]He was one of them was also a Johnson, Ted Johnson, but he was a flight lieutenant.

[00:49:26]And they managed to breach it on on their run. And that was the last aircraft there.

[00:49:34]If they hadn't made it, that one would would have stayed sticking. But it didn't, it breached, and that was not so much important as far as the I mean, it's an interesting turn.

[00:49:47]But the the canals around about and the and the um agricultural land and the um um the waterways, the access on the waterways into the the dam the the Armant area.

[00:50:06]Did you Were you cheering and whooping in your plane when you saw that? No.

[00:50:10]Cheering quietly, yes.

[00:50:12]At least we'd seen the success of part of the raid.

[00:50:18]He knew ours hadn't been quite so successful.

[00:50:22]What There were, in fact, six reserve aircraft that had taken off somewhat later than we did.

[00:50:30]And two of those were briefed for the Sorpe.

[00:50:34]They were briefed when the Once They're Up and and um the first one was shot down over It was almost as soon as he crossed the coast.

[00:50:44]Ken Brown, a Canadian uh NCO, made a similar attack to ours and had the same sort of result.

[00:50:55]Tony Stanley was in the third.

[00:50:58]Mist was developing and they couldn't find the Sorpe.

[00:51:02]And since it was getting near to daylight, he thought they'd better go home.

[00:51:07]So, they came home and landed with the bomb on, which he had been briefed we weren't supposed to do because I think And the only reason I think is that the authorities weren't sure exactly what would happen with an aircraft landing with the bomb on board, particularly on Scampton, which was still grass. The idea was if you didn't use it on the dams, you dropped the bomb over Germany somewhere and it would explode with a self-detonating.

[00:51:43]The Germans wouldn't get a copy.

[00:51:46]Les Munro had been shot up going out crossing the coast.

[00:51:50]Apart from other damage to the aircraft, his communication system, internal and external, was destroyed.

[00:52:00]And so, since it was a a communications operation, there was no point in him going on.

[00:52:06]And he came back.

[00:52:08]And he couldn't discharge his bomb because his release system had been da- da- damaged as well.

[00:52:16]So, he had to land with a bomb on board.

[00:52:18]And they made a dash out as soon as they landed to make sure that if it did go off, they're going to get out of the way first.

[00:52:25]When uh Anderson came back, uh he also landed with a bomb on board.

[00:52:33]But he got away with it.

[00:52:36]The next morning, Gibson sent uh Anderson back to the squadron he came from for failing to carry out an operation uh that he'd been ordered to to take.

[00:52:51]Sounds hard.

[00:52:52]When one considers the cost, training, aircraft, aircrew, the losses, uh I think it was a justified decision.

[00:53:06]We did hear subsequently, unfortunately, very shortly after this, the crew was shot down on another raid.

[00:53:12]We When we got back, we landed at Scampton, I say, to the grass landing field.

[00:53:18]And um landings tended to be a bit more lumpy than they were on the runway.

[00:53:26]But in our case, they were sumpy sumpy sumpy.

[00:53:29]And we were starboard wing low.

[00:53:32]And the engineer looking out of the first mate said, "We've got a burst tire, skipper."

[00:53:38]So, we taxied back carefully to the dispersal.

[00:53:42]And the chief engineer took the aircraft off for inspection.

[00:53:49]When he came back, he gave us a severe telling off, or he put it rather more strongly than that, for getting his aircraft shot up so much.

[00:54:03]But he could tell us the shot that we'd heard and felt had passed through the starboard undercarriage nacelle, had burst a tire en route, and then passed through the wing, and had landed in the roof just above the navigator's head.

[00:54:20]How lucky can you get?

[00:54:22]But we'd got away with it.

[00:54:25]Of course, at debriefing, we learned the the the end of the story.

[00:54:34]I don't look forward to war, certainly.

[00:54:38]But at that at that time and at that age, I felt I [snorts] had to do something. I had to join and try to [music] do something about it.

[00:54:51]And I think that's what made now things in my life so different from what it had been.

[00:54:58]At those words was the school motto which is Latin.

[00:55:05]In translation, it means perseverance conquers.

[00:55:10]And looking back on my life, I found how true that has been from time to time. It's pure guts going forward with what you want to do, and making sure >> [music] >> you do it the best of your ability.

[00:55:25]Doing something that was worthwhile, and doing it with for a real purpose.

[00:55:34]I have to say that I feel privileged and yes, [music] honored at being able to take part in that raid.

[00:55:45]Having said that, and now I have to constantly remind people that I'm the lucky one.

[00:55:55]>> [music] >> I'm still alive.

[00:55:57]And what I'm doing and what they're all saying to me is not for me.

[00:56:03]It's for the squadron.

[00:56:04]And I am purely representing the squadron.

[00:56:09]Of the 19 aircraft that took off, three came back and to come back early.

[00:56:18]Of the 16 that went on, only eight came back.

[00:56:24]We lost eight air eight aircraft.

[00:56:29]Three crew members have been been able to escape from one of the aircraft, but it meant 53 [music] air crew had been lost as well.

[00:56:39]And that was a tremendous loss for one squadron, [music] for one night's operation.

[00:56:46]And everybody felt very strongly about it.

[00:56:50]And although the bars room in the messes and there was drinking going on, I'm quite sure it wasn't because of the success of the [music] operation.

[00:57:01]It was commiseration with all those who hadn't come back.

[00:57:06]And that was what the drinking was >> [music] >> was about.

[00:57:09]And that's was the the end of it all.

[00:57:58]>> Mhm.