Operation Chastise cost the lives of fifty-three airmen, including fourteen Canadians. Of the nineteen outbound bombers, eight did not return.
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The resulting torrent devastated enemy power plants, factories and infrastructure a hundred miles downstream.Įvery airmen on the raid understood that the odds of survival were low. The raiders breached two dams and damaged a third. Hand-picked and specially trained, the Lancaster crews flew at treetop level to the industrial heartland of the Third Reich and their targets-the Ruhr River dams, whose massive water reservoirs powered Nazi Germany’s military-industrial complex.Įach Lancaster carried an explosive, which when released just sixty feet over the reservoirs, bounced like a skipping stone to the dam, sank and exploded.
On May 16, 1943, nineteen Lancaster bombers carrying 133 airmen took off on a night sortie code-named Operation Chastise. It was a military operation that became legendary. The attack marked the first time the Allies tactically took the war inside Nazi Germany. The secret air raid against the hydroelectric dams of Germany’s Ruhr River took years to plan, involved an untried bomb and included the best aircrewmen RAF Bomber Command could muster-many of them Canadian. It was a night that changed the Second World War.
“Barris tells the jaw-dropping story of a night that changed the war.” - The Globe and Mail The secret air raid against the hydroelectric dams of Germany’s Ruhr River took years to plan, involved an untried bomb and included the best aircrewmen RAF Bomber Command could muster-ma National Bestseller National Bestseller Foreword by Peter Mansbridge “Barris tells the jaw-dropping story of a night that changed the war.” - The Globe and Mail It was a night that changed the Second World War.
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