It was the night of May 16th, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge nine thousand pound cylindrical bomb strapped underneath them.
Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine. From the outset, it was an almost impossible task, a suicide mission: to fly low and at night in formation over many miles of enemy occupied territory at the very limit of the Lancasters' capacity, and drop a new weapon, which had never been tried operationally before, at a precise height of just 60 feet from the water at some of the most heavily defended targets in Germany. More than that, the entire operation had to be put together in less than 10 weeks.
When visionary aviation engineer Barnes Wallis' concept of the bouncing bomb was green lighted, he hadn't even drawn up his plans for the weapon that was to smash the dams. What followed was an incredible race against time, which, despite numerous set-backs and against huge odds, became one of the most successful and game-changing bombing raids of all time.
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