Max Hastings – Chastise – The Dambusters Story 1943

The bravery … and the cost

Operation Chastise was the overnight destruction of the Möhne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF’s 617 Squadron, an epic that has passed into Britain’s national legend, and led by Guy Gibson, at one time slated to be Congleton’s next MP.

Max Hastings describes the evolution of Wallis’ bomb, and of the squadron that broke the dams at the cost of heavy losses. But he also portrays in detail those swept away by the torrents. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the floods that swept through the Möhne valley, more than half of them women slave labourers.