1954 Poster - Directed by Michael Anderson
The music composed by Eric Coates - The Dam Busters March - got the film off to a splendid start in one's Memory Box. The plotline is quite straightforward: in early 1942 aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis is working on a scheme, with plenty of misses, to make practical his theory of a bouncing bomb which would skip over water to clear any torpedo netting below the surface. Once hitting the dam, the backspin would make it sink but keeping it in contact with the wall. Finding the Ministry too cautious and obstructive, Wallis takes his idea straight to Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, head of RAF Bomber Command. Harris is eventually convinced and gets Churchill's support. Wallis continues to react to the various failures, both on the Chesil beach area and in a huge water tank.
Success at last for Gibson and Barnes Wallis
A special group of Lancaster bombers, 617 Squadron, is set up, under the command of Wing Commander Guy Gibson. Experienced crews are gathered together; they practise and practise low-flying over Derwent Water; by the time of the raid they find they need to be at 60' - not 150' - above the water. Only at the last briefing do the crews learn the targets: the three dams - the Mohne, the Eder and the Sorpe - which supply the vital Ruhr industrial area. Together, they hold 400 million tons of water and should devastate German production.
Gibson (Richard Todd) at the controls The breached Dam
The raids go ahead; as they cross over the Dutch coast one hears Enemy coast ahead. Gibson leads the first run on the Mohne Dam; the code word "Goner" comes through by Morse Code to the Ops. Room back in England; three more times this occurs - the bombs have exploded against the Dam, but failed to breach it. 'Zebra' flight actually crashes into a nearby hill. Then, on the 5th run, 'N-Nats' succeeds. Off Gibson goes to supervise another success at the Eder Dam. The final scene shows some Lancasters returning; Gibson meets up with Harris to discuss success but at what a cost. Gibson walks off into the distance.
The acting was never less than competent. Michael Redgrave portrayed Barnes Wallis as tirelessly dedicated to his project (the real man was, apparently, an obsessive); Richard Todd, as in most of his films, had little charisma due to a certain 'woodenness' in his performance; the supporting cast did their jobs, such as Basil Sydney as Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and Raymond Huntley as the National Physical Laboratory Official. R.C. Sherriff wrote the screenplay; an Edwin Hillier was Director of Photography! The flight sequences were shot using real Avro Lancaster bombers supplied by the RAF. The Upper Derwent valley (the test area for the real raids) doubled as the Ruhr valley. Additional footage was shot above Lake Windermere.
The film was premiered on 16 May 1955 at the Odeon in Leicester Square, the 12th anniversary of the Raid. The surviving members of the 617 Squadron were among the guests. The movie was the most successful film at the British Box Office in 1915 (and, guess what, did poorly in the USA). The British Film Institute placed it as the 68th greatest British film. There are certainly some compelling scenes - the crews 'relaxing' on their beds before the raid; again relaxing outside on the grass by the runway, playing chess and cards; the close-ups of faces in the cockpits; the dancing girls in the London theatre; the poultry famer composing his angry letter to the Ministry about the noise of the low-flying aircraft upsetting his hens' egg-laying; Barnes Wallis's hunched shoulders showing his tension.
Max Hastings wrote an article in September 2019, headed Exploding the Dambusters Myth. I feared another revisionist piece. However. although he makes it clear Guy Gibson was not a likeable hero (in 1977 a Gunner who had been on the raid said He was the sort of little bugger who was always jumping out from behind a hut to tell you your buttons were undone); he makes valid points about fact that the raid killed up to 1,400 people, almost all women and not Nazis, drowned in what must have felt like a Biblical flood - the Mohnekatastrophe. Of the 19 aircraft which took off between 9.30 p.m. and midnight on 16th May, Gibson personally led 9 Lancasters; 5 were despatched to the Sorpe, with 5 intended as reserves. One pilot caught the water and limped back; two more hit power cables and crashed, killing the crew; another was dazzled by a searchlight which caused it to hit the ground; two more aborted; 8 actually reached the Mohne. Only 77 crew of the 133 who had taken off returned to RAF Scampton safely. Moreover, only 32 survived the War; Gibson himself was shot down and killed over Holland on 19th September 1944.
Of course, there has been (increasingly so in this febrile, politically correct world) concern over the name of Guy Gibson's black labrador - Nigger. A long-time and close companion of Gibson, he was a great favourite of both 106 and 617 Squadrons. The film captures this, with repeated name-calls. It also shows the dog's liking for beer and, sadly, his death (off screen) by a vehicle. The dog's name was also used as a single codeword whose transmission told of the breach of the Mohne Dam. There is the poignant moment, when Gibson holds the dead dog's lead, before casting it into the waste bin. The DVD, thank goodness, retained the name. In 2012 writer James Holland found that the three characters connected with the raid that most people remembered were Guy Gibson, Barnes Wallis and Nigger! Some edited American versions changed it to Trigger. Apparently, Gibson used to call the dog Nigsy occasionally. Perhaps that compromise might satisfy the no-platforming crowd. Somehow, I doubt it.
The 2015 DVD.
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