Dam Busters: The True Story of the Inventors and Airmen Who Led the Devastating Raid To Smash the German Dams in 1943

The daring night raid of May 16, 1943 (Operation Chastise), by RAF Squadron 617 breached two large hydroelectric dams and damaged another in Germany's industrial heart. When Paul Brickhill wrote his well-known The Dam Busters (1951), much information about this mission was still classified. Holland relies upon the archival details made available since. He describes British engineer Barnes Wallis's ingenious "bouncing bomb" design for the mission, the opposing views on its use, and the extreme dangers of the mission, flying at night only 60 feet above its targets. Holland also provides much detail on the differing personalities who argued over the mission, potentially hindering the operation. By contrast to some historical opinions that the raid was an interesting failure, he argues that it was a success, given the destruction with the loss of relatively few planes, while forcing minister of armaments and war production Albert Speer to divert work from other Nazi initiatives to repair the vital dams and factories.