All language subtitles for Dam.Busters.Declassified.2010.WEB.H264-RBB

'The RAF's last air-worthy
Lancaster Bomber.

'A relic of a war that will soon be
beyond living memory.'

As a pilot, I've always been
fascinated by the wartime exploits
of Bomber Command.

I've known some of the veterans.

And I own and fly one of the
aeroplanes that they trained in.

'The classic movie about
an impossible mission

'which succeeds
against all the odds,

'The Dam Busters is
one of my favourite films.'

It's gone! Look! My God!

This has to be
one of the most iconic scenes
in the history of war cinema.

'But I want to know whether

the movie has distorted our view
of the true history of the raid.'

What I'm hoping to find out
is the truth behind

one of the most famous war stories
of them all.

I'm going to retrace the route taken
by 617 squadron

during its famous raid

and rediscover some of the forgotten
secrets of the Dam Busters.

'I'll be hearing from the RAF's
last survivor from the raid.

'His crew's efforts
didn't feature in the film.

'And taking to the skies
with a former RAF Harrier pilot

'and navigating for him.'

By my reckoning,
we should be turning now,
and I can't see the river.

I'm going to override you this time.

Please, please!

'Or at least try.'

You're taught resourcefulness,
courage...

'He was the dashing wing commander
who led the raid.

'But who was the real Guy Gibson?'

He was arrogant. Gorgeous.
An absolutely charming young man.

TRIUMPHANT MUSIC

'In London, the bright lights
of Leicester Square receive...'

'The film created
an upsurge in national pride
in an era of post-war austerity,

like the raid itself,

'boosting beleaguered Britain's
morale.'

'Cheers and admiration greet
the princess who wears...'

'And perhaps this is where the film
and the legend of the Dam Busters

started to become one and the same.

'55 years after its release,
The Dam Busters retains its power

'as a piece of wartime storytelling.

'The stars Richard Todd
as Wing Commander Guy Gibson

'and Michael Redgrave
as Barnes Wallis, the inventor.'

In the movie, their double act
personified the bravery

and ingenuity that summed up

perhaps the most spectacular
and daring raid

in the history of aviation warfare.

'Over the years,
the movie has been accepted by many

'as the definitive version
of the story.

'But a lot of it was pure fiction.'

Guy Gibson's trip to the theatre
did not throw up the ingenious

twin-lamp method
for accurately measuring the height
of the aircraft above the water.

'No, far less dramatically,

'it was a scientist at the Ministry
of Aircraft Production

'who came up with the idea
which was crucial to
the success of the operation.'

The written sources for the film
were two books,

Guy Gibson's Enemy Coast Ahead

and Paul Brickhill's
The Dam Busters.

Now, according to those who know,

both are riddled with inaccuracies.

And then much of the information
that director Michael Anderson

required

for strict historical accuracy
was still classified as secret.

Just take me through
these timings again

and I'll write them down.

'If I'm to follow the route
of 617 squadron,

'I'll need to do my homework.

'Especially as they expect me
to navigate the route.

'Former RAF fighter pilot
Chris Norton

'led One Squadron into battle
during the conflicts
in the Gulf and Kosovo.

'He's my pilot.
I'm beginning to understand
what I'm letting myself in for.'

Wow. That's daunting.

So they'll probably have had fairly
significant blind areas...

'We'll be joined along the way
by former RAF Red Arrows pilot

Dave Slow in a second aircraft.'

The whole thing is mindboggling.
That they could navigate at night,

being shot at, and not being able
to see out, either.

It's probably an advantage,
I suppose. You just rely on

your stopwatch

and your compass and let the captain
worry about the rest.

Lights out, pressure's rising.

RPMs good. Warning lights out.

'It's time to get airborne.

'And later, I'll be following the
training routine of 617 Squadron.

'This is RAF Scampton
in Lincolnshire,
home of the Dam Busters.

'It's a very different place today.

'There are no longer
combat aircraft based here.

'But you can almost feel
the ghosts of the past.'

'Spring 1943.'

'Airmen specially selected from
across Bomber Command were brought
together here to form 617 Squadron

'under the tightest possible
secrecy.'

We had no idea
what the targets were going to be.

And security was
at an absolute premium.

All letters were censored
and even the public telephone
outside the station was monitored.

'They trained for mission impossible
not knowing their weapon
or their target.

'Time and again they honed their
low-flying skills over British dams.

'For Johnny
and the other young airmen,

'the unknown danger of their mission
to come was on hold

'as their intensive training began.'

Flying at 100 feet, which was the
prescribed height for our training,

was great.

Lying in front, I'd see the ground
just whizzing past.

Low level cross-countries
all done by map-reading,

because it wasn't feasible

to use the navigation aids
at that height.

Decelerating, 140. Letting down.

'So what's it like to fly so low?
We're about to find out.

'We're heading down to the height
that 617 Squadron
would've trained at,

'100 feet from the ground.'

I'm just going to weave round
these houses. Good idea.

'The legal minimum flying height
for civilian aircraft is 500 feet.

'We have special permission
from the Civil Aviation Authority.'

In 1943,

this was the best way to stay alive
if you were over enemy territory.

Too low for night fighters
and radar.

But, of course, it's very
challenging flying this low.

But this is in broad daylight.

Imagine doing this at night.

No.

Are you comfy at 100 feet yet?

Me? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's funny

how quickly it happens, isn't it?

This is exactly the sort of training
they would've done.

And the beauty of it
is that they knew

they couldn't get in trouble,
no matter what they did,

they'd be over villages and whatever
and learning to navigate.

But, of course, this is the day,

so you've got lots and lots
of visual resolution.

Whereas at night,
you don't have any of that.

And the way they simulated that
is they put blue film
over the windscreen

and they wore yellow goggles.

If you look at the amount of risk
they carried in training,
it's just amazing, really.

'As the navigator, flying at
this height is difficult for me.

'Instead of the panoramic view
you get at 1,000 feet,

'down here you see very little and
you reach the horizon in seconds,

'so navigation is challenging.

'Luckily, Chris is alongside me.'

We've got this coming up on the nose.

Then we're going to
come back down there. Right.

'This is where 617 Squadron
prepared for the raid.

'The twin towers of the Derwent Dam
in the Derbyshire Peak District.'

Fortunately for us,
the weather's lovely.

So we're going to be in the hills
of the Peak District

practising getting into
the very difficult terrain

that they had to contend with
when they were in the Ruhr hills.

What Gibson did is, he spent
a long time poring over maps,

trying to find as many features
as he could in the UK

that he could mimic with
what would happen on the raid.

And then he got the guys flying round
those features again and again until
they could find them in their sleep.

They learned all the mistakes
of navigation or the tricks
of navigation they would use later.

'Chris knows this valley well.

'He once flew down it
in a Harrier Jump Jet at night
at 400 miles an hour.

'But he's never been down it
this low.'

This was the Dam Busters'
other secret weapon.

This is an exact replica

of the bomb sight
that they used on the raid.

If you believe the film, that is.

'But this man knows the real story
better than anyone else alive.

'Johnny Johnson
occupied the bomb-aimer's position
in the Lancaster

'piloted by the American
Joe McCarthy.'

We had to make our own bomb sights.

And they consisted, basically,
of a plywood triangle

with pins in the three points.

I didn't use one at all.
I had no need to use one

on the actual attack.

'That's because Johnny's crew was
dispatched to attack the Sorpe Dam,

'a very different structure
to the Eder and the Mohne.'

We wondered what it was all about,
how we'd do it.
We didn't know until we got there.

The Sorpe had no towers

and it was almost impossible
to approach for a head-on attack
because of the hills around it.

And so the practice
was going to have to be

coming down over the hills
on one side,

flying across the dam

and releasing the bomb as near as
you could to the centre of the dam.

We weren't spinning it.
It was going to be an inert drop.

So it was up to me as the bomb-aimer

to estimate when was the right time
to drop it.

We weren't very happy about that,
but there we are.
We had to get on with it.

'On the tenth attempt, he released
the weapon, hitting the target,

'one of only two crew to do so.

'But despite causing serious damage,
the waters were held back.

'Although urgent repairs
were needed.'

Well, could it really have worked?

We're about to find out.

'Back at the Derwent,
it's time for our own experiment.

'Holding the sight steady
is extremely hard.'

Almost impossible.

Get your wings level
as soon as poss. Will do.

'The sight is a nightmare
to hold steady.'

OK. Coming in,
coming, coming, coming.

Coming, coming, coming.

Coming. Bomb's gone now!

I think we got it that time.

It's very fast and furious
at the end, isn't it? Yeah.

'We're all full of admiration
for the men who first did this.

I still can't believe they managed
to get a Lancaster in there. I know.

This has got to be nimble
compared to a fully-laden Lancaster.

Absolutely.

'Because the wooden sight
proved hard to use,

'the bomb-aimers improvised,
with surprising results.

'Believe it or not,
this was one device.

'A length of string.

'Again, the two forward points were
used to measure the drop distance

'when lined up with
the twin towers of the dam.'

OK, wing's a little...

Steady, steady. Steady.
Come by, come by, come by.

Level, level.

Get it level.
Get it level, get it level.

OK. All right.

Hold it, hold it.
Level up. Level up.

Bomb gone! Good effort!
It's miles away, isn't it?

That's phenomenal. I loved that.
That was good.

I couldn't decide if we were
on the left that time.

But you could see
how absolutely crucial it was
to get the wings level.

There's no point in letting the bomb
go when you've got any bank on,
otherwise it goes off to the side.

I prefer the string.

'I now feel I know a bit more
about the problems of
dropping a bouncing bomb.

'But what exactly was it?'

'A bouncing bomb that'll skip across
the surface of the water
and explode against the dam wall.'

'Codenamed Upkeep,

'this ingenious device was
only ever used on this one raid.

'The secret to its operation

'was applying backspin through
a belt mechanism before release.

It made the revolving depth charge

'skip across the surface of the
water before hitting the dam wall

'and exploding at a set depth
to cause maximum damage.

'In the movie, the bomb is the wrong
shape and size,

'because its real dimensions were
classified as secret until 1973.

'Dr Barnes Wallis, the inventor
of the special dam-busting bomb,

'and Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby
and Lady Saundby.'

'But after the premiere,

'the retired air marshal
complained of a fundamental
misconception in the film.

'Wallis, he complained
in a letter to the New Statesman,

'was not behind the idea
to attack the dams.'

Plans were being hatched
to attack the German dams

was as early as 1937.

And the idea of exploding
a depth charge against the dams

was being discussed
before the outbreak of the war.

I've got an idea for destroying the
dams.

The effects on Germany
would be enormous.

I know all that.
I've read the report.

Do you really think you can knock
down a dam with that thing? Yes.

It looks clever enough on paper,

but that goes for
all these wheezy ideas.

When you try to make them work, they
fall down flat. This one doesn't.

How do you know? We've tested it and
proved it. I've got some films here.

Barnes Wallis is depicted
as the genius inventor,

frustrated by bureaucracy and
the scepticism of the War Office.

That's not strictly true.

'The real Barnes Wallis did feel
a huge burden of responsibility

'for the airmen
who had to deliver his invention.'

One was endangering those men's lives

simply to make an idea work.

But, mind you,
the doing was done by Guy Gibson
and 617 Squadron, not by me.

'What can't be disputed

'is the bravery of those young men
who took to the skies.'

Their courage, audacity

and sacrifice

is rightly celebrated in this movie.

'Two months after
617 Squadron was formed,
their task was finally revealed.

'They'd fly at night,
60 feet above the water,

'at more than 200 miles an hour.

'Possibly under heavy fire,

'they'd drop their single
untried weapon in an attempt
to break the dam walls

'and destroy German armament
factories in the valleys below.'

Under the light of the full moon,

seven young men
climbed into each Lancaster.

They'd all trained exhaustively,

honing their individual skills,

each of them depending on
their fellow crew members

for their survival.

It's hard to imagine
how they were feeling

as they sat cramped in their
cockpits waiting for takeoff.

'The 19 Lancasters left RAF Scampton
in three waves.

'Flying low over the North Sea,
they crossed the enemy coast

'and on deep into the Ruhr Valley.

'They pressed home their attack
on three dams,
breaching the Mohne and the Eder.

'But the air crews paid a terrible
price for their bravery.

'Of 19 Lancasters,
only 11 come home.'

My dad called it a suicide mission.

So courage,

absolute courage beyond any fear.

'John Fraser survived
the wreckage of his crashed plane

'due to the heroism of his pilot,
John Hopgood.'

They were badly hit
and Dad released the bomb.

Hopgood tried to take the aircraft up
approximately 300 feet

so that the crew could bail.

My dad managed to pull his chute out
and it got caught in the slipstream

and the chute opened and he bailed
at very, very low altitude,
extremely low,

and he said the treetops
looked awfully damn close.

This memorial commemorates
the airmen of 617 Squadron

who lost their lives
in World War II.

More than a quarter of them fell

on that first raid in May 1943.

'But on the German side,
the consequences of that raid
were catastrophic,

'in human terms
as well as industrial.'

Are you there?

Nearly 70 years on,

these scenes of devastation
could be seen as insensitive.

Even triumphalist
from today's perspective.

So many innocent people were killed.

But this was wartime.

'The next stop off on our journey
is where it all began,

'RAF Scampton,
home of the Dam Busters.

'This was the officers' mess
when 617 Squadron was based here.'

You know most of the chaps, I think.
Carry on, please.

Hello, sir. Hello. McCarthy, sir.

'In the movie, this is where Gibson
meets the officers from his new
Squadron for the first time.

'And this is where
that scene was shot.'

Just extraordinary.

Even derelict, it's so atmospheric.

And this is the officers' mess
at Scampton.

You can imagine it
filled with rumbustious young men

not long out of school.

Probably even had mates killed
last week, yesterday.

And there would've been a fantastic
amount of horseplay in here.

I mean, they probably played
cricket and rugby right here.

And got drunk right here.

And who could blame them?

'A short walk from
the officers' mess at Scampton

'is another relic of the raid,
steeped in the history
of the squadron.'

I'm trying to put myself
in Guy Gibson's shoes, as it were,

the night before the raid, sitting
in this office with that awesome

responsibility on his shoulders.

At the age of 24.

It just...
It doesn't compute, you know?

I get nervous sometimes

if I'm just going off in my plane
on my own.

There's just that little tension,
you know, about...being a pilot

and just knowing where you're going
and the things that could go wrong.

Just imagining that with all of
those lives, all of those crews.

The Nazis, they have
their German youth movement,

where they're taught
the foulest things in life,

and you're quite the opposite.

'This was Guy Gibson
addressing the boy scouts.

'He was patriotism personified.

'Barnes Wallis described him as
"all guts and go."

'But if you strip back the layers
of Boy's Own legend from the movie,

'a far more complex figure emerges.

'So who was the real
Wing Commander Gibson?

'This most English of heroes
was born in 1918 in India

'during the British Raj,
only moving back to Britain
when he was six years old.'

Gibson was basically insecure in that
he had a very dysfunctional family.

At the age of six,
his parents split up.

His mother became an alcoholic
by the time he was 12

and he didn't have a family life
in any sense. That meant that he was,

throughout his life, an insecure
person and somewhat lonely.

'There was nothing in his early life
that gave clues to the wartime hero

he would become.

At the school,
he was sound but unspectacular.

He was lance corporal in the OTC

and he didn't shine in sports, so he
was not therefore, in any sense,
an outstanding personality.

His one love was flying

and from 1935, he got it into his
mind that he actually wanted to fly,

and that gave him a sense of purpose.

He had, in his room,
a collection of Biggles books,

and on the wall
was a photograph of Albert Ball,
the VC of the First World War,

and I think that may well be
his inspiration for wanting to fly.

When he goes into the service
in 1936,

he then has to acquire
a military personality.

And that's where I think
you have a difference between
what he was as a person

and what he was
as an officer in the RAF.

I was a sergeant then

and one of his,
I suppose, shortcomings,
if that's the right word,

was that he couldn't mix with
the lower ranks too well.

He was a strict disciplinarian.

The other thing about him was that
he was quite small, quite short.

And one got the impression
that short men

were more for arrogance
than they were for anything else.

And I remember, on one occasion,

on an evening meeting,
Gibson really tore
a young Canadian pilot to pieces

because he'd rung his girlfriend
in Lincoln the night before

and said sorry, he couldn't make it,
"we've got something on."

That was all he said,
but as far as Gibson was concerned,
that was a breach of security.

And so we knew exactly
what the position was.

He was not a natural leader.
He was a manufactured leader

in the sense that
he adopted an attitude which he felt
was the way of running something

in much the same way
as a school was run.

Maybe years later, one of the rear
gunners on 617 Squadron said he was,

"a product of his environment"

and by that he meant that
he'd come from a public school,

which was
a hierarchical organisation,

where the prefects
controlled the boys,

and he applied this to the RAF,

he made sure that the lower ranks
saluted him,

because he felt that
that was part of discipline.

Without saluting
and without smart uniforms,
you didn't have efficiency.

He is not only insecure and lonely,
but he's rather gauche socially.

Gibson as the commander
was much more of a martinet,

much more a disciplinarian
than he appeared in the film.

You saved my life.
I'll never forget it.

He appeared as sort of
an almost jovial person.

What are you messing about for?
I told you, I'm not going.

This new squadron, are you going to
fly with it? Of course.

You'll need a crew, won't you? Of
course, but I'll get one all right.

Ooh, you want to get rid of us.
I didn't say that.

Gibson's crew from his old squadron
eagerly signed up to join him.

But that's not the way it happened.

'In fact, only one member of his old
crew joined him at 617 Squadron.

'Flight Lieutenant Hutchinson,
his wireless operator.

'Whilst on leave, he met actress
and showgirl Eve Moore,

'who was older than him,
at a party in Coventry.

'They were married the next year,
in 1940.'

In her words, he stalked her.

He used to go to all her plays

and the other cast said,
"There's that RAF boy
sitting in the front row."

My husband's efforts, and all
the boys in the services with him,

can bring this war to an end
so quickly.

So much the better.
Then we can enjoy ourselves.

'But hundreds of miles away
in Lincolnshire,

'her husband was shouldering the
immense burden of leadership alone.

'He befriended a member of the
Women's Auxiliary Air Force,
Margaret Masters.

When I first met Guy,

I'd gone out to help
either operate on

or bring in
a very badly injured officer.

After kneeling on the floor
for some time

and holding what was left of
a badly injured arm...

..my knees rather hurt.

It was a very hard floor.

And I looked at a pair of legs
behind me and said, "Can I borrow
your legs to lean against?"

I didn't know at the time
that they were Guy's legs.

That's how I first met him.

My first impressions were
that he was a typical officer,

full of his own importance at times,

but there was something about him
that I wanted to know...
more and more.

And I did. He was charming.

I'd found that he was at a bad spot.

In fact, his marriage was broken.

And he was lonely,

unhappy,

but he loved his job.

Everything was flying.

'This is the first time
Margaret has spoken publicly
about their relationship.

'She recalls a fantasy world
they escaped to.

'In it, they shared a life together
in a place they called
Honeysuckle Cottage.'

Each meeting was adding
a little bit to the cottage.

I could tell you
how many teaspoons we had.

We did it that much.
It was just a form of escapism

from the life we were leading.

Which, on one hand,
was very, very dangerous...

..and on my behalf,
was very, very painful at times.

We used to drive out and sit
and just chat, just generally.

We found out about
each other's lives.

Do you think
he was in love with you?

I hope he was.

Yes, I was.

I'd be a fool if I wasn't.

Wing Commander Gibson VC
who led the great Lancaster raid
on the Ruhr dams...

'Immediately after the dams raid,
Guy Gibson inevitably became
a national hero,

'receiving a Victoria Cross
for his leadership.

'His bravery was extraordinary.

'After dropping the first bomb,

'he flew in a further three times
with the attacking bombers

'to draw the fierce enemy fire
away from them.

'Guy Gibson died in a plane crash
over Holland the following year.

'The Petwood Hall Hotel
in Woodhall Spa.

'It's where the 617 Squadron
officers' mess was eventually based.

'Chris Norton and I
are staying here tonight, before
embarking on our flight to Germany.

'Inside there's a bar dedicated to
the memory of the squadron

'and its defining moment.

'Chris knows the feeling
of going into battle,

'and was himself awarded
the Distinguished Flying Cross,

'one of Gibson's
many wartime honours.'

You've been to war yourself

and had to, presumably,

lie awake a night, or at least know
that tomorrow morning's
the day you go into action.

What's that like?

Erm, the first time you
go into action, everybody's anxious.
I should imagine.

They're mostly anxious
about not making a mistake.

I think they're less anxious, albeit
there's still an anxiety there,

that they might not come back.

Now, it was probably more certain
in 1943 than it is today

that you're not going to come back.
The chances of not coming back
were quite high.

In the case of the Iraq War,
which is when I was commanding
One Squadron,

then there were a lot of people
who didn't believe in that war.

I guess, in the Second World War,
the issues were much clearer.

Exactly, it was a war of national
survival. Yes. Absolutely.

And the whole country was at war.

Whether you were a labourer
or a driver

or a wife, a nurse,
a pilot or a soldier,

everyone was at war.

'In about ten hours' time,
we'll be setting off
to follow Guy Gibson's route.

'I wonder how well he slept
the night before the raid.'

Morning, Martin. Morning.

How are you? You all right?
Yes, thank you. Good to go?

'The time has come to retrace
the route taken by 617 Squadron.

'But first,
an impromptu navigation briefing.'

Briefing on the wing,
always the best way.

'I must admit to
some last-minute nerves.

'I'm about to navigate
the longest flight I've ever
undertaken in a light aircraft

'across some of
Europe's busiest skies.

'Oh, well, here goes.'

Takeoff.

'We'll be in close formation
with a second plane

'that will follow us
as far as the coast.

'This is the start of a 400-mile
flight that, in 1943,

'changed the course of the war.

'When the Dam Busters left Scampton,
there was no tarmac.

'Their runway was made of grass.
But some things haven't changed.

'As the crews
headed for enemy airspace,

'each must have wondered whether
they'd ever see a familiar landmark,
like Lincoln Cathedral, again.'

It's extraordinary to think that
that's pretty much what they saw.

To put yourself in their position.

Not much has changed, really.

You're looking out of the window of
an aeroplane at the cathedral.

There were so many Bomber Command
bases around Lincolnshire

and whilst they would've been
in small villages,

Lincoln was that big landmark.

'So, onwards over
the familiar towns and villages

'and across the vast expanse
of the Lincolnshire Fens.'

So who were the men who set out for
Germany on that day in May in 1943?

The movie suggests that
they were veterans,

handpicked by Guy Gibson himself.

'But that wasn't the whole story.

'Some where there quite by chance.

'Jack Liddell was
the youngest Dam Buster,

'but he'd already been
thrown out of the RAF.

'He was just 15
at the outbreak of war.

'But that wasn't about to stop him
joining up,

'even if he had to lie
about his age.'

He joined underage, and when the
authorities found out his real age,

they threw him out. So he went to
the London Fire Service

and worked with them
during the Blitz.

Working for the London Fire Service
in the Blitz

was as dangerous as anything. I
mean, a lot of firemen were killed.

So he did join eventually again

and got trained up as a gunner.

'Vic Townsend served with Jack
Liddell on the same bomber crew.

'He now lives near Sydney,
Australia.

'These postcards are mementos
of their Lancaster bombing raids

'whilst serving together
on 61 Squadron.

'This is the view
young Jack would've had
from his position as rear gunner.'

I met Jack Liddell in 1942

after we'd come back from Canada

and been pushed into a number
of time-wasting activities

because there was a bottleneck
in training.

And I never knew him
as Jack Liddell.

He was always called Killer, cos
he never fired his guns in anger.

They said to all of us,

"You can do a period of instruction
or you can join this new squadron

which we are just forming, but we
cannot tell you anything about it."

Nobody volunteered.
Nobody wanted to volunteer blind.

But Jack Liddell said,

"I can't instruct nobody. I can fire
a gun. I'll go to the new squadron."

So that's how he got to
the Dam Buster squadron.

So he went on the Dam Busters raid
and didn't come back.

'That's because the Lancaster
that Jack Liddell was aboard,

piloted by Robert Barlow,

'crashed over Germany,
killing all of its crew.
But more of that story in a moment.

'Leaving the English coast,
we drop as low as the Lancasters

'of 617 Squadron would've done
to avoid enemy detection.'

4570 for Amsterdam, Golf Yankee Mike.

'For the last 45 minutes, we've been
flying east over the North Sea.

'Back then, it was a dangerous
place, bristling with enemy ships.

'A fact that the crew of
617 Squadron were well aware of.'

It wasn't operation certain death,
but it was operation
quite likely to die. Yeah.

We're going to come back
onto the track here,

which is this point here. So I'll hit
that point there for you.

OK. Then you've got it,
so you'll know where you stand.

100 feet. There you go. Cracking.

'The Dutch aviation authorities

'have given us special permission
to cross the coast
at a height of 100 feet.'

They would've gone
as low as they dared. Some of
the pilots were extremely low.

40 feet they were reputed
to be able to fly at. This looks

a lot less than 100 feet to me.

You're the expert, but I reckon
that's a lot less than 100 feet.

I've got 100 feet on the altimeter.

'So, even in daylight with
no enemy menace to threaten us,
low flying is difficult.'

That's the Dutch coast ahead
and, in 1943, we'd be flying into

a lethal hole of antiaircraft fire,

so your best chance was to stay low.

But that had its dangers, too.

'As Pilot Officer Jeff Rice, flying
in the second wave of Lancasters,

found to his cost.'

You were so low that you had to
hop over the sand dunes.

You couldn't judge the distance
above the water because of the moon.

And the last thing you'll see will be
a shadow coming up to meet you.

And it's yours. And it's yours.

There was an enormous bang
followed by a second bang.

His engineer said to him,
"You've lost the bomb"

and he then had to
pull the aircraft up

but, of course,
the water was so violent

that it not only went down
through the fuselage,

but it hit the top of the fuselage
in the cockpit where he was.

'Incredibly, Jeff Rice managed to
pull the bomb out of the water

'in what surely must be one of
the greatest escapes of the war.

'And he headed for home,
his mission over.

'With the tail wheel
disabled by the impact,

'the landing back at Scampton
was dangerous

'and left the rear gunner, Sergeant
Burns, trapped in his turret.'

So poor old Burns
has to be cut out of the rear turret
by the ground crew.

'The day after the raid,
the surviving pilots
were photographed together.'

Gibson quizzed Rice
as to why he'd lost the bomb.

He told him and he looked at him
and he said, "Bad luck.
I almost did the same thing."

You're right of track at the moment.

Very good. 143, is that right? Yes.

So, that's exactly what they did.
If I'd got you out of track
by not flying properly,

you'd have said, "come left ten"
for about a minute

and then turn me back
onto my heading.

OK, that's what you want to do. OK.

'We're crossing the Zuiderzee,
Holland's inland sea.

'And following
the Dam Busters' wake seems simple.
Flying in broad daylight, that is.'

The only thing you wouldn't want to
do in here is fly past a flak ship.

We are absolutely beautifully
on track.

We've got perfect visibility

and nobody's shooting at us.

'Drifting off the route plan
cost more than one Lancaster

the lives of its crew.

'For them,
flying at 100 feet or less at night,
it was understandable.

'But even in the day,
navigation isn't simple.

'As I'm finding out.'

I think I'm slightly right of track.

I've got you bang on. OK.

By my reckoning,
we should be turning now.

And I can't see the river.

I think we missed it.
I think it was back there.

I don't think so. I think the river
is coming up on our right-hand side.

OK. So I'm going to override you

this time. Please!

If you just think about the emotion
that's going on as you're thinking,

"I haven't seen my point.
I'm starting to get worried."

My point's late.

'He's right, of course.

'But in the industrial sprawl
of southern Holland,
it's easy to make a mistake.

'In 1943,
it could've been a fatal error.'

It's the confusion, isn't it? Yeah.
You see something go past
and you think, "Right, that's me"

and then you're getting more and more
doubt in your own mind. Yeah.

Crossing the border.

WOMAN SPEAKS ON RADIO

Bye-bye.

We've just crossed the German border

and in 1943,
these were very dangerous skies,

as Flight Lieutenant Robert Barlow
and the crew of E-Easy
were just about to find out.

'It's thought a combination
of enemy fire and pylons

'conspired to bring down
the Lancaster,
with the loss of all seven crew,

'near to Haldern
in northern Germany.

'But when the embers cooled
from the crash site,

'the Germans were able to recover
the top-secret weapon intact.'

They knew that the Germans had
recovered one of the bombs

and they were afraid that they would
be able to adapt it and use it.

'Weapons experts quickly
went to work analysing the bomb.

'These technical diagrams show
how full a picture they had
of the weapon.

'And along with the bomb, they had
one of the surviving members of the

Lancaster that crashed in flames

on the other side of the Mohne Dam,
Flight Sergeant John Fraser.

He was in solitary confinement
for seven days

and he was interrogated.

He did describe some details,
being forced to.

I would say that he probably
wasn't treated very well.

'German transcripts
of his interrogation

'show how Fraser gave away
top-secret information,

'including details of his training
and his own role as bomb-aimer.

'He also divulged technical details
of how the weapon was deployed.

'And this seldom-seen
top-secret German footage

'shows just how far advanced
their plans were

'to deploy a similar weapon
against British targets.

'Codenamed Kurt, it was a
rocket-assisted bouncing bomb.

'So the same dams used by
617 Squadron to train for the raid

'were now themselves
under threat of attack.

'These German plans
showed the fears were justified.

'Enemy reconnaissance
had pinpointed the reservoirs

'which presented
the maximum opportunity
to damage the British war effort.

'A month after the dams raid,
Winston Churchill was so worried
about a copycat raid by the Germans,

'he personally sought assurances
from the War Cabinet

'about the readiness
of British defences.'

For the five dams
close to Sheffield, we deployed
a total of 5,000 troops.

We put smoke-screened balloons,
antiaircraft guns,

and in some of the dams,
we actually put a metal structure
on each side of the dam

with wires slung down between them

so that you couldn't have
low-flying aircraft attacking.

'It's bank holiday in Germany and
the crowds are out enjoying the sun.

'This is the Mohne Dam,

'now a place of leisure
as well as an abiding memorial
to a national disaster.

'It's hard to believe this mighty
stone structure was ever breached.'

It's huge.

It's big.
There's a lot of water in it.

'From up here, it makes me shudder
to think of that dam coming down.

'But when it did,
the devastation brought upon
this beautiful place was total.

'Maria Nierhoff was 16 years old

'and living in the town of Neheim,
about four miles from the dam.

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

TRANSLATOR: Our house stood here.

Our neighbour, Herr Schaker,
said to us, "Save yourselves,
the Mohne has been breached."

'The water poured down the valley,

'destroying towns and villages
for many miles.'

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

TRANSLATOR:
You heard this roaring sound

and as soon as we heard
that roar of the water,

we were lucky we could run straight
up the hill. We just ran and ran.

How times changes the perception
of what's an enemy

and what's good and what's bad.

And really it was a political regime
that was making this bad,

not the people or the country.

That being said, it's now against
the Geneva Convention

to bomb water. Really?
Yeah. So it's an illegal target.

If we were ever sent again
for such a thing,

then bombing a dam
is completely illegal,
ever since the Geneva Convention.

'Maria is retracing her footsteps.

'This journey of about two miles
probably saved her life.

TRANSLATOR: We just kept running.

When we arrived

at the top of the hill, we stopped
at the cross and sat underneath it.

There was one neighbour,
they had four children.

They must have been asleep
and not woken up. I don't know.

One man was home on leave
and said to his wife,

"You go up the hill with the baby"

and he went back to help this
family with the four children.

He died along with that family. They
all died. It was just how it was.

There were several people at the
cross. They had run up the hill.

It was a very clear night,
so they could see everything.

They came in their planes
and they shot at us.

Like I said, if I hadn't been there,
I wouldn't have believed it.

There were no men there,
just women and children.

It was just war. That's how it was.

So many people died.

We were lucky
that we went up that hill,
or we might have died, as well.

'Today we arrive in peace time

'in the land of
our close European allies.'

For us, it's a thrill. For them,
it's a different thing altogether.

It's hard, really,
to say what my thoughts are,

because there's so many
conflicting thoughts.

'All these years later,
Maria's memories are still vivid.'

SHE SPEAKS GERMAN

TRANSLATOR: Then in the morning,
we came down.

Everything was underwater.
All the houses had gone.

Our house was simply no longer
there. Not even the foundations.

There was nothing left of it.
All the houses had gone.
We just couldn't believe it.

'Of the estimated
1,600 people who died,

'it's reckoned that more than 900
were foreign forced labourers.

'By comparison,
the Eder Dam breach caused
a fraction of the casualties.'

Four bombs hit the dam
before the breach was confirmed.

And then where I'm standing here,
a tsunami was triggered this way

and 135 billion litres of water,
an unimaginable amount,

came cascading down the valley.

Guy Gibson looked down
and thought it was
an absolutely wonderful sight.

And, of course, to them it was.
The raid was successful,

they'd done their duty, they hadn't
been killed on the way, they hadn't

missed the dam altogether.

And yet, down here,
it must have been awful.

And it's hard to equate
the peacefulness and the calm

and a nice afternoon in the sun...

There are people strolling
backwards and forwards,
sitting on benches, having picnics,

and this was the scene of
such utter terrible devastation.

And, for me, it's poignant, as well,

cos I read about this raid
when I was 15

and it's something,
if you're interested in aeroplanes
and war stories,

that is right in the centre
of your imagination,
and here I am where it happened.

And I can imagine and hear
the Lancasters pulling up

and getting out over there.

And yet, there's a sort of overtone
of sadness, as well,
the futility of it all.

In the end, it didn't really
accomplish very much at all.

'That sentiment strikes a chord
in modern-day Germany.'

HE SPEAKS GERMAN

TRANSLATOR: So, on the German side,
we see them as war victims.

We see this event
as a day of commemoration

and also as a warning
of the futility of war,

and we hope that such events
are never repeated.

In England,
it is remembered very differently.

In some reports, the German
casualties are forgotten about

and the attack is seen
in pure technical terms

as a military operation
against a target.

'When this squadron photograph
was taken after the raid,

53 members of 617 Squadron
were already dead.

'Nearly 70 years on,
and just a handful survive.'

'One of the last two Dam Buster
veterans has died at the age of 91

'at his home in Lincolnshire.

'Flying officer Ray Grayston
was a member of 617 Squadron.

'His funeral will be held
at Boston Crematorium.'

'Ray Grayston was part of the crew
that breached the Eder Dam.

'On a later raid, he was captured
after escaping from his doomed
Lancaster before it crashed

'and he spent the rest of the war
as a German prisoner.'

Obviously very sad, the passing
of Ray. He was a great guy.

Very modest.
Wore the badge of hero reluctantly.

The ingenuity,
the spirit of these young men,

who were just doing a job
and did it really well

in such a short space of time,
should be remembered.

What we're capable of being able
to do when we're called upon.

And I think that's very much lacking
today and we should remember that.

LAST POST PLAYS

'And on the anniversary of the raid,
they are still remembered.

'At this year's commemorative
service, there was only one
dams raid veteran attending.

'Johnny Johnson.'

My father was pilot of AJ-T
on the dams raid.

I get to see Johnny Johnson,
my dad's bomb-aimer.

He's the last living member
in the UK that we know of.

There's only four of them
in the world,

so it's just really great
to come back and see somebody

that was in my dad's crew.

You look at what these people did,
left their jobs and their schools

when they were 18, 19, 20 years old
and went out to fight a war,

not knowing how long it was going to
take or if you'd ever come back.

And then they came back
and then, after the war,

it's like they dropped it

and just went on with their lives

and it was a part that
they all just sort of let lie.

And they don't brag
or anything like that.

It's just wonderful
to honour those people.

Not much was said when they returned
from war. Not much at all.

And my dad didn't talk much
to my mom about it.

And, as a little girl, I just
remember my father loved flying

and I was a Dam Buster's daughter

and he busted dams and I didn't know
what the heck that was as a child.

It was just funny.
I thought it was funny.

And now when I look back
years later, and I can reflect
on what these men did,

to go out on the night
of a raid like that

and to be talking about,
"We might not come home"

and to fly and do that, I can't
imagine the courage it took.

This has been
an amazing journey for me.

I've learned so much about a story
that I knew very well,

and there was a lot more to learn.

And now I'm about to realise
a boyhood ambition.

You guys really do have
the best job in the world.

There is a clear area
up there through the clouds.

'Today's flight is all about marking
perhaps the most important act
of wartime defiance

'in this nation's history.'

This is the Battle of Britain
memorial flight Lancaster,

one of only two left flying
in the world.

This is the end of a memorable
personal journey for me

and the fulfilment of
a boyhood dream, really.

I can't believe I'm doing this.

'It's the 70th anniversary of
the start of the Battle of Britain.'

Today, this grand old lady
is on ceremonial duty.

We'll be giving a lot of pleasure
to people on the ground

as well as memorialising some of
the brave men who lost their lives

flying in these wonderful things.

'What could evoke the British
wartime spirit better

'than the white cliffs of Dover
and a Spitfire
flying in close formation?

'On the ground,
thousands have gathered,

'including some of the veterans
themselves.

'All have come to see us fly past
in honour of those who died
defending this country.'

Seeing the Battle of Britain
memorial flight Spitfire join us

and then do an attacking run,
that's a sight I never thought

I would see in this life,

believe me,
but it was very exciting.

'Just when it seems
it really cannot get any better,

'it just has.

'Squadron leader Stuart Reed
has asked me to join him
on the flight deck.'

If you'd said to them
the best part of 70 years ago,

"We'll still have one flying
in honour of what you're doing"
they would never have believed it.

'Ceremonial duties performed,
it's time to head for home.

'So what have I learned
along the way?

'Well, the Dam Busters story
and the men who made it possible,

'it's not like the movie at all.

'Oh, no. In truth,
it's far more unbelievable.

'A far more amazing story
than that.'

MUSIC: "Dambusters March"
by Eric Coates

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd