Where did the information stating AJ-N being "N for Nuts" come from? The crew always refered to the plane as "N for Nan."
T. Sutherland 17:44, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
What does the "BDA" header stand for? That might be good to spell out. -- John Owens 17:35 24 May 2003 (UTC)
'BDA' is mil-speak for Bomb Damage Assessment. (The post-strike photos). Paul, in Saudi
What the heck was the entry for Operation Downwood? I never heard of it.
There was a VfD argument a while back, because literally someone put Downwood as the name of the operation in a previous article version. When VfD tried to delete the redirect we found several sources that quoted that; most of them had clearly got the name from Wikipedia, some we weren't sure about (none were primary sources). Anyway, I put this sentence in in case anyone followed the redirect from Operation Downwood and was confused about why they had arrived where they were. DJ Clayworth 19:44, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I removed some sentences which claimed that the German war industry had not been affected at all, as the previous sentence said "factories, railroads and bridges were destroyed". Also removed POV 'terrorism' allegations.
DJ Clayworth 19:46, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I regret to say that I'm not sure where I got the term from. It was a long time ago ;). I don't have quick access to most of my source texts, but possibly it came from The Dambusters (1951) by Paul Brickhill - A quick flick through (rubbish index) produced this, a conversation between Wallis and Gibson includes: "We'll work out some way of doing it. Now I'll tell you more about this Downwood business." "Downwood?" "The code name for the raid." TwoOneTwo 23:15, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
My copy of Brickhill's book (Australian paperback) consistently referred to Operation Downwood and never to Chastise. It was mentioned both in the aforementioned conversation with Barnes Wallis introducing Gibson to the concept, and in a telephone call announcing the operation's success. As I read it about fifteen years ago, I can conclude that the term 'Operation Downwood' definitely did not originate initially on Wikipedia. --q, 14 Jan 2006
I've never seen Downwood before, after 25yrs' reading on the war (which isn't proof of much; I've only recently come across Chastise). I'm inclined to agree, keep the redirect; if somebody has, send them to the right place. One possibility occurs to me: like Anvil (among others), the codename may've changed in progress; history records it as Chastise, but in planning, it may well've been Downwood. It bears confirming, if somebody has access to original codename lists or early planning docs. On another ish, I'm inclined to mention part of the failure to have the anticipated effect was RAF's indifferent follow-up: they let the Germans rebuild in peace, rather than bombing the reconstruction efforts. I'd include it, but I'm not really clear what the writer intended in the July 27 'graph; that seems the place to put it, but... If somebody can clarify when/if the reconstruction was underway/complete, I'd add "no follow-up". There's also a "sources" problem: I can't cite a specific one. Terraine in Right of the Line probably mentions it, Dean's RAF & 2 World Wars, & Harris' Bomber Offensive, too, among others. Suffice it to say, it's been raised before. Trekphiler 02:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
IIRC the History channel claimed that the Germans wasted a lot of resources trying to reverse engineer the unexploded bomb they recovered. But I don't know much about it so I didn't make any changes about this in the article. Does anyone know about this and care to add it if appropriate?
I removed a sentence that said that the aircraft flew at altitude of 75ft on route to the targets. This would be stupid and dangerous (remember that flying at 60ft to deliver the bombs was considered reckless). If anyone can come up with a source for this it can go back. DJ Clayworth 13:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Well I found these quotes which suggest they were flying pretty low:
"We were flying so low that more than once Spam (P/O Spafford, the bomb-aimer) yelled at me to pull up quickly to avoid high-tension wires and tall trees." - W/C Gibson.
"If the wires in the moonlight were 'up here' (motioning above his head) we knew we'd have to go under them. If they were to flutter 'down there' (motioning below his head) we knew we'd go over them. It was that quick." - F/Sgt. Ken Brown
"Right under the bloody thing!" - P/O George Gregory (F/L Hopgood's front gunner) after passing under a power line
Also the article says one of the aircraft lost its bomb after hitting the water and two aircraft were lost after hitting power lines so they must have been very low.
I think they were flying very low in order to avoid radar and night fighters.
-- Shimbo 09:44, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I will add a paragraph about this unless anyone has any objections. -- Shimbo 19:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to make this category more specific. Does this fit better under "Strategic bombing" or "Raiding operation"? I've read the article and can't quite decide (though I'm leaning towards the latter). Oberiko 12:12, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Since the allegation that George Lucas documented that he lifted the climax of Dam Busters wholesale (funny, I don't remember Star Wars clicking into B&W) is itself without documentation, I have removed that tidbit, along with the assertion that there is no equivocation (whatever that's supposed to mean). If the original contributor would care to provide further information re: GL's discussion of his sources of inspiration, that would be grand! JHCC 19:48, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I suggest the whole 'Notes' section which is purely about the film 'The Dambusters' should be moved to the page about the Dambusters film and just referenced from here especially as there is information here which isn't on the page about the film. The section currently called Conclusion should prehaps be renamed Notes as it talks about things that people/organisations did after the raid not the raid itself. -- Shimbo 21:09, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The article says The Moehne and Eder lakes poured around 330 million tons of water into the western Ruhr region. This needs to be stated more accurately, because the Moehne is a tributary of the Ruhr but the Eder is not. The Eder river flows from west to east through the Sauerland massif and joins the Fulda near Kassel. This in turn runs north to join the Weser, which eventually flows into the North Sea at Bremerhaven. Waters from the breached Eder dam would therefore have passed more than 100 km east of the industrial areas of the Ruhr.
Why then did the British choose to bomb the Eder dam? It caused great loss of life (the majority of which was Allied POW's and civilians), but seemed to have little effect on the German war-effort other than loss of hydro-electric power generation capacity. It seems inconceivable that British planners were unaware of the geography of the area. Perhaps the true reasons were to achieve a propaganda victory and make a diplomatic point, as mentioned in the article. Anyway, it seems to me that the article should make mention of this strange anomaly.
Should these be combinded or linked?
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_Valley_Reservoirs> < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_bomb> < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise>
The keywords "Dam + Breach" were used to find these refs.
In case any one is wondering this is because the IMDB reference is about the movie. This is a page about the historical operation not the movie. The IMDB reference is still available at The Dam Busters (film). Shimbo 07:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have reversed the change that was made from mine to bomb. The upkeep weapon was officially described as a mine, probably because it exploded underwater. Shimbo 09:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
i cant believe the rampant racism of that era this article should be deleted so people dont think its okay to do:@
Why don't you try to identify this supposed "rampant racism" and offer a rational explanation as to why the entire article "should be deleted" on the strength of it. Please be sure to differntiate between sentiment and the plain reporting of the facts of a historical event. Nick Cooper 13:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Now that Peter Jackson is going to make a movie, there will probably be lots more visits to this article, so some cleanup might be a good idea. Though there are a couple of external citations, overall the sourcing is very poor. I've added citation tags at a few obvious spots: conflicting figures for the dead on the ground, with the Möhne number of 1579 greater than the total figure of 1294 given later (this may be for the Eder dam, but the context is confusing); also, the "Effect on the War" section verges on POV. I changed the lone citation to a footnote. There's only one item in the footnote list now, but hopefully more will be added.
Also, I see my internal footnote restarts the numbering, I guess because the internal and external formats are slightly different.
— J M Rice 15:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
What seems to have been overlooked in the earlier discussion is that Brickhill's account was published in 1951 - when details were still classified Most Secret, under the thirty-year rule. It therefore makes perfect sense that he would not have been allowed to use the actual name for the operation - the sort of silly, piffling thing that keeps cropping up when one is dealing with declassification. Perhaps a note to the effect that the operation was referred to by an invented name in the book as true details were still classified would be in order? 86.11.124.189 21:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
to the British, still suffering under German bombing.
A long time ago I read a book saying that German bomber aircraft were pulled back from Britain by 1941 for Operation Barbarosa. The text also says it needs citation. I would therefore like to voice my questioning over whether Britain was still bombed by Germany. Anyone know? Tourskin 02:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
True, we need a source for the claim that "morale was raised." It probably was, but we need a source for that. 1943 seems to have been the only year when the Germans pretty much gave up on bombing Britain: there was the The_Blitz, of course, in 1940 and 41; 1942 saw the Baedecker Blitz you talk about; and 1944-45 saw the V-1 and V-2 campaigns take off. WikiReaderer 00:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
please can you help im looking for a picture of his man who was a bomerdea on the raide my reason is in 1962 i was a boy and this man used to talk to me and site me on his lap and my farther was a good friend to him trying to help him overcome what he went though the raide.shame he died and was berried in an un marked grave . does any one know of this man and have a picture of hi so that i can show my sons im allways talking about him to them regards SEjones stephan.jones@btinternet.com thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.17.108 ( talk) 21:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph about the report comparing the raid with Kamikaze attacks worries me. While I don't doubt the accuracy of the quote, but I think we need to make sure the quote is in context. Remember we are quoting a book which is not about the dam raids, and it is quoting a report which is not about the dam raids; presumably the context in the book is discussing kamikaze attacks, not discussing the dam raids. It's one thing to say "Kamikaze attacks were not logically different from the dam raids" and quite another to say that "the dam raids were like suicide attacks". DJ Clayworth ( talk) 17:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
You´re sure the bomb rotated backwards? I think I´v read some years ago a book where it´s mentioned it rotated forward. This sounds reasonable for me, because rotating backwards, the drum might tend to jump high and slows down rapidly, but flat jumps and a constant speed were needed, since a high jumping drum could fly right over the wall´s top or could be slowed down too fast so it might couldn´t reach the wall at all. Am I wrong? 84.138.46.228 ( talk) 10:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Where did the information stating AJ-N being "N for Nuts" come from? The crew always refered to the plane as "N for Nan."
T. Sutherland 17:44, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
What does the "BDA" header stand for? That might be good to spell out. -- John Owens 17:35 24 May 2003 (UTC)
'BDA' is mil-speak for Bomb Damage Assessment. (The post-strike photos). Paul, in Saudi
What the heck was the entry for Operation Downwood? I never heard of it.
There was a VfD argument a while back, because literally someone put Downwood as the name of the operation in a previous article version. When VfD tried to delete the redirect we found several sources that quoted that; most of them had clearly got the name from Wikipedia, some we weren't sure about (none were primary sources). Anyway, I put this sentence in in case anyone followed the redirect from Operation Downwood and was confused about why they had arrived where they were. DJ Clayworth 19:44, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I removed some sentences which claimed that the German war industry had not been affected at all, as the previous sentence said "factories, railroads and bridges were destroyed". Also removed POV 'terrorism' allegations.
DJ Clayworth 19:46, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I regret to say that I'm not sure where I got the term from. It was a long time ago ;). I don't have quick access to most of my source texts, but possibly it came from The Dambusters (1951) by Paul Brickhill - A quick flick through (rubbish index) produced this, a conversation between Wallis and Gibson includes: "We'll work out some way of doing it. Now I'll tell you more about this Downwood business." "Downwood?" "The code name for the raid." TwoOneTwo 23:15, 5 Mar 2004 (UTC)
My copy of Brickhill's book (Australian paperback) consistently referred to Operation Downwood and never to Chastise. It was mentioned both in the aforementioned conversation with Barnes Wallis introducing Gibson to the concept, and in a telephone call announcing the operation's success. As I read it about fifteen years ago, I can conclude that the term 'Operation Downwood' definitely did not originate initially on Wikipedia. --q, 14 Jan 2006
I've never seen Downwood before, after 25yrs' reading on the war (which isn't proof of much; I've only recently come across Chastise). I'm inclined to agree, keep the redirect; if somebody has, send them to the right place. One possibility occurs to me: like Anvil (among others), the codename may've changed in progress; history records it as Chastise, but in planning, it may well've been Downwood. It bears confirming, if somebody has access to original codename lists or early planning docs. On another ish, I'm inclined to mention part of the failure to have the anticipated effect was RAF's indifferent follow-up: they let the Germans rebuild in peace, rather than bombing the reconstruction efforts. I'd include it, but I'm not really clear what the writer intended in the July 27 'graph; that seems the place to put it, but... If somebody can clarify when/if the reconstruction was underway/complete, I'd add "no follow-up". There's also a "sources" problem: I can't cite a specific one. Terraine in Right of the Line probably mentions it, Dean's RAF & 2 World Wars, & Harris' Bomber Offensive, too, among others. Suffice it to say, it's been raised before. Trekphiler 02:32, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
IIRC the History channel claimed that the Germans wasted a lot of resources trying to reverse engineer the unexploded bomb they recovered. But I don't know much about it so I didn't make any changes about this in the article. Does anyone know about this and care to add it if appropriate?
I removed a sentence that said that the aircraft flew at altitude of 75ft on route to the targets. This would be stupid and dangerous (remember that flying at 60ft to deliver the bombs was considered reckless). If anyone can come up with a source for this it can go back. DJ Clayworth 13:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
Well I found these quotes which suggest they were flying pretty low:
"We were flying so low that more than once Spam (P/O Spafford, the bomb-aimer) yelled at me to pull up quickly to avoid high-tension wires and tall trees." - W/C Gibson.
"If the wires in the moonlight were 'up here' (motioning above his head) we knew we'd have to go under them. If they were to flutter 'down there' (motioning below his head) we knew we'd go over them. It was that quick." - F/Sgt. Ken Brown
"Right under the bloody thing!" - P/O George Gregory (F/L Hopgood's front gunner) after passing under a power line
Also the article says one of the aircraft lost its bomb after hitting the water and two aircraft were lost after hitting power lines so they must have been very low.
I think they were flying very low in order to avoid radar and night fighters.
-- Shimbo 09:44, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I will add a paragraph about this unless anyone has any objections. -- Shimbo 19:30, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to make this category more specific. Does this fit better under "Strategic bombing" or "Raiding operation"? I've read the article and can't quite decide (though I'm leaning towards the latter). Oberiko 12:12, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
Since the allegation that George Lucas documented that he lifted the climax of Dam Busters wholesale (funny, I don't remember Star Wars clicking into B&W) is itself without documentation, I have removed that tidbit, along with the assertion that there is no equivocation (whatever that's supposed to mean). If the original contributor would care to provide further information re: GL's discussion of his sources of inspiration, that would be grand! JHCC 19:48, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
I suggest the whole 'Notes' section which is purely about the film 'The Dambusters' should be moved to the page about the Dambusters film and just referenced from here especially as there is information here which isn't on the page about the film. The section currently called Conclusion should prehaps be renamed Notes as it talks about things that people/organisations did after the raid not the raid itself. -- Shimbo 21:09, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The article says The Moehne and Eder lakes poured around 330 million tons of water into the western Ruhr region. This needs to be stated more accurately, because the Moehne is a tributary of the Ruhr but the Eder is not. The Eder river flows from west to east through the Sauerland massif and joins the Fulda near Kassel. This in turn runs north to join the Weser, which eventually flows into the North Sea at Bremerhaven. Waters from the breached Eder dam would therefore have passed more than 100 km east of the industrial areas of the Ruhr.
Why then did the British choose to bomb the Eder dam? It caused great loss of life (the majority of which was Allied POW's and civilians), but seemed to have little effect on the German war-effort other than loss of hydro-electric power generation capacity. It seems inconceivable that British planners were unaware of the geography of the area. Perhaps the true reasons were to achieve a propaganda victory and make a diplomatic point, as mentioned in the article. Anyway, it seems to me that the article should make mention of this strange anomaly.
Should these be combinded or linked?
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elan_Valley_Reservoirs> < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_bomb> < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise>
The keywords "Dam + Breach" were used to find these refs.
In case any one is wondering this is because the IMDB reference is about the movie. This is a page about the historical operation not the movie. The IMDB reference is still available at The Dam Busters (film). Shimbo 07:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I have reversed the change that was made from mine to bomb. The upkeep weapon was officially described as a mine, probably because it exploded underwater. Shimbo 09:21, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
i cant believe the rampant racism of that era this article should be deleted so people dont think its okay to do:@
Why don't you try to identify this supposed "rampant racism" and offer a rational explanation as to why the entire article "should be deleted" on the strength of it. Please be sure to differntiate between sentiment and the plain reporting of the facts of a historical event. Nick Cooper 13:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Now that Peter Jackson is going to make a movie, there will probably be lots more visits to this article, so some cleanup might be a good idea. Though there are a couple of external citations, overall the sourcing is very poor. I've added citation tags at a few obvious spots: conflicting figures for the dead on the ground, with the Möhne number of 1579 greater than the total figure of 1294 given later (this may be for the Eder dam, but the context is confusing); also, the "Effect on the War" section verges on POV. I changed the lone citation to a footnote. There's only one item in the footnote list now, but hopefully more will be added.
Also, I see my internal footnote restarts the numbering, I guess because the internal and external formats are slightly different.
— J M Rice 15:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
What seems to have been overlooked in the earlier discussion is that Brickhill's account was published in 1951 - when details were still classified Most Secret, under the thirty-year rule. It therefore makes perfect sense that he would not have been allowed to use the actual name for the operation - the sort of silly, piffling thing that keeps cropping up when one is dealing with declassification. Perhaps a note to the effect that the operation was referred to by an invented name in the book as true details were still classified would be in order? 86.11.124.189 21:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
to the British, still suffering under German bombing.
A long time ago I read a book saying that German bomber aircraft were pulled back from Britain by 1941 for Operation Barbarosa. The text also says it needs citation. I would therefore like to voice my questioning over whether Britain was still bombed by Germany. Anyone know? Tourskin 02:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
True, we need a source for the claim that "morale was raised." It probably was, but we need a source for that. 1943 seems to have been the only year when the Germans pretty much gave up on bombing Britain: there was the The_Blitz, of course, in 1940 and 41; 1942 saw the Baedecker Blitz you talk about; and 1944-45 saw the V-1 and V-2 campaigns take off. WikiReaderer 00:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
please can you help im looking for a picture of his man who was a bomerdea on the raide my reason is in 1962 i was a boy and this man used to talk to me and site me on his lap and my farther was a good friend to him trying to help him overcome what he went though the raide.shame he died and was berried in an un marked grave . does any one know of this man and have a picture of hi so that i can show my sons im allways talking about him to them regards SEjones stephan.jones@btinternet.com thank you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.158.17.108 ( talk) 21:14, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph about the report comparing the raid with Kamikaze attacks worries me. While I don't doubt the accuracy of the quote, but I think we need to make sure the quote is in context. Remember we are quoting a book which is not about the dam raids, and it is quoting a report which is not about the dam raids; presumably the context in the book is discussing kamikaze attacks, not discussing the dam raids. It's one thing to say "Kamikaze attacks were not logically different from the dam raids" and quite another to say that "the dam raids were like suicide attacks". DJ Clayworth ( talk) 17:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
You´re sure the bomb rotated backwards? I think I´v read some years ago a book where it´s mentioned it rotated forward. This sounds reasonable for me, because rotating backwards, the drum might tend to jump high and slows down rapidly, but flat jumps and a constant speed were needed, since a high jumping drum could fly right over the wall´s top or could be slowed down too fast so it might couldn´t reach the wall at all. Am I wrong? 84.138.46.228 ( talk) 10:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)