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The 'Insane' British Bouncing Bomb That Skipped Across Water To Blow Up Dams - Barnes Wallis Dam Busters

On the night of 16-17 May 1943, nineteen Lancaster bombers attacked Germany's Ruhr dams with a weapon that shouldn't have existed — a 9,250 lb spinning cylinder that bounced across water. Two dams were breached, releasing over 130 million cubic metres of floodwater into Germany's industrial heartland.

The weapon — codenamed "Upkeep" — was the creation of Barnes Wallis, a Vickers engineer who spent two years fighting military bureaucracy to prove that a backspin-stabilised mine could skip over torpedo nets, sink against a dam wall, and detonate at depth with devastating effect.

Senior RAF commanders called it "tripe of the wildest description." His own employer tried to stop him. But Wallis was right — and Operation Chastise became the most celebrated precision bombing raid of the Second World War.

KEY SPECIFICATIONS

Upkeep Bouncing Bomb:
• Weight: 9,250 lbs (4,196 kg)
• Explosive: 6,600 lbs Torpex
• Diameter: 50 inches
• Length: 60 inches
• Backspin: 500 RPM
• Release altitude: 60 feet
• Release speed: ~230 mph
• Distance from target: 425-475 yards

Operation Chastise:
• Date: 16-17 May 1943
• Aircraft: 19 Avro Lancaster B.III Specials
• Targets: Möhne, Eder, Sorpe dams
• Dams breached: 2 (Möhne, Eder)
• Aircraft lost: 8
• Aircrew killed: 53
• Aircrew captured: 3

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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

• Sweetman, John. "The Dambusters Raid" (1982, revised 2012) — the definitive academic account
• Hastings, Max. "Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943" (2019) — major modern reassessment
• Holland, James. "Dam Busters: The Race to Smash the Dams, 1943" (2012)
• Blank, Ralf — German historian whose research established casualty figures including forced labourer deaths
• National Archives, Kew — AIR 14/595 contains Harris's "tripe" annotation
• Imperial War Museum — Barnes Wallis papers and Upkeep specimens
• RAF Museum, Hendon — 617 Squadron archives

Note on casualty figures: Estimates vary across sources. The figure of approximately 1,650 deaths (including over 1,000 foreign forced labourers) is based on Ralf Blank's research but remains contested.

Note on water volumes: The Möhne reservoir held approximately 134 million cubic metres; the Eder held approximately 202 million cubic metres. Release volumes and flood statistics vary by source.