Dambusters Raid

[Boom]

Am curious what the USAAF reaction was when they heard of the Dambusters Raid.

At that time of the war the USAAF believed that they were achieving greater, more effective results in their targeted daylight precision strategic bombing approach. Rather than the indiscriminate night area bombing approach of the RAF.

Yet here was a single RAF Squadron that had carried out a devasting night precision raid that had, in one fell swoop, achieved arguably as much destructive damage as the 8th had managed in any single raid. up to that time.

Books written about the raid cover the training of 617 Squadron, it's people, the raid and the destruction wrought. Have never read of the American air force leaders reaction. Anyone know what the USAAF hierarchy reaction was?

 

[Maxrobot1]

The raid took place 16-17 May 1943 after months of secrecy. I wonder if USAAF personnel were excluded from any involvement or planing.
On the other hand, there were probably a lot of "secret" things going on at the same time.
I can imagine that, at least after the raid, USAAF staff wanted details of the mission and information on the bombs.

 

[Just Schmidt]

The raid took place 16-17 May 1943 after months of secrecy. I wonder if USAAF personnel were excluded from any involvement or planing.
On the other hand, there were probably a lot of "secret" things going on at the same time.
I can imagine that, at least after the raid, USAAF staff wanted details of the mission and information on the bombs.

I don't consider that USAAF personel was excluded from involvement more than that FAA was 'excluded' from involvement with the battle of Midway. Everybody cannot have their hands in everything.

 

[yosimitesam]

It's surprising to me that Air Marshal Arthur Harris didn't at least try to "veto" the raid. Or, maybe he did and, if so, I would like to see the documents that he wrote before the raid. He was an ardent opponent of precision bombing. He called it "panacea" bombing and made the following quote that I read somewhere: "Precision bombing is sending a bomber to pull the plug on Hitler's bath in the hope he will catch pneumonia and die." His theory of bombing was to force the residents of German cities (the factory workers, transportation workers, et al.) to devolve into a "troglodyte" existence, i.e. no water, power, sewer, heat, transport, etc. He believed this would the destroy their productive capacities and reduce their factory output to lower and lower levels, over time. The Americas wanted to do this "from the top down" (not a pun) through direct attacks on critical infrastructure while he wanted to do this "from the bottom up." One wonders if he believed this would work better or if he just wanted the Germans to "reap the whirlwind" for their bombing of England in 1940-1941. My gut feeling is he would not have wanted to waste bombers on a "panacea" target and would have fought this raid bureaucratically tooth and nail. Those documents, if they exist, would be very interesting. Of course, once the war was over he had to concede that the bombing of the fuel plants and transportation hubs was effective in reducing the Germans' productive capacity all out of proportion to the effort involved.

 

[EwenS]

Development of the Upkeep & Highball bouncing bombs was a matter between Wallis, as the inventor, Vickers, his employer, the Air Ministry (in particular the Research & Development Dept) and MAP. BC and it's CO, Harris, were not involved until a very late stage.

Harris was appointed AOC Bomber Command in Feb 1942 and had come the hate anything that detracted from the task of area bombing of cities. He also hated anything that smacked of elite special purpose squadrons, initially opposing the formation of pathfinder squadrons.

On 15 Feb 1943 a meeting at the Air Ministry which included Wallis and Mutt Summers of Vickers, but not Harris, gave the go ahead to convert a single Lancaster for trials. Harris found out about this three days later and this seems to have been his first knowledge of the project. He promptly wrote to the Chief of the Air Staff, Portal, expressing his opposition on several grounds to the whole scheme in fairly robust terms.

On 21st Feb Wallis showed film extracts of the early Tank trials and Wellington drops to an audience that included the First Sea Lord, Pound (who favoured development), Craven (Vickers chairman) and Portal. Portal, then converted to the efficacy of the weapon, then wrote to Harris stating Wallis's idea could not be dismissed out of hand but that only 3 Lancasters would be converted for trials.

On 23rd Feb Wallis & Summers visited BC HQ and made a presentation to Harris himself. While Harris, like Portal, would not then commit to setting aside a Lancaster squadron for the special Operation, he revealed that Portal had authorised conversion of the 3 trials aircraft. Subsequent conferences at MAP saw instructions issued to convert a further 27 Lancasters by 1 May 1943 to allow the operation to be carried out that spring.

While Harris wasn't keen on the idea he had his orders. He allocated the task to 5 Group. Instead of allocating a whole existing squadron to the task which would have reduced his bombing campaign, a new squadron was to be formed with Chastise to be its first but not only mission. Harris then nominated Gibson as CO just as he was completing his tour with 106 squadron.

617 squadron was officially formed on 21st March 1943. Contrary to what was portrayed in the movie, Gibson's choice of crews was limited to those in 5 Group and not the whole of BC and not all were volunteers. Some were posted from 57 squadron also based at Scampton, including the whole of that squadron's C flight.

So while Harris May not have liked the idea, he had received his orders from higher up and sought to obey them in a manner least likely to divert effort away from his area bombing campaign.