Was the Dam Busters raid a success?

[yulzari]

'Braveheart' loves the Scottish!

'Braveheart' is a gross slur upon Scottish history and culture.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, they made a movie about the Dambusters Raid and they did not title it "A Dam Too Far" so I have to assume it is regarded as a success.

 

[Nick Beale]

Gibson's career is absolutely stellar and you could make a series on him alone.

It might be a hard sell. Later biographies of Gibson portray him as far from the likeable character portrayed by Richard Todd. Much the same with Bader, intensely determined (and in these cases very brave) people can be very hard to be around, or be commanded by.

 

[buffnut453]

In Bader's case, he tended to prompt a Marmite reaction: people either loved him or loathed him.

His intolerance of bureaucracy and intense focus on getting the job done chimed with like-minded individuals, of which there are many at the unit level in the military. I sense parallels with Churchill in this regard.

I don't know if Gibson was cut from the same cloth but it's distinctly possible.

 

[swampyankee]

In Bader's case, he tended to prompt a Marmite reaction: people either loved him or loathed him.

His intolerance of bureaucracy and intense focus on getting the job done chimed with like-minded individuals, of which there are many at the unit level in the military. I sense parallels with Churchill in this regard.

I don't know if Gibson was cut from the same cloth but it's distinctly possible.

Part of Bader's post-war claim to fame was his verbal support for racism, shown by support of apartheid and Ian Smith. I know some people consider this a positive character trait. I don't.

 

[MIflyer]

I don't know if Gibson was cut from the same cloth but it's distinctly possible.

Gibson went on to become a Mossie Pathfinder pilot and on his last mission the aircraft went U/S at takeoff and he insisted that it be replaced immediately with another. They hustled to comply with the legendary pilot's orders. Problem was, the Mossie he took had not been bombed up with the markers and when he tried to drop them over the target and got no results he went back for a second pass. Apparently that was when he was shot down. His wife went to live in South Africa after the war, taking their black Lab dog with her. One night she heard the distinctive whistle that Guy Gibson had used to summon the dog, and the animal dropped dead. Perhaps he was calling the dog home to him one last time.

My grandmother on my father's side's maiden name was Gibson.

 

[buffnut453]

Part of Bader's post-war claim to fame was his verbal support for racism, shown by support of apartheid and Ian Smith. I know some people consider this a positive character trait. I don't.

Yep, he was a complex and flawed man. He was also a man of his time. His views were not uncommon given the period in which he grew up. I'm not excusing his comments but we must recognize that the past is a foreign country.

 

[herman1rg]

Part of Bader's post-war claim to fame was his verbal support for racism, shown by support of apartheid and Ian Smith. I know some people consider this a positive character trait. I don't.

We must always never forget the struggle he went through to get re-enlisted into the RAF after having been invalided out in 1932. That may well have altered his views on many things.

 

[swampyankee]

Yep, he was a complex and flawed man. He was also a man of his time. His views were not uncommon given the period in which he grew up. I'm not excusing his comments but we must recognize that the past is a foreign country.

I do recognize that; I also recognize that vocal support for Rhodesia and South Africa was far from universal, even among people of his generation. Including, for example, the British government that refused to recognize Rhodesia.

We must always never forget the struggle he went through to get re-enlisted into the RAF after having been invalided out in 1932. That may well have altered his views on many things.

And it would affect his view on someplace like Rhodesia how? One would think his viewpoint would be somewhat less opposed to individual human rights than it became.

 

[z42]

Gibson went on to become a Mossie Pathfinder pilot and on his last mission the aircraft went U/S at takeoff and he insisted that it be replaced immediately with another. They hustled to comply with the legendary pilot's orders. Problem was, the Mossie he took had not been bombed up with the markers and when he tried to drop them over the target and got no results he went back for a second pass. Apparently that was when he was shot down.

Wikipedia has some speculation on his death, Guy Gibson - Wikipedia :

Gibson's aircraft crashed at Steenbergen in the Netherlands at around 22:30 and lit up in flames. Witnesses heard an aircraft flying low, saw that its cockpit was illuminated and then it crashed.
...
One theory advanced is that the accident was due to Gibson's lack of experience flying Mosquitoes. His log book, which he had last updated on 16 September, detailed 9 hours and 35 minutes flying Mosquitoes.
...
Lack of fuel is the explanation most favoured by members of No. 627 Squadron at the time. In December 1985 the site was excavated and wreckage from the plane recovered. No enemy damage was noticeable. It has therefore been suggested that Gibson and Warwick had failed to switch fuel tanks at the correct time.[163] It has also been suggested there was a fault with the fuel tank selector.[164] Further, it is possible that a lack of familiarity with the Mosquito resulted in neither Gibson nor Warwick being able to find the switches to swap the fuel supply. This would also be a reason to explain why the cockpit was illuminated: they were attempting to locate the switches. In either case, the result would be that the aircraft simply ran out of fuel.

(I haven't read any of the original sources, so am not able to verify the wikipedia quotes above one way or another.)