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Book review


huge bombs required yet more modifications to the Lancasters to carry them.


These latter penetration bombs produced an underground void into which the surrounding area collapsed, bringing down any adjacent structures. Dropped from 40,000ft, they hit the ground at speeds around Mach 3. They were used against a variety of targets including: a railway tunnel at Rilly-la-Montagne used to store V1s, the battleship Tirpitz in a Norwegian fjord, and the U-boat submarine pens at Brest. The submarine pens were protected by a concrete roof some 5½m thick. Tallboys created craters some 2m deep and 8½m wide on the top and the shock wave produced an even larger hole on the underside of the roof, filling the docks below with rubble. The book has many photographs from reconnaissance missions and German sources showing how effective they were. The problems of dropping bombs from such heights with the required accuracy, in an age before computers as we know them, are covered in some detail.


The book is full of technical explanations rather than being the story of an engineer, who designed extraordinary weapons, and the brave crews, who risked their lives to deliver them to their targets, after all it is an ‘owners’ manual’. However the human story shines through to give a feeling for the desperate times that required such ingenuity and sacrifice.


As ever, Haynes has immaculate timing. Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame, is due to re-make the Dam Busters film this year.


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