The Battle of Britain

617 Squadron - After the Dambusters Raid

A Lancaster B Mark I of 617 Squadron; A Lancaster B Mark I (Special) of 617 Squadron releases its 22,000 lb 'Grand Slam' deep penetration bomb over the Arnsberg viaduct in Germany, 19 March 1945. Arnsberg lay in the eastern Ruhr Valley, not far from the Mohne dam, which had been the target for 617’s first operation in 1943. Now, its strategically important railway viaduct was the objective. On 19 March 1945 an attack by 19 Lancasters of 617 Squadron carrying a mixture of 'Tallboy' and 'Grand Slam' bombs brought it crashing down.

A Lancaster B Mark I of 617 Squadron

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A Lancaster B Mark I (Special) of 617 Squadron releases its 22,000 lb 'Grand Slam' deep penetration bomb over the Arnsberg viaduct in Germany, 19 March 1945. Arnsberg lay in the eastern Ruhr Valley, not far from the Mohne dam, which had been the target for 617’s first operation in 1943. Now, its strategically important railway viaduct was the objective. On 19 March 1945 an attack by 19 Lancasters of 617 Squadron carrying a mixture of 'Tallboy' and 'Grand Slam' bombs brought it crashing down.

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After the success of the Ruhr dams raid in May 1943, 617 Squadron was retained by RAF Bomber Command for specialist precision bombing operations. It experimented with new bomb sights, target marking techniques and colossal new 'earthquake' bombs...

After the success of the Ruhr dams raid in May 1943, 617 Squadron was retained by RAF Bomber Command for specialist precision bombing operations. It experimented with new bomb sights, target marking techniques and colossal new 'earthquake' bombs developed by Barnes Wallis, the inventor of the 'bouncing bomb'.

An unsuccessful attempt to bomb the Dortmund-Ems Canal from low level in September 1943 resulted in the loss of five aircraft and the death of the Squadron's new CO. Such missions were not repeated and henceforth 617 Squadron concentrated on high altitude precision bombing.

In the run-up to D-Day the Squadron attacked factories, V-weapon sites and communication targets in France. Its commander, Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire, pioneered a controversial new low-level target-marking technique. The improved accuracy minimised civilian casualties when attacking targets in occupied territory.

In the autumn of 1944, 617 Squadron joined 9 Squadron in attacks with 12,000 lb 'Tallboy' bombs on the German battleship Tirpitz moored in Norwegian waters. The first two attempts were inconclusive owing to cloud and smokescreens, but on 12 November they found Tirpitz with no protection. Sustaining two direct hits, the ship was shattered by an internal explosion and capsized.

In the last months of the war, 617 Squadron made further successful strikes against the German rail and canal network, coastal defences and previously invulnerable U-boat pens, using 'Tallboys' and the monstrous new 22,000 lb 'Grand Slam' bomb. Right to the end, 617 Squadron maintained its position as Bomber Command's ultimate precision bombing specialists.

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  • Flight Lieutenant Harold S Wilson and crew, 22 July 1943

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    Flight Lieutenant Harold S Wilson and crew, 22 July 1943; Wilson and his crew missed the Dambusters raid owing to illness. They were all killed when their Lancaster was shot down on the night of 15-16 September 1943 during the disastrous low-level raid on the Dortmund-Ems Canal at Ladbergen. Left to right: Flight Sergeant Trevor H Payne, Pilot Officer Thomas W Johnson, Sergeant Eric Hornby, Sergeant Lloyd Mieyette, Pilot Officer George H Coles, Flying Officer James A Rodger, and Flight Lieutenant Harold S Wilson.

  • Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC

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    Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC; Cheshire was one of the most successful and highly decorated pilots in Bomber Command, and already a legend before he took command of 617 Squadron in September 1943. With the support of the AOC of 5 Group, Air Vice Marshal Ralph Cochrane, he developed an innovative new low-level target-marking technique, later acquiring a number of Mosquitos which proved more suitable for this role. However, his methods were not adopted by the rest of Bomber Command.

  • Markers dropped by a Lancaster

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    Markers dropped by a Lancaster; Markers dropped by a Lancaster flown by Wing Commander Leonard Cheshire explode over the Gnome & Rhone aero-engine factory in Limoges, 8-9 February 1944. As CO of 617 Squadron, Cheshire believed that extreme low-level visual marking could be more accurate than the standard 'Oboe' radar-based system used by the Pathfinders of Bomber Command, and was given official permission to test the technique on this raid. He successfully dropped marker flares from less than 100 ft directly onto the roof of the factory, which was then destroyed by the rest of 617 squadron using 12,000 lb bombs from 10,000 ft.

  • Saumur railway tunnel, northern France

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    Saumur railway tunnel, northern France; 617 Squadron used 12,000 lb 'Tallboy' deep penetration bombs for the first time during this attack on 8-9 June 1944. The attack was intended to block the passage of a German armoured division to the Normandy battlefront. Leonard Cheshire dropped markers from an altitude of 500 ft, after which his squadron bombed from 8,000–11,000 ft. The mouth of the tunnel was neatly bracketed by several near misses, and one bomb scored a direct hit on the tunnel roof, collapsing it completely.

  • A Lancaster over Kaa Fjord, Norway

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    A Lancaster over Kaa Fjord, Norway; A Lancaster seen over Kaa Fjord in northern Norway, during the first of the three attacks on the Tirpitz carried out by Bomber Command, 15 September 1944. The 28 Lancasters of 9 and 617 Squadrons that flew on this raid were operating from Yagodnik in the Soviet Union. Twenty 12,000 lb 'Tallboy' bombs and six mines were dropped, and despite the smokescreens which can be seen in this photograph, there was one hit and several near misses which caused extensive damage to the ship.

  • The remains of the German battleship Tirpitz

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    The remains of the German battleship Tirpitz; On 12 November 1944 38 Lancasters of 9 and 617 Squadrons finally put paid to the mighty Tirpitz. By this date the ship was a strategic irrelevance, unable to put to sea and operating merely as a floating gun battery. In clear conditions the RAF force dropped 28 'Tallboy' bombs. At least two scored two direct hits. The Tirpitz turned over with the loss of approximately 1,000 of her crew.

  • Avro Lancaster B Mark I (Special) PD119 'YZ-J'

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    Avro Lancaster B Mark I (Special) PD119 'YZ-J'; This was one of 33 aircraft modified in February 1945 to carry the 22,000 lb 'Grand Slam' deep-penetration bomb. To reduce as much internal weight as possible, the Lancasters flew without wireless operators, and had their front and mid-upper gun turrets removed. A much appreciated benefit was that once rid of their 10 ton bombs, the aircraft enjoyed markedly better performance than a standard Lancaster.

  • The Bielefeld viaduct, Germany

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    The Bielefeld viaduct, Germany; The Bielefeld viaduct in Germany lies in ruins after a raid on 14 March 1945. 617 Squadron took part in attacks on the Arnsberg and Bielefeld railway viaducts using 'Tallboy' bombs, while one aircraft, PD112 'S-Sugar', captained by Squadron Leader C C ('Jock') Calder carried the first 22,000 lb 'Grand Slam' bomb to be used in action. The Arnsberg viaduct survived for a few more days, but several spans of the Bielefeld railway collapsed after several 'earthquake' bombs literally shook it to pieces.

  • 'Grand Slam' bomb impact point

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    'Grand Slam' bomb impact point; An RAF officer examines the impact point of a 'Grand Slam' bomb dropped on the U-boat factory at Farge, near Bremen, on 27 March 1945. The site at Farge – codenamed Valentin - was one of several hardened U-boat assembly facilities planned by the Germans in response to Allied bombing. Protected by massively thick roofs of reinforced concrete, they were invulnerable to all conventional bombing. Construction work was almost complete when 617 Squadron attacked on 27 March 1945. Of 12 'Grand Slams' dropped, two penetrated the 15 ft ferrous concrete roof and exploded, collapsing much of the structure.