A Slight Deviation – A Day With The Dam Busters at Ladybower

A slight deviation from China as happens occasionally. But hopefully interesting all the same. Drove from Manchester to Sheffield on Sunday to see an old friend Dan Gordon, the director of the excellent North Korea trilogy of documentaries – Game of Their Lives, State of Mind and Crossing the Line (now available as a box set by the way from Very Much So Productions). Dan, a Sheffield lad, suggested lunch at the Ladybower Inn on the Ladybower Reservoir just outside Sheffield.

The Ladybower is a large Y-shaped reservoir, the lowest of three in the Upper Derwent Valley in Derbyshire. The River Ashop flows into the reservoir from the west; the River Derwent flows south. At the time of construction it was the largest reservoir in Britain. The Ladybower was built between 1935 and 1943, but took a further two years to fill.

All very nice and popular with walkers, cyclists etc – though on Sunday it was freezing and blowing snow flurries that later turned into some of the worst snows in years in England. To get there you can take the A57, the infamous Snake Pass, one of the most beautiful but reportedly dangerous roads in England – the views are stunning. I got out of the area slightly ahead of the major downfalls which notoriously cuts the whole area off regularly.

Most famously though the Ladybower and Derwent reservoirs were used by the RAF’s legendary 617 Squadron in 1943 to test Sir Barnes Wallis’ bouncing bomb before their mission to destroy dams in Germany‘s Ruhr Valley. In February 1943, Wallis had revealed his idea for air attacks on dams in Germany. He had developed a drum-shaped, rotating bomb that would bounce over the water, roll down the dam’s wall and explode at its base. The bomb was codenamed ‘Upkeep’. Impressed with the concept, the Chief of the Air Staff, ordered Wallis to prepare the bombs for an attack on the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in the important German industrial region of the Ruhr.

The Raids weren’t that successful in stopping the Nazi war machine the raids had a hugely positive effect on Allied morale, did plenty of damage behind the German lines and dampened their enthusiasm.

Of course the whole story became a massively popular film which showed 617 Squadron training over the Ladybower and with Michael Redgrave as Barnes Wallis and Richard Todd as Wing Commander Guy Gibson (left). All this meant that the Dam Busters have passed into popular mythology in Britain as great heroes.

Apparently the legend lives on – it seems the director Peter Jackson is remaking the film with a script by Stephen Fry and, according to film sites on the internet, starts filming this year.

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