No. 617 Squadron — Dambusters

Après moi le déluge

No. 617 Squadron badge
ⓘ licence & creditRoyal Air Force / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:No._617_Squadron_RAF_badge.pngView source & full licence →
Group
5 Group
Home station
RAF Woodhall Spa

About

No. 617 Squadron is the most famous unit in the history of Bomber Command — the “Dam Busters”. It was formed in great secrecy at RAF Scampton in March 1943, under the 24-year-old Wing Commander Guy Gibson, for a single extraordinary task: to breach the great dams of the Ruhr. On the night of 16/17 May 1943, nineteen specially modified Avro Lancasters carried out Operation Chastise, releasing Barnes Wallis’s cylindrical “bouncing bomb” against the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams; the Möhne and Eder were broken, at a cost of eight aircraft and fifty-three men.

Rather than disband, the squadron became Bomber Command’s specialist precision unit. Later commanded by Leonard Cheshire, it developed low-level marking and carried the enormous Tallboy and Grand Slam earthquake bombs against targets too hard for ordinary attack — among them the battleship Tirpitz, U-boat pens and key bridges and viaducts. Flying latterly from RAF Woodhall Spa, it took as its motto Après moi le déluge — “after me, the flood”.

Sources: This page was compiled from publicly available historical sources, including Imperial War Museums — The incredible story of the Dambusters raid and Wikipedia: No. 617 Squadron RAF. The text is original and has been written from factual source material; no source text has been copied unless specifically quoted and attributed.

Photographs

Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. King George VI, with Wing Commander Guy Gibson (right) , talking to Flight Lieutenant D J H Maltby, during his visit to No 617 Squadron RAF at Scampton, Lincolnshire, following the Dams raid in Germany. Maltby and his crew delivered the Squadron's final attack on the Moehne Dam, which successfully breached the dam wall.
ⓘ licence & creditHensser (F/O), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._CH9929.jpgView source & full licence →
Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. A 12,000-lb MC deep-penetration bomb (Bomber Command executive codeword 'Tallboy') is hoisted from the bomb dump to its carrier at Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire, to be loaded into an Avro Lancaster of No. 617 Squadron RAF for a raid on the V-weapon site at Wizernes, France. 617 Squadron were unable to bomb the target on this occasion because of low cloud cover, but were to succeed two days later.
ⓘ licence & creditStanley Devon / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945._CH15363.jpgView source & full licence →
Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. An RAF officer inspects the hole left by a 22,000-lb deep-penetration 'Grand Slam' bomb which pierced the reinforced concrete roof of the German submarine pens at Rekum, north of Bremen, Germany. This was the result of a daylight raid mounted by 18 Avro Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron RAF on 27 March 1945, in which two direct hits by 'Grand Slams' caused much of the partially-completed roof to collapse.
ⓘ licence & creditRoyal Air Force official photographer, Wilson (Plt Off) / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bremen-Farge,_Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945_CL2607.jpgView source & full licence →
Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Interior of one of the E-boat pens at le Havre, showing the collapsed ferro-concrete roof, caused by 12,000-lb deep-penetration 'Tallboy' bombs dropped by No. 617 Squadron RAF in a daylight raid on 14 June 1944.
ⓘ licence & creditStanley Devon / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Le_Havre,_Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945_CL1208.jpgView source & full licence →
Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. The German battleship TIRPITZ, lying capsized in in Tromso fjord, attended by a salvage vessel. The already damaged ship was finally sunk in a combined daylight attack by Nos. 9 and 617 Squadrons RAF on 12 November 1944, (Operation CATECHISM). The hole in the hull by the starboard propeller shaft was cut by the Germans to allow access to salvage crews.
ⓘ licence & creditDaventry B J (Flt Lt), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Troms%C3%B6,_Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945_CL2830.jpgView source & full licence →
Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Low-level oblique aerial photograph showing the heavily-bombed flying-bomb assembly and launch bunker at Siracourt, France, the target for a number of attacks by Bomber Command and the USAAF in June 1944. The final attack on the site was made by 17 Avro Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron RAF in the afternoon of 25 June 1944.
ⓘ licence & creditBridge B (Fg Off), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Siracourt,_Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945_CL4157.jpgView source & full licence →
Royal Air Force Bomber Command, 1942-1945. Oblique aerial photograph of the V2 assembly and launch site in a quarry at Wizernes, France, from west-north-west. Taken from over the railway loop line, looking towards the quarry head and the large concrete dome which covered the underground workings. After repeated raids by Bomber Command, the site was finally neutralised by a daylight attack on 17 July 1944 by No. 617 Squadron RAF, whose 12,000-lb deep-penetration 'Tallboy' bombs caused a landslide, collapsing the underground galleries and sealing the tunnel entrances.
ⓘ licence & creditBridge B (Fg Off), Royal Air Force official photographer / Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wizernes,_Royal_Air_Force_Bomber_Command,_1942-1945_C5637.jpgView source & full licence →
617 Dambusters Squadron Memorial
ⓘ licence & creditAlan Heardman / CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:617_Dambusters_Squadron_Memorial_-_geograph.org.uk_-_868786.jpgView source & full licence →

Operations flown

Aircraft (27)

SerialCodeTypeFate
ED763 KC-Z Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED825 AJ-T Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED864 AJ-B Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED865 AJ-S Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED886 AJ-O Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED887 AJ-A Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED906 AJ-J Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED909 AJ-P Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED910 AJ-C Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED912 AJ-N Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED918 AJ-F Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED921 AJ-W Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED924 AJ-Y Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED925 AJ-M Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED927 AJ-E Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED929 AJ-L Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED932 AJ-G Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED934 AJ-K Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
ED936 AJ-H Avro Lancaster Survived the war
ED937 AJ-Z Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
EE130 — Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
EE131 — Avro Lancaster Survived the war
EE144 AJ-S Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
JA874 — Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
JA898 — Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
JB144 — Avro Lancaster Lost on operations
PD112 — Avro Lancaster Survived the war

Known personnel (1)

NameRankStationDates
Cheshire, Geoffrey Leonard Wing Commander RAF Woodhall Spa ? – ?

Further reading & sources

External sites — facts only are reused here; their text and images remain their authors'.