"Bombing Hitler's Dams" is an episode on ''

NOVA A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...

'' in which Hugh Hunt enlists the help of Buffalo Airways and others in an attempt to recreate the

bouncing bomb A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-deter ...

used in World War II's

Operation Chastise Operation Chastise or commonly known as the Dambusters Raid was an attack on German dams carried out on the night of 16/17 May 1943 by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, later called the Dam Busters, using special "bouncing bombs" developed by ...

Design and testing

Hunt's goal was to create a small drum of steel, filled with concrete that could skip across water like the original bouncing bomb. The recreated "bouncing bomb" was not a live bomb (because it is illegal to drop live explosives from a civilian airplane) and weighed less than a tenth of the original. The real bouncing bomb's blueprints were lost in a 1960s flood, so Hunt's "bomb" was created from scratch. In their tests Buffalo Airways pilot Arnie Schreder flew a

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960s ...

, with the bomb attached underneath, towards a recreation of the

Möhne dam The Möhne () is a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Ruhr. The Möhne passes the towns of Brilon, Rüthen and Warstein. There is a large artificial lake near the mouth of the river, the Möhne Reservoir, us ...

, which was specially constructed on

Lake Williston Williston Lake is a reservoir created by the W. A. C. Bennett Dam and is located in the Northern Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Geography The lake fills the basin of the upper Peace River, backing into the Rocky Mountain Trench which is whe ...

, Canada for the test. The DC-4 was flown along the lake, and the bomb released when they reached a floating marker. If a bomb (5 were made, so multiple attempts could be made) was to successfully hit the fake Möhne dam, a real bomb buried in the fake dam would be detonated, blowing apart the dam.

Trouble

There were many difficulties and problems in "bombing Hitler's dams". One fake bouncing bomb was unbalanced (due to an uneven application of paint), the fake Möhne dam leaked at the junction of the dam and the walls of the canal that the dam was located in, the bomb did not spin for long enough, it was risky for a DC-4 to fly very low (60 feet) with an 800-pound object attached, the splash of the bomb hitting the water could damage the DC-4, and there was trouble telling how high the DC4 was flying because the altimeter was not accurate enough to determine the altitude below 60 feet.

Final test

In the final experiment, everything went fairly well. However the bomb that was chosen was unbalanced. All bombs had to be balanced to ensure they rotated without vibration being introduced into the aircraft. Bombs were balanced within 20g, and it was observed that even the presence of more yellow paint on one side than black paint on the opposite side caused the bomb to be out of balance. The selection of the single unbalanced bomb delayed the experiment. Also, when the aircraft dropped the bomb, it was at 40ft rather than the planned 60 ft. The splash of the bomb hitting the water struck the tail of the aircraft (a Douglas DC-4), although there was no major damage. The bomb struck the false dam successfully on the first try and the dam was blown up by the internal bomb.

References

1
Nova: Bombing Hitlers Dams

External links

{{Nova (TV series) 2012 American television episodes Nova (American TV program) episodes