Description
Title: The Dam Busters
Author: Brickhill, Paul
Condition: SECOND HAND – Very Good Plus – Dust jacket tatty. Page block stained and some minor foxing in parts of the book.
Edition: 1st Edition (Readers Book Club)
Publication Date: 1953
ISBN: Nil
Cover: Hard Cover with Dust Jacket – 288 pages
Comments: The Dam Busters is a book by Paul Brickhill about Royal Air Force Squadron 617, originally commanded by Wing Commander Guy Gibson V.C. during World War II. The squadron became known as the “Dam Busters” because of Operation Chastise, a mission using highly specialised bombs to destroy Ruhr dams in Germany.
The book also covers the subsequent history of 617 Squadron, as an elite squadron specializing in attacking difficult targets with outsize weapons and precision techniques. Among Gibson’s successors as commander was Group Captain Leonard Cheshire V.C., and the book describes Cheshire’s unorthodox leadership style and innovative target marking techniques.
The original edition of the book did not include some of the details of the dam’s raids, as these were still classified at the time, most significantly that the weapons bounced on the water surface before reaching the target. Later editions included these details.