Peter Jackson Dambusters Interview

[Dave Homewood]

This is a few months old but I spotted the link on the Wix forum. It's an indepth interview with Peter Jackson about the Dambusters film - well worth a read.

www.aintitcool.com/node/30076

[flyjoe180]

Great interview, should be a ripper of a movie when it's done.

[planeimages]

An article in "Aeroplane" September 2006 pp 86/87/88 talks about the development of the concept of backspin imparted to the "Upkeep" bombs used in the Dambusters raids..

Robert Gardner MBE explains how Sir George Edwards, an associate of Sir Barnes Wallis, conceived the idea to spin the bomb backwards, "A lifelong lover of the game of cricket and a good leg-spin bowler, Edwards knew about the properties of a spinning, bouncing cricket ball". Edwards may have been influenced by the bowling action and success of Australian International cricket player, Clarrie Grimmett* , who demolished English wickets on a regular basis.

Edwards conducted demonstrations for Wallis on Silvermere Lake owned by Lady Seth-Smith. He used oversized-billiard balls and fired them from a catapult across the lake. The effectiveness of the backspin was immediately evident (despite Wallis' scepticism) and the principle was adopted for the bomb. It was spun at 500 PRM backwards.

The backspin not only carried the bomb further and more accurately but its residual rotation when it struck the dams' walls drove it downwards through the water and kept it in contact with the walls.

These demonstrations were quite separate from Barnes Wallis’ preliminary tests at his home at Effington and later at the Teddington National Physics Laboratory .


The three experiments achieved the following results:.

1. That a ball -shaped bomb would ricochet across water.

2. That the shock-wave effect of the bomb at the base of a dam wall had the capacity to destroy the wall.

3. That backspin, imparted before release from a low-flying aircraft, would skip the bomb across the surface of the water much more effectively than if no spin or pro-spin were to be employed.

* From Wikkipaedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarrie_Grimmett Clarence Victor "Clarrie" Grimmett (December 25, 1891 - May 2, 1980) was a cricketer; although born in New Zealand, he played most of his cricket in Australia. He is thought by many to be one of the finest early spin bowlers, and usually credited as the developer of the flipper.
Grimmett was born in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand, on Christmas Day. A schoolmaster encouraged him to concentrate on spin bowling rather than fast bowling. He played club cricket in Wellington, and his first first-class cricket for Wellington at the age of 17. At that time, New Zealand was not a Test cricketing nation, and in 1914 he moved to neighbouring Australia, then as now one of the sport's superpowers.

So, aside from the Antipodean crews there is a further "downunder" connection to the 617 Sqn endeavours.