The Dam Busters by Russell Hill
After the end of the Second World War, Britain was in a catastrophic state. Its morale was at is lowest and her financial status was close to bankruptcy. Rationing was still present, and did not end until the mid-1950s with many families simply ripped apart due to the consequences of World War Two. Many homes were destroyed and numerous neighbourhoods no longer existed. Out of all the allied nations, Britain was one of the worst affected and needed improving. Although the efforts of the post-war Labour Government begun to better Britains social conditions with the founding of the National Health System (NHS) and the welfare state, the country still needed a morale boost. This boost was to come in the way of cinema but it didn’t occur until the 1950s; nearly five years after the end of World War Two. The 1950s is a period in British cinema that has been associated with the mass production of films based around the Second World War. Most were immensely popular, not just in British cinemas but in other countries around the world. During the period of 1955-1960, the war film was the first or second highest-grossing film at the British box-office. The narratives of these told stories of communal and singular heroism in the Armed Forces, the Royal Navy and the R.A.F. The protagonists of these films were often middle class with the representation of the lower classes minimal. Positive female representation was rare, with the vast majority of their roles subordinate to the male characters. It could be said that the following quote from Colin McArthur’s article “National Identities” in the edited book National Fictions accurately describes this:
[A] construction of the Second World War was already being offered which repressed the ‘people’s war’ construction and presented the war as a series of heroic actions (mainly) by middle-class white men supported by compliant other ranks with women as waiting sweethearts or mothers. (1984, p.55)
Although there was nothing morally wrong with using cinema as a way of promoting the then-low status of British national pride, historical accuracy within these narratives was key and shouldn’t be ignored. Unfortunately, this was not the case and many of the British war films made during this time subordinated themselves to entertainment rather than fact. The Dam Busters (Dir. Michael Anderson, 1954) is no stranger to this notion, as it failed to depict the truth of this event and will be the basis of the following argument.
Made by The Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC) and released in 1954, The Dam Busters tells the heroic tale of Wing Commander Guy Gibson and his 617 Squadron attempts to halt German war production by breaching the Moehne, Eder and Sorpe Dam in the Ruhr Valley by using Dr Barnes Wallis “bouncing bomb” invention. The two protagonists of the film, Gibson and Wallis, overcome many obstacles in this mission. Wallis discusses with Gibson, who then passes this information onto his fellow airmen when he briefs them, that the effect of this raid will be extraordinary and that they will in fact bring Germany’s war cause to its knees. When watching any war film that states such a comment its historical validity must be examined with one wondering whether or not that the film has any historical truth at all.
Although the film is well directed and is an enjoyable watch, The Dam Busters unfortunately fails to portray what really happened before, during and after the raid. It is difficult to see what scenes are truth, and which ones are fictional. Therefore, it must be asked whether or not any event or scene in the film actually took place, and that the film is more akin to a fictional film rather than an accurate historical documentation of the event. With The Dam Busters, and indeed with other British war films made during this time, a great deal of research into the event that would be the basis of the narrative was undertaken. Michael Redgrave, long before shooting began, spoke to Dr Barnes Wallis on a number of occasions in order to portray Wallis correctly. Richard Todd, who played the character of Wing Commander Guy Gibson, watched several films of him as, unlike Redgrave, Todd did not have the luxury of interviewing the person he was to play as Gibson was killed in action soon after the raids in 1944. The director Michael Anderson interviewed a number of actors in order to master the facial likeness of the squadron. However, as John Ramsden mentions in his article “Refocusing ‘The People’s War’: British War Films of the 1950s”, Richard Todd comments on the result of this pre-production work:
Richard Todd felt that after all the research and interviews with survivors and relatives, ‘there was not a line of dialogue or a single incident enacted on screen which was not true to the events’. (1998, p.50)
The representation of Bomber Command Harris is another incorrect portrayal within the film. John Ramsden’s book The Dam Busters describes this false depiction:
Favourable representation of Harris in The Dam Busters was thus the endorsement of a highly controversial figure, and here it departed significantly from the historical record. The real Harris though the idea of a bouncing bomb to be ‘tripe of the wildest description’, and ‘just about the maddest proposition for a new weapon that we have yet come across’; he was prepared to bet his shirt that ‘it will not work, when we have got it’. He had to be ordered to develop and use Wallis’s invention, while in the film he becomes a cautious but crucial supporter of the idea. (2003, p.29)
Apart from the false representation of the characters present within The Dam Busters it could also be said that the film’s climax, which is the Squadron’s attempts to breach the three Dams, is incorrect and historically inaccurate of what really happened on the night of 16th May 1943.
According to the television programme Secret History – The Dam Busters Raid (Chris Haws, 1994) the number of British human fatalities due to the Dam Busters Raid is an issue that the film fails to realistically show. Out of the hundred and thirty three men who flew that night, fifty three were killed. Eight of the nineteen Lancaster Bombers failed to return to their headquarters R.A.F Scampton. Although Wallis and Gibson discuss this at the end of the film they do not mention any further losses. The Dam Busters does show some attack from the German army on their way to the Dams, yet the reality of this is not represented. In this television programme, those who did return state that three Lancasters were shot down on their way to the Sorpe Dam. Three more were extensively attacked, with one even hiding in trees. Neither of these events was shown in the film. The film only includes shots of the Lancaster planes flying majestically over a moonlit sky. When the Lancaster Bombers reach their targets, it takes only a few attempts before the Dam’s are breached. It actually took five bombs to breach the Moehne Dam alone, with only a couple portrayed in the film. One bomber is known to have tried six to eight times before he achieved the correct height, speed and location in order to hit one of the Dams yet in the film many succeed after their first effort. Even after 617 Squadron’s efforts, The Dam Busters ending suggests that the breaching of the Dam’s was a success and would certainly cripple Germany’s war effort. Wallis celebrates that his invention has worked, with the rewards of this surely being ripe. However, it could be said that this is inaccurate. The television programme Secret History – The Dam Busters Raid mentions that within three days after the raid, the factories which had been swept away were rebuilt and were once again operational. The Dam’s were rebuilt in October 1943, just five months after being breached, and were reinforced with concrete and several mines. In a speech by the Nazi Minister of Production Albert Spare, quoted in this television programme, he says that if the Sorpe Dam had been breached, the effect of the Raid would have been much greater. However, The Dam Busters does not mention this piece of information. In the actual raid, Wallis had been incorrect with his calculations, as the base of the Sorpe was concrete and led to the bombs bouncing too high. When the Dam’s are breached, the airmen in The Dam Busters celebrate and they begin to fly back to R.A.F Scampton; what is not shown is the aftermath of the attacks. A vast number of people perished due to the efforts of 617 Squadron. This television programme also mentions that thirteen hundred people drowned due to the raid. Many towns were simply washed away, and hundreds of people were left homeless. Months after the attack, corpses were still being retrieved along the Ruhr Valley. In the television programme, many airmen speak of the terror when they saw these people dying yet these emotions are not shown in the film. Due to the minimal loss of German war production, it can be said that the Raid only affected agriculture, as much livestock was lost. Despite this negativity, it did succeed in draining Germany’s human resources. The rebuilding of the Dam’s required twenty seven thousand men, and ten thousand soldiers were moved from the front line to guard the vulnerable Dam’s. After analysing this historical inaccuracy, several questions must be raised. The Dam Busters was released in 1954; eleven years after the event took place. By this time, the information that was not available in 1943, for example the vast number of human fatalities, must surely have been known. What is most puzzling
is why did the director not include this information within the narrative and decided to
reinterpret the then-recent past?
Prior to the production of The Dam Busters, Britain was at a morale low. Apart from the human devastation due to the Second World War, the British Empire had or was about to lose vast quantities of its territories. Valued India had been granted Independence just a few years earlier in 1948, and was seen as a failure for Britain. This colonial loss was not rare, with many more countries gaining their Independence over the next decade. The 1950s war film was a way in which it could promote Britain as this great force in the world, with its armed forces seen as heroic, mighty and brave. Lewis Gilbert, cited in John Ramsden’s article “Refocusing ‘People’s War’: British War Films of the 1950s” best describes this situation:
Already in the mid-1950s, war films were needed as ‘a kind of ego boost, a nostalgia for a time when Britain was great’, since economically the country was falling behind the defeated nations of Germany and Japan. (1998, p.59)
Gordon Gow, mentioned in Ramsden’s article, asks the question that maybe the purpose of these films was to provide a therapeutic pride in the glories of the past in order to temporarily escape the misery and doldrums of life at this time. It could also be said that the British war film from this period acts as a psychological release for those directly involved in its events. The Dam Busters, as well as other British war films produced during this time, seem to follow the idea of “Traumatic Loss” or “Trauma Theory”. The following, from Landsman’s article “Crises of Meaning in Trauma and Loss” in Kauffman’s edited book, can be seen as a somewhat theoretical overview of this particular theory:
Theoretical and empirical descriptions of the impact of trauma focus on a variety of phenomena related to coming to terms with a shattering event. (2002, p.15)
Landsman continues her argument by saying that:
In the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, survivors face an essential and not always simple challenge by understanding the event itself. Before asking “Why?” or “Why me?” those who experience must ask “What happened?” and, in a somewhat concrete sense, “How did it happen?” (2002, p.15)
Landsman’s discussion is interesting, and seems relevant for the following. The understanding of the event of which the individual has witnessed is difficult, and may take some time to do so. In this situation, the Second World War is the incident and is one that affected millions of people across Britain alone. Whole families were separated, siblings perished and homes simply ridden from existence. Life in general had been drastically changed. And due to the extent of the popularity and admiration of 617 Squadron’s efforts, then any negativity would surely dampen the nations self-esteem and pride of this. If scenes were shown of the thirteen hundred people perishing in the Ruhr Valley then this may have caused some doubts into whether or not the raid was justifiable. Landsman’s argument that those who have witnessed the event ask themselves ‘how did it happen?’ (2002, p.15) also seems relevant to The Dam Busters. The film, as well as the countless other 1950s British war films, seems to be an extension of the popular boy’s magazines, such as Eagle, which told of the heroines who fought during the Second World War and how many battles were won. Nearly all of the 1950s war films were shot using black and white footage, which had been used by documentary filmmakers of actual World War Two soldiers in combat. This use of black and white film, as Inglis describes in his article “National snapshots” from MacKillop and Sinyards edited book, has its authority supported by the black-and-white newsreel footage shown at cinema houses during the Second World War. Due to this choice of using black and white stock, some might believe that the images they are seeing in these films are fact and not fiction. Even in some films, the use of documentary footage was incorporated in the film itself, with The Dam Busters being no exception as footage from the testing of the bomb and the raid itself was used by Anderson. John Ramsden’s article remarks that when making the 50th anniversary programme of the Dam Busters raid in 1993, the BBC used footage from the film as well as BBC bulletins of the actual raid. Ramsden further comments that at no point throughout the programme, not a single mention of the film being fictional was made. Surely this must have led those who watched the programme to believe that The Dam Busters is a true depiction of the film, which has unfortunately affected the historical reality of the event.
The Second World War was a truly traumatic time for the civilians who witnessed it. The losing of friends and family members through the vast number of air-raid bombings that Britain experienced from the very start of the war must have been an unbearable situation for Britain’s citizens. The thought that at any moment you could find yourself running for the nearest bomb shelter is what one hopes a contemporary generation will not encounter but, for those who did, it was an event which remained in their memory. For those who fought Germany on the frontline, whether it be on land, sea or air, the horrific events that they encountered must have been terrible. Following the end of the Second World War in Europe in May 1945, with its eventual demise occurring in August of the same year, those who did return from the frontline wanted to tell their stories. Unfortunately, this was both difficult and emotionally challenging due to what they had witnessed and experienced. It could be said that Sue Harper’s article “Popular Film, Popular Memory: The Case of the Second World War” in Lunn and Evans edited book correctly describes one such purpose of these film’s:
The 1950s war films are thoroughly consonant with the literary tradition of adventure tales, in which action instead of meditation is the dominant mode. But these films might also be interpreted as fathers speaking to sons about themselves and their experiences. (1997, p.163)
With the exception of The Cruel Sea (Dir. Charles Frend, 1953), what is most remarkable about the 1950s British war film is, as Andy Medhurst states in his article “1950s war films”, that is difficult to think of any English-language film about the Second World War which are anti-war or anti-German. The Dam Busters most certainly follows this anti-German ideology, as it doesn’t show any suffering by the German civilians who perished along the Ruhr Valley. The United Nations had been formed soon after the end of the Second World War, with its first meeting held on the 30th January 1946. One of its aims was to improve the International relations between the Allied Nations and Germany. Cinema was one such catalyst for this improvement. By the time of The Dam Busters release, many of the full horrors of the atrocities which Nazi Germany were responsible for was known but, as Medhurst describes in his article “1950s war films”, these acts were in fact missing from cinematic representation. Medhurst continues his argument by saying that the 1950s war film avoided politics altogether. It could be said that the reason for the lack of these acts’ presence is because offence might be taken and international relations affected.
In conclusion, it is certain to say that despite The Dam Busters being an enjoyable film, with its tales of bravado and heroic acts, the film does sacrifice historical accuracy for entertainment. John Ramsden mentions in his article that Richard Todd, who played one of the protagonists Wing Commander Guy Gibson, believed that after all the research involved in the pre-production of the film not one scene from the actual event was included in the film. Unfortunately, some have considered the film as a documentary recording of the event. This can be understood, due to the use of footage from the actual raid incorporated into the film’s final cut. It can be understood that the films made during this time was a way in which national pride in Britain could be improved, as its financial and social situation was badly affected because of World War Two. However, despite the number of high quality British war films produced during this time, it is not justifiable enough to support this particular argument. In the case of The Dam Busters, the event that it was based on was incorrectly portrayed and does seem to affect ones general opinion on the film. Unless a film based on this event is produced in the near future that tells what actually happened before, during and after the raid then contemporary audiences will always believe that this is a truthful representation of what happened. The heroic pilots who flew and survived the raid will eventually perish, but film will most certainly not. If The Dam Busters is to be the only remaining “document” of this event, then what it is based on will be remembered inaccurately and lost from history altogether.
(3,158 words)
Bibliography
Harper, S. (1997). Popular Film, Popular Memory: The Case of the Second World War. In Evans, M & Lunn, K (Eds.), War and Memory in the Twentieth Century (pp.163-176). Oxford; London: Berg.
Inglis, F. (2003). National snapshots: fixing the past in English war films. In MacKillop, I & Sinyard, N (Eds.), British cinema of the 1950s: a celebration (pp.35-50). New York; Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Landsman, I.L. (2002). Crises of Meaning in Trauma and Loss. In Kauffman, J (Ed.), Loss of the Assumptive World: A Theory of Traumatic Loss (pp.13-30). New York; East Sussex: Brunner-Routledge.
McArthur, C. (1984). National Identities. In Hurd, G (Ed.), National Fictions (pp.54-56). London: BFI Publishing.
Medhurst, A. (1984). 1950s War Films. In Hurd, G (Ed.), National Fictions (pp.35-38). London: BFI Publishing.
Ramsden, J. (2003). The Dam Busters. London; New York: I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd.
Filmography
Anderson, M. (1954). The Dam Busters. (Motion Picture). United Kingdom: Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC).
Frend, C. (1953). The Cruel Sea. (Motion Picture). United Kingdom: Ealing Studios.
Journal articles
Ramsden, J. (1998). Refocusing ‘The People’s War’: British War Films of the 1950s (Electronic Version). Journal of Contemporary History, 33(1), 35-63.
Television Programmes
Haws, C. (Producer). (2001, 19th June 1994). Secret History – The Dam Busters Raid. London: Channel Four.
