The Dam Busters

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THE day before the war started Barnes Wallis drove for five hours back to Vickers’ works at Weybridge, leaving his wife and family in the quiet Dorset bay where they had pitched tents for a holiday. He had that morning reluctantly decided that war was not only inevitable but imminent, and he was going to be needed at his drawing-board.

Wallis did not look like a man who was going to have much influence on the war. At 53 his face was unlined and composed, the skin smooth and pink and the eyes behind the hornrimmed glasses mild and grey; crisp white hair like a woolly cap enhanced the effect of benevolence. Many people who stood in his way in the next three years were deceived by this.

He spent the last night of peace alone in his house near Effingham, and in the morning, like most people, listened to the oddly inspiring speech of Chamberlain’s. Afterwards he sat in silence and misery.

One thought had been haunting him since the previous morning’s decision: what could he, as an aircraft designer and engineer, do to shorten the war? The thought stayed with him for a long time and through remarkable events before it was honourably discharged.

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