APRES MOI LE DELUGE (Part 7) by neiwil
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Description
As 16th May dawned, ground crews moved out to the dispersals to prepare the aircraft. With the mid upper turret removed, each Lancaster now had 6 Browning .303 inch machine guns, 2 in the nose and 4 in the tail. Each gun was normally fed by a continuous belt of 1500 rounds, grouped in 4 ball and 1 tracer, these belts were removed and replaced with Gibson ‘specials’. On Gibson’s orders, armourers had spent days linking belts of 1500 tracer rounds, easy to sight and sure to give ‘Jerry’ a nasty fright.
In the bomb dump Barnes Wallis and ‘Doc’ Watson were overseeing the fusing of mines, different targets needed different settings and so mines were allocated to specific aircraft.
With it’s ‘Upkeep’ mine in place, Mick Martins aircraft was being given final inspection and equipment checks. Someone in the cockpit accidentally knocked the pilots bomb release lever, with a jolt the ‘V’ struts sprang apart and the aircraft lifted on it’s suspension as, with a sickening ‘thud’ the mine dropped, embedding itself an inch into the hardstand. Everyone froze in fear of the unknown, then bodies poured out of the Lancaster, running hell for leather in all directions. Martin ran to find ‘Doc’ Watson, who calmly pointed out “ if it was going to explode, it would already have done so”. ‘Doc’ accompanied Martin back to his aircraft, after inspecting the mine, ‘Doc’ gave it a kick, declared it ‘fine’ and called the ground crew back to hoist it back into position.
Gibson meanwhile was not happy, the R&M Flight had informed him that, despite their best efforts, Maudslays damaged aircraft would not be ready in time. Gibson had 19 crews and 19 serviceable aircraft but no spare and that did not sit well. Then somebody suggested ED825, the test aircraft, now sitting idle at Vickers, following a phone call it was collected by a ferry crew and flown to Scampton. The aircraft was given the code AJ – T and made ready, just in case it was needed. It was then that someone realised the spotlight altimeters had been removed, and there was now not enough time to install them.
At 18:00 hrs all aircrews assembled for the final briefing………
Comments (18)
neiwil
MOVIE REMAKE : Work on a remake of The Dam Busters, produced by Peter ( LOTR) Jackson and directed by first time director Christian Rivers, began pre-production in 2008. Jackson had been interested in remaking the 1954 film since the mid 90's, but found that the rights had been bought by Mel Gibson. In 2004, Jackson was contacted by his agent, who said Gibson had dropped the rights, which were then purchased by Sir David Frost from the Brickhill family, Paul Brickhill (deceased) wrote the original book The Dambusters, as well as The Great Escape and Reach For The Sky .Stephen Fry ( yes! THAT Stephen Fry) is writing the script for the new the film. It will be distributed by Universal Pictures and StudioCanal. Filming was planned to commence in early 2009, on a budget of $40 million (US). Weta Workshop is making the CG models and special FX for the film and have built 10 FULL SIZE Lancaster bombers. The last living pilot of the strike team, Les Munro, is the technical advisor. Guy Gibsons beer drinking black Labrador and 617 Sq mascot 'Nigger' ( call-sign for a successful breach of the Mohne Dam ) has caused problems in recent years.T.V showings of the film have seen the name overdubbed 'Trigger', 'Rigger' or just removed leaving gaps.This has been condemned by the Index on Censorship as "unnecessary and ridiculous" and the edits introduced continuity errors. For the new version Stephen Fry has said there is "no question in America that you could ever have a dog called the N-word". In the remake, the dog will be called "Digger"........I always have mixed feelings about re-makes........ we'll see........
preeder
Outstanding and that says it all. Well done mate.
Froggy
Mmmm, this installment left on a bit of tension and a cliffhanger eh? This merely serves to pique my interest in tomorrow's (?) episode as I don't know enough of the mission to determine if this "Test" aircraft is needed or not! Glad to hear it is being remade, even though certain allowances have to be made nowadays for the "Liberals" at the sacrifice of accuracy! great work Neil, looking forward to seeing the film for sure now ;)
warder348
It would be great to see the movie, your storie's have piqued my interest and educated me to a part of the war that I didn't even know existed. Thanks and a great job!!
debbielove
Blimey!!!! That would give me a hell of a jump! That's for sure! lol Gripping once more Neil, really good work with both picture and story.. As for the remake? The original will always be the best.. It would take an awful lot to beat it.. To make a remake 'sell' in today's market, they would have to include at least one or two Big American stars and , as we know there were not any involved! Also regarding the 'N' word.. I have long noticed that its fine for our coloured brothers to call each other this word and it 'OK'.. But, if a white person (or an Asian for that matter) says it.. The world falls on his head! Why? If it's 'Bad', it's Bad! End of! If its OK for them to use it, it O.K! End of.. So End of! Stephen Fry, take note! Rob
flavia49
fantastic series
pat40
Very good, thought it looked like the Back view of our Son-in-law,
AliceFromLake
Nice scene. As for remakes. I don't like remakes. The originals are allways the best. Why not make a new movie with this theme? There are millions of ways to tell the same story. ;-)
Osper
Oops, is the operative word here!
neiwil
@ Osper :-) 'Oops' was the title I saved the image as......great minds.....
android65mar
Great story and interesting to hear about the predicaments of PC film-making. Different age, different values.
T.Rex
"OOPS! Bugger! Well, we're still here, so, something must have NOT happened!" I wonder how sensitive that release lever was. You've done a great image on the topic. This was something I didn't know had actually happened. Very scary indeed - imagine what would have happened if it had exploded! Good bye the whole project and a lot of the airfield as well! You've also done a good camera angle, showing the bottom of the plane, the attachment for the bomb and it's enormous scale in relation to both crew and plane. Hoisting the mine in place must have been a tough job, having gone 1 inch into the ground. It's with anticipation I'm looking foreward to whay you will post next! :-)
jac204
I wouldn't kick it too hard, just in case. Great story and excellent image representing the event.
Tryphon
This is great Neil! I love all this great minutiae on Squadron Operational Procedures (SOPs), back up planes, recce flights, incidents involving live ammo (& possibly catastrophic results). This is gripping story telling mate.
kjer_99
Couldn't say it better than Trphon has above. I find myself actually anticipating the arrival of the next installment.
Briney
The idea of kicking a bomb that big is just incredible...!!! Re the remake- they could call it the "Bank Busters" ??? Mmmm... have Greek, Irish and Portuguese aircraft sent enmasse to help drown Europe in worthless paper??? But then the stock market would have kittens...!!! Life follows art... ;-)
Penters
Nice pic..looking foward to the remake as well.
bmac62
Illustration is perfect for today's story. Gripping indeed!!!