In England of 1942, aeronautical engineer Barnes Wallis (Michael Redgrave) develops a far-fetched idea to destroy three crucial German dams using bombs designed to bounce on the water's surface. Breaching the dams is expected to flood and severely damage Germany's industrial heartland. The plan requires bombers to fly low and release their bombs at a precise altitude and distance from the dams. After some convincing up the chain of command, the military approves testing and training for the mission.
Wing Commander Guy Gibson (Richard Todd) is selected to assemble and train the new 617 Squadron, consisting of accomplished pilots with expertise in flying low. Months of intense training follow on Lancaster bombers, with Wallis frantically working to fine-tune his calculations and develop bomb casings to survive the initial water impact. Finally the big night of the raid arrives, with Gibson leading the squadron of Lancasters deep into enemy-controlled airspace and Wallis anxiously awaiting the mission's results.
A British production directed by Michael Anderson and written by R.C. Sherriff, The Dam Busters is an inside look at Operation Chastise, although the debate surrounding strategic outcomes and overall merits are studiously avoided. Clocking in at a long 124 minutes, this is relaxed and comprehensive storytelling, closely following actual events as recounted in two books: The Dam Busters by Paul Brickhill and Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson.
While acing the mission's mechanics, Anderson is much less adept at humanizing the men. Wallis is surrounded by a warm family, Gibson safely channels his affection towards his dog, but everybody else is unfortunately reduced to an interchangeable yessir uniform. Despite a laudable tone of respect for the high price paid in men lost, Sherriff appears satisfied to have the full name and rank of every serviceman who participated in the mission faithfully listed in the credits, but forgets to colour-in any of them as people worth knowing.
The flying sequences and special effects are a mixed bag. Actual Lancasters were used for many scenes, and some majestic low-flight moments are brought to life. However, the anti-aircraft fire and the bomb explosions are reduced to either mediocre or painfully awful superimpositions. The German perspective is entirely absent, robbing the drama of any counterpoint tension. A more pointed source of awkwardness is Gibson's faithful black dog, unfortunately saddled with a now utterly contemptuous name.
The best moments reveal the depth of problem solving and innovation required to pull off the unexpected. Every time Wallis and Gibson overcome one hurdle, they encounter another. Measuring the bombers' exact altitude over the water, determining the precise moment to release the bombs, and developing a bomb that will bounce without disintegrating upon initial impact contribute to moments of despair and jubilation as the clock ticks towards the designated mission date and time.
Despite a few wayward bombs, The Dam Busters hits the designated targets as a respectfully constructed salute to thinking on the bounce.
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They show Barnes Wallace grieving over the air crews who were killed in the raid, but he doesn't waste a single thought on the hundreds of slave labourers in those German factories, who died when the dams burst and the water came roaring down. A Dutch friend of mine had an uncle who was one of those slaves. He was one of the lucky ones who managed to make it to the roof of the factory. The Nazis left them sitting there for four days, without food or water, before they bothered to rescue them.
ReplyDeleteYes, the entire "perspective from the other side", whether military or civilian, is missing.
DeleteIt’s more complicated than that. Yes, many forced labourers died - but this was a situation with total war, and an existential battle for existence. Destroying the dams made a big blow to the means of production, at a time when London was under severe threat.
DeleteMy guess is that the film never delved more into the controversy of the slaves, because it was hardly known. Regardless, you do touch on a dilemma I encounter when one is checking the accuracy of war movies. Do you judge it on what we know today or what they knew at the time of the production? Do you judge it on how close it comes to the source book or on the most recent scholarship? I don't think it is fair to criticize an historical movie for the fact that historians have changed from the source material. However, it is important to point out what information the movie passes on that is not accurate as we know it today. A part of the movie may have aged more is its then-conventional account of the raid as a spectacular success. The general view today is that the raid was a failure and were never likely to do enough damage to make a difference (though this doesn’t diminish the bravery of the airmen). I don't mind a historical account that argues for a theory, so long as it is honest about the underlying facts, and I don't mind a movie that portrays that theory in action even if it proves to be incorrect - the movie, in addition to depicting a historical battle, becomes evidence of how people ten years after the war viewed that battle.
DeleteIn the book ‘Chastise’, Max Hastings’s outstanding book of the Dambusters raid, he offers an interesting dilemma in regards to the dog's name.
ReplyDeleteA passage from his introduction bears quoting in full, to illustrate how the dog's name is obviously racist, but at the same time how we must not let modern-day sensibilities get in the way of an honest and truthful understanding of the way things were in different times.
Hastings says, ‘Since starting this book I have been repeatedly asked whether it is an embarrassment to acknowledge the name of Gibson’s dog [the ‘N’ word],which became a wirelessed codeword for the breaching of the Mohne. A historian’s answer must be; no more than the fact that our ancestors hanged sheep-stealers, executed military deserters and imprisoned homosexuals. They did and said things differently then. It would be grotesque to omit [N word] from a factual narrative merely because the word is rightly repugnant to twenty-first century ears’.
This is a powerful and important point. I appreciate that the historian’s duty to accuracy is to present all sides of what life was like in 1942/1943, but it seems to me that if we constantly censor the present by our own delicate standards, we are being less than respectful of the past simply because tastes have changed over time. I took another view after watching this, in that we often put heroes on pedestals and it was refreshing to read about all the sides of people and although some crewmembers later said they thought the real Gibson was somewhat arrogant, they valued his leadership highly. Gibson was a complex man, and make no mistake, and he may have had nationalist views (besides the dog's name, he reportedly also held anti Semitic views, which was ironically the views of the enemy government he was fighting against) , but when it came to his leadership, he was the right man in the right place (his willingness to draw enemy fire away from his wingmates during the raid is a prime example of that).
Good summary and a nuanced perspective, thanks.
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