The Dambusters and Bouncing Bombs

A scene from the 1955 film The Dam Busters showing a bouncing-bomb attack against a German dam. On the night of May 16-17, 1943, RAF squadron 617 was tasked with Operation Chastise: destruction of hydroelectric dams in Germany's industrial Ruhr Valley. For the mission, Barnes Wallis at Vickers developed a cylindrical bomb to be dropped, spinning backwards, from low altitude so that it would bounce until hitting the dam, where it would sink to the dam's base and detonate.