Chastise: The Dambusters Story 1943. Max Hastings. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Max Hastings
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Историческая литература
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780008280543
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his weight behind the naval version of Wallis’s mine: ‘The potential value of Highball is so great,’ he minuted on 27 February, ‘… that not only should the trials be given the highest priority, but their complete success should be assumed now.’

      It is hard to overstate the stress under which the bomb’s begetter existed in those days. He was still spending many hours on the design of the Windsor, Air Ministry specification B.3/42. In the mind of Sir Charles Craven, this was much more important than Upkeep and Highball: contracts for a big new bomber promised immense rewards for Vickers, contrasted with those to be gained from building a few bombs. Moreover, confusingly for Wallis and for the entire Whitehall hierarchy, Craven was intermittently seconded to assist and work in the Ministry, so that it was sometimes unclear to all concerned whether he spoke as the engineer’s employer, or as the voice of officialdom. On 18 February, Wallis worked until 7.45 p.m. at the National Physical Laboratory. Next morning, he met the Admiralty’s director of weapons development, then at 2.30 p.m. saw MAP officials to discuss unspecified aircraft de-icing problems. At 4 p.m. he was back at Vickers, where at 5.30 p.m. there was another screening of his bomb-test films, following which he drove to Dorking with Admiral Renouf. On the next morning, a Saturday, he worked in his office at Burhill, then attended more meetings in the afternoon. On Sunday he was confined to his home at Effingham with a migraine, such as he often and unsurprisingly succumbed to.

      Harris was no fool. For all his bombast, he grudgingly acknowledged that he had masters who must sometimes be appeased. He knew that Portal had authorised the modification of three Lancasters to carry Upkeep. While the words ‘whether the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command likes it or not’ were never articulated, they were understood. The Chief of the Air Staff wrote to Harris on 19 February: ‘As you know, I have the greatest respect for your opinion on all technical and operational matters, and I agree with you that it is quite possible that the Highball and Upkeep projects may come to nothing. Nevertheless, I do not feel inclined to refuse Air Staff interest in these weapons.’

      That morning of the 22nd at High Wycombe, Wallis was subjected to a predictable barrage of invective: ‘What is it you want? My boys’ lives are too precious to be wasted on your crazy notions.’ Yet it is unlikely that Harris would have received Wallis at all had he not already recognised that he would have to give way, and provide resources for an operational trial of Upkeep. Having viewed the films, he professed grudging interest.

      This was what the Vickers chairman now did. A shouting match followed, in which the designer offered his resignation, and Craven shouted ‘Mutiny!’ They parted on terms of mutual acrimony. Moreover, while Wallis was not often a grudge-bearer, he never forgave AVM Linnell for the part he played in attempting to kill off Upkeep. He went home despondent to Effingham, sincerely determined upon resignation, as was scarcely surprising after the humiliation he had suffered. Craven, whose responsibility was to Vickers, can scarcely be blamed for his behaviour, after being told by the Ministry of Aircraft Production – upon whose goodwill his company depended for orders – that its chiefs were tired of his nagging, insistent assistant chief designer (structures). Why should such people as Linnell, Craven and indeed Harris have accepted at face value the workability of a new weapon which represented a marriage of technologies of extreme sophistication with others of almost childlike simplicity, which when fitted to a Lancaster caused it to resemble a clumsy transport aircraft with an underslung load?

      When the delayed meeting finally convened at 3 p.m. that Friday, in Linnell’s office at MAP on London’s Millbank, it was to receive tablets from on high. Sir Charles Portal was not only chief of air staff and a former C-in-C of Bomber Command; he had also been among the first enthusiasts for attacking Germany’s dams. He was troubled by doubts about Sir Arthur Harris’s obsession with destroying cities. His reservations were founded not upon moral scruples – no senior wartime airman admitted to those – but instead on uncertainty about its war-winning potential. Portal never summoned the courage to sack Harris, even in the winter of 1944–45, when his subordinate directly defied targeting orders. But the CAS was always at heart a proponent of attacking precision objectives, if means existed to make such a policy work. Now, Barnes Wallis promised to provide these; to make possible fulfilment of the RAF’s 1937–38 dream, of an assault upon Germany’s dams.

      The array of brass assembled at the MAP on the afternoon of 26 February 1943 was told that the chief of air staff had given his assent, or rather had issued an order, to proceed with immediate development of Upkeep. Portal wrote: ‘I think this is a good gamble.’ The reaction of Sir Charles Craven, who was also present, is unrecorded. He must have felt privately foolish, if not furious, following his ugly dressing-down of his designer four days earlier. What the CAS demanded, however, Vickers must seek to provide.

      Wallis’s