Barnes Wallisrsquo;s work covers far more than just basketwork bombers and bouncing bombs. So how did his engineering genius take ideas from airships and push them forward to aircraft faster than Concorde? Barnes Wallis is best known as thersquo; boffinrsquo; behind the famous bouncing bomb used by 617 Squadron to breach the Ruhr dams in 1943, but his work covers a far wider canvas. It ranges from airships, through novel aircraft structures and special weapons to long-range supersonic aircraft, and an extensive patent portfolio. This book describes the huge breadth of Wallisrsquo;s work. It shows why his genius brought totally new ideas into these fields, and reveals the science and engineering expertise that he deployed to make them work.

From dam busting to 10-ton earthquake bombs, the true story of Barnes Wallis' Bombs is told.

Best-known as the inventor of the bouncing bomb, Barnes Wallis was a brilliant engineer whose bold vision was immortalised in the film 'Dambusters'. This biography looks at the life of a man who helped to change the course of history.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER A masterly history of the Dambusters raid from bestselling and critically acclaimed Max Hastings. Operation Chastise, the overnight destruction of the Möhne and Eder dams in north-west Germany by the RAF's 617 Squadron, was an epic that has passed into Britain's national legend. Max Hastings grew up embracing the story, the classic 1955 movie and the memory of Guy Gibson, the 24-year-old wing-commander who won the VC leading the raid. In the 21st Century, however, Hastings urges that we should review the Dambusters in much more complex shades. The aircrew's heroism was wholly authentic, as was the brilliance of Barnes Wallis, who invented the 'bouncing bombs'. But commanders who promised their young fliers that success could shorten the war fantasised wildly. What Germans call the Möhnekatastrophe imposed on the Nazi war machine temporary disruption, rather than a crippling blow. Hastings vividly describes the evolution of Wallis' bomb, and of the squadron which broke the dams at the cost of devastating losses. But he also portrays in harrowing detail those swept away by the torrents. Some 1,400 civilians perished in the biblical floods that swept through the Möhne valley, more than half of them Russian and Polish women, slave labourers under Hitler. Ironically, Air Marshal Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris gained much of the credit, though he opposed Chastise as a distraction from his city-burning blitz. He also made what the author describes as the operation's biggest mistake - the failure to launch a conventional attack on the Nazis' huge post-raid repair operation, which could have transformed the impact of the dam breaches upon Ruhr industry. Chastise offers a fascinating retake on legend by a master of the art. Hastings sets the dams raid in the big picture of the bomber offensive and of the Second World War, with moving portraits of the young airmen, so many of whom died; of Barnes Wallis; the monstrous Harris; the tragic Guy Gibson, together with superb narrative of the action of one of the most extraordinary episodes in British history.

Stephen Flower narrates the operational history of the bombs of Barnes Wallis, from the Dam Buster to the Grand Slam, from the Ruhr dams to the Tirpitz.

The famous dams raid in May 1943 was made possible only by the fusion of cutting-edge technology with the raw courage of a hand-picked squadron of RAF airmen. The incredible bouncing bomb, used to devastating effect by 617 Squadron on the Ruhr dams, was the vanguard of a whole train of technical developments that made this and other precision raids possible. Using the Haynes Manual approach, Iain Murray describes the technology behind the bouncing bomb as well as the heavily modified Lancasters that were used to deliver the weapons.

In 1922 Barnes Wallis FRS, who later invented the transatlantic airship and the bouncing bomb immortalized in the movie The Dam Busters, fell in love for the first and last time - aged 35. The object of his affection, Molly Bloxam, was 17 and setting off to study science at University College London. Her father decreed that the two could correspond only if Barnes taught Molly mathematics in his letters. Mathematics with Love presents, for the first time, the result of this curious diktat: a series of witty, tender and totally accessible introductions to calculus, trigonometry and electrostatic induction that remarkably, wooed and won the girl. Deftly narrated by Barnes and Molly's daughter Mary, Mathematics with Love is an evocative tale of a twenties courtship, a surprising insight into the early life of an engineering genius - and a great way to learn a little mathematics.

The Dambusters' mission is of enduring fascination and appeal. The breaching of the dams in Germany's industrial heartland was to have a pivotal effect on the outcome of World War II. This book, accompanying a TV series of the same name, reveals the scientist behind the 'bouncing bomb' and re-enacts the mission.

The night of May 16th, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge 9,000lb cylindrical bomb strapped underneath it. Their mission: to destroy three dams deep within the German heartland, which provide the lifeblood to the industries supplying the Third Reich's war machine. From the outset it was an almost impossible task, a suicide mission: to fly low and at night in formationover many miles of enemy-occupied territory at the very limit of the Lancasters' capacity, and drop a new weapon that had never been tried operationally before from a precise height of just sixty feet from the water at some of the most heavily defended targets in Germany. More than that, the entire operation had to be put together in less than ten weeks. When visionary aviation engineer Barnes Wallis's concept of the bouncing bomb was green lighted, he hadn't even drawn up his plans for the weapon that was to smash the dams. What followed was an incredible race against time, which, despite numerous setbacks and against huge odds, became one of the most successful and game-changing bombing raids of all time.

Best Nonfiction of 2020 -- Kirkus Reviews One of the most lauded historians of our time returns to the Second World War in this magnificent retelling of the awe-inspiring raid on German dams conducted by the Royal Army Force’s 617 Squadron. The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story—and the later wartime experience of the 617 Squadron—has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know. The RAF had identified the Ruhr dams as strategic objectives as far back as 1938; in those five years Wing Commander Guy Gibson formed and trained the 617 Squadron. Hastings observes that while the dropping of Wallis’s mines provided the dramatic climax, only two of the eight aircraft lost came down over the dams—the rest were shot down on the flight to, or back from, the mission. And while the 617 Squadron’s valor is indisputable, the ultimate industrial damage caused by the dam raid was actually rather modest. In 1943, these brave men caught the imagination of the world and uplifted the weary spirits of the British people. Their achievement unnerved the Nazi high command, and caused them to expend large resources on dam defenses—making the mission a success. An example of Churchill’s “military theatre” at its best, what 617 Squadron did was an extraordinary and heroic achievement, and a triumph of British ingenuity and technology—a story to be told for generations to come. Operation Chastise includes three 8-page black-and-white photo inserts and 6 maps.