I thought id start this thread to inform members of a recent trip i made to the mohne dam, site of the famous dambusters raid.
After many years of collecting books and trying to collect a complete cockpit panel of a lancaster bomber piece by piece i suddenly had the idea to go on a trip to see the mohne dam i am lancaster mad so to me it was a wonderfull idea, to my mrs and two teenager daughters it was less of a wonderfull idea but we went anyways.my game plan was see the dam and then go see if i could find the crash site of one of the aircraft piloted by hopgood.i live in holland so it was a two hour drive. Ill spare you the bordom of motorways and german autobans.The mohnezee is pretty easy to find,and after what seemed like ten minutes off the motorway we came to the side of the body of water by this time my tom Tom had decided to die and all i could do was navigate by knowing the dam was in a far corner so as soon as i had the mohnezee in front of me i follwed the lakeside road right untill we came to the dam itself.
it was an amazing feeling and im curious if other amauter historians like myself have had that same buzz when visiting a place of history like this.
We parked up, theres a car park very close to the start of the dam causeway, first thing i had to do was provide ice creams for fore mentioned mrs and kids basicly to shut em up.When i was buying the icecreams from a small shop located on the dam causeways i did notice then had a book about the dambusters raid hidden among all the postcards this was the only mention of the dambusters raid i saw there.That was it ! which did surprise me.We then walked across the dam.All the damage caused has obviously been repaired and the flack towers are long gone… Duh !.but looking out across the lake i swear i could almost hear the lancasters lining up to attack, its a very ? atmospheric place even on a warm spring day in broad daylight.Across the dam to the other side you can take a path which brings you down to the air side of the dam and here you can see the damage even to this day in the differance in colour of the brickwork.Heading back up on the causeway we came across a bunch of britsh school kids and the teacher was giving a lesson in the history of the raid. I had to smile about the fact the teacher got so many facts wrong an excelent reason why history should be discussed.After we left the dam we went cross country to try and find the site of the Hopgood crash which i worked out at less than 10 km away. After mucking about looking across feilds ( without sat nav) i took a turn down a muddy country path and sitting quietly in a feild i could see something sticking out the ground. On close inspection i found a wooden post with a brass inscription nameing the crew of hopgoods aircraft and the date.This post was surrounded by small crosses and rings of poppys. Some old some recent.A nice thought that even after all these years in the middle of a quiet german feild these young and gallent men are still being remembered.Conclusions… a great day out but read up on when? where? and who before hand… and PS dont take your wife and kids. best regards blu3bottle
