Today’s Dam Busters

Op­er­a­tion Chas­tise took place in May 1943. If that doesn’t ring a bell, how about the Dam Busters, the name given to the squadron that car­ried out a dar­ing air raid on dams in Ger­many’s in­dus­trial Ruhr dis­trict? Famed for the use of spe­cially de­signed ’bounc­ing bombs’, the night raid saw Lan­caster bombers make mul­ti­ple runs just 18 me­tres above the water, while all the time being tar­geted by Ger­man ground forces. While the op­er­a­tion was a suc­cess and a blow to Hitler’s regime, it did not quite crip­ple Ger­many’s in­dus­trial ca­pac­ity (and left 1,600 civil­ians dead). Yet, it was a huge pro­pa­ganda vic­tory and the Dam Busters sealed their place in his­tory, even in­spir­ing an epic war film in 1955.

Chas­tise: The Dam­busters Story 1943 is a new book about the op­er­a­tion by Max Hast­ings. Lis­ten­ing to an in­ter­view with the his­to­rian, some­thing that struck me about the raid, which was highly com­plex and suc­ceeded against all odds, was how young the peo­ple who car­ried it out were. Wing Com­man­der Guy Gib­son was in charge of the raid. De­spite being a vet­eran flyer with over 170 mis­sions under his belt, Gib­son was only 24 at the time, and the men he picked for the raid were often even younger. Squadron Leader Henry Maud­slay was just 21 years old, pilot John Vere Hop­good died in the raid aged 21, while at 20 pilot Dave Shan­non was even younger. And these were no raw re­cruits, they were al­ready highly-ex­pe­ri­enced air­men with many mis­sions to their names. It made me think, be­cause I’m in my fifties and can barely tie my shoelaces.

It also made me think about young peo­ple today. Re­cent fig­ures es­ti­mate that al­most 80% of young adults under 30 still live with their par­ents, while the job­less rate for under-25s is 32%. My grand­fa­ther – who to be fair, as a young man fought in the Sec­ond World War – would surely argue that what they need is a stint on the front lines. For­tu­nately, my grand­dad was never the prime min­is­ter, al­though I’m sure he wouldn’t do any worse than those in charge now. An ex­treme ex­am­ple though it is, the Dam Busters show us that young peo­ple are far more ca­pa­ble than we think. It could even be the case that those air­men did not achieve what they did de­spite their ten­der age, but even pos­si­bly be­cause of it.

Young peo­ple are an asset, and an un­der­utilised one at that. Young peo­ple have been much in the media spot­light re­cently with the role they have played in the protests against the jail­ing of Cata­lan in­de­pen­dence lead­ers. Whether it is blockad­ing trans­port in­fra­struc­ture, clash­ing with po­lice, stu­dent strikes or sit-ins, young peo­ple have taken the lead in the ef­forts to achieve self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, and to the re­lief of pro-in­de­pen­dence sup­port­ers, have helped to rein­vig­o­rate a flag­ging move­ment. If you haven’t al­ready, you can read an analy­sis of the phe­nom­e­non on page 12 of this edi­tion. One thing that has struck me is that their protests are not lim­ited to con­demn­ing the sen­tences or call­ing for self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, but add de­mands that re­veal an un­der­stand­ing of the raw deal they’ve been handed. Strik­ing stu­dents protested the sen­tences but also ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with an in­flex­i­ble grad­ing sys­tem, while the young peo­ple camp­ing out in Barcelona also call for the re­turn of “every­thing that’s been taken from us.” Starved of op­por­tu­nity and re­sources, over­pro­tected, and in­creas­ingly a mi­nor­ity in an age­ing so­ci­ety, if we gave young peo­ple more of a chance and more re­spon­si­bil­ity, it would not only do them good, but might ben­e­fit all of us.