Operation Chastise - After The Raid

After The Raid

Three aircrew from Hopgood's aircraft bailed out successfully, but one later died from wounds while the others were captured. One of the crew in Ottley's aircraft survived its crash. In total, therefore, 53 of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack were killed, a casualty rate of almost 40 percent. Thirteen of those killed were members of the Royal Canadian Air Force, while two belonged to the Royal Australian Air Force.

Of the survivors, 34 were decorated at Buckingham Palace on 22 June, with Gibson awarded the Victoria Cross. There were five Distinguished Service Orders, 10 Distinguished Flying Crosses and four bars, two Conspicuous Gallantry Medals, and eleven Distinguished Flying Medals and one bar.

Initial German casualty estimates from the floods when the dams broke were 1,294 killed, which included 749 French, Belgian, Dutch and Ukrainian prisoners of war and labourers. Later estimates put the estimated death toll in the Möhne Valley at about 1,600, including people who drowned in the flood wave downstream from the dam.

After a public relations tour of America and time spent working in the Air Ministry in London writing the book which would later be published as Enemy Coast Ahead, Gibson returned to operations and was killed on a Mosquito operation in 1944.

Following the Dams Raid 617 Squadron was kept together as a specialist unit. The squadron badge was chosen and a motto "Après moi le déluge" (After me the flood). According to Brickhill there was some controversy over the motto, with the original version Après nous le déluge (After us the flood) being rejected by the heralds as having inappropriate provenance (having been coined, reportedly, by Madame de Pompadour), and après moi le déluge having been used by Louis XV in an "irresponsible" context. The motto having been chosen by the King, the latter was finally deemed acceptable.

The squadron went on to drop Wallis's massive Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, including an attack on the German battleship Tirpitz, using an advanced bomb sight which enabled the bombing of small targets with far greater accuracy than was routinely obtained with conventional bomb aiming techniques. The squadron is still active today.

In 1977, Article 56 of the Protocol I amendment to the Geneva Conventions, outlawed attacks on dams "if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces from the works or installations and consequent severe losses among the civilian population".