The Dambusters / John Sweetman, David Coward and Gary Johnstone

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—a triumph for Allied thinking and courage, it convinced Roosevelt to commit to the invasion of Italy and the countdown to the D-Day landings. Sixty years on, The Dambusters is the definitive telling of one of World War Two’s most remarkable episodes. The book describes how it was down to the ingenuity and persistence of a scientific maverick, Barnes Wallis, that the idea of the backwards-spinning bouncing bomb came about and how the pilots overcame the odds to pull off one of the most astonishing military successes in history. Accompanying the television series, the book uses contemporary re-enactments to show just what an astonishing feat the mission was. Lavishly illustrated, it captures the brilliance of the scientists and the bravery of the crews, as well as the enormous impact their success had on the outcome of war.