Barnes Wallis - The Man Behind the Bouncing Bomb

The story of the Dam Busters is as much the story of Barnes Wallis - the man who invented the bouncing bomb - as it is of the crews and the aircraft involved in the operation. Wallis was an extraordinary engineer, a man of diversified talents capable of directing his skills towards designing a bomber aircraft or a precision guidance mechanism for a radio telescope with equal enthusiasm and ingenuity. His work in the Second World War tends to be focused on his involvement with the development of the Bouncing Bomb, however this clever weapon was only one of the many inventions and projects he worked on during this period.

Born September 26, 1887, Barnes Neville Wallis left school at sixteen to work in the Thames Engineering Works - a designer and manufacturer of ship’s engines. Employed in the drafting office he was exposed to the problems of structural engineering and found he had a flair for improving existing designs. His superiors rated him as a clever young man and one noted that he had a “stubborn streak to his nature, often refusing to accept advice and insisting on doing things his way – which as it often turned out was a better way.”

In 1913, he moved to the Vickers company, a long established heavy engineering and shipbuilding company. Vickers had recently become interested in aviation, particularly lighter than air craft and were working on rigid airship designs for the Royal Navy.

At the outbreak of war a year later, Wallis was dismissed when Vickers dissolved their airship design team in the belief that airships had no immediate future. Wallis then attempted to join the army but was refused after failing the eye test. Undeterred he tried again at another recruiting office, making sure he’d first memorized the eye-chart and was accepted. His service career was short lived, a month after joining the army Vickers reformed its airship division and persuaded the War Office to release Barnes from military duty as an essential worker.

In the following years Wallis was in the design teams that built the R.9, R.23 and R.26 rigid airships for the Royal Navy – all successful ships that built on previous experience. Towards the end of the war, Wallis began work on the R.80 airship, deviating from the traditional Zeppelin design by streamlining the craft to create a shape he considered was more efficient.

The R80

The story of the R80 is worth recounting as it shows the difficulties the British aircraft industry was working under after WW1. The original concept was proposed by co-designer, H B Pratt in a document called "Commercial Airships", however Vickers decided to redesign the R80 as a commercial proposition in 1919 when the ship was half completed and its military use was in doubt. It was envisaged the R80 would be able to run a similar service to the ones the Germans were planning with their LZ120 "Bodensee" and LZ121 "Nordstern" from Germany to Stockholm. Both designs were derived from their wartime counterparts - Zeppelins that had taken part in extensive night bombing raids over England and had chalked up thousands of operational hours.

In June 1920, the R80 was complete. On the 19th June the first trial flight was commenced, the flight being succesful, however it was damaged after the flight when service crews left the ship and due to problems with ballast, the ship suddenly rose and caused extensive buckling of the framework. R80 was returned to her shed and repairs commenced. This incident caused a flurry of investigations and buck passing in government departments, with some politicians declaring "such adventurism" a waste of public money.

Delayed by government procrastination, the ship didn't fly again until January 1921 and was then flown to Howden in Yorkshire on 24th February. With the depressed post war economy the costs of keeping the ship, along with other airships which had been constructed and stored, the future for lighter than air craft looked uncertain. As usual the government bureaucrats decided the safe way was to do nothing and decided to store the ship pending a decision on its future.

A reprieve came with a request that the ship remain serviceable to allow the US Navy to use it for training aircrew destined to fly airships being designed for US military service. The US Navy made 4 flights in the ship totaling some 8 hours 45 minutes between 26th March 1921 and 1st June.

The R80 was then flown from Yorkshire to Pulham in Norfolk and this flight on the 20th September proved to be her last, then being used for destructive tests on components. She was finally dismantled in 1925 having flown only a total of 73 hours.

The R80 had a weight of 38.25 tons, with a disposable lift of 14.85 tons. With her sleek lines she was the most efficient British airship yet developed.

Barnes Wallace was scathingly critical of the government departments involved with the R80 project, describing them as "...blithering little men who turn to water at the slightest hint of a problem."

The R100

In 1924 the British government, after examining the Navy’s experience with rigid airships and also having access to German documents about their use of Zeppelins during the war, decided to sponsor the development of large passenger airships in the belief that these were the future of aviation. This was at a time when the largest heavier than aircraft were only capable of carrying a useful payload of around 2000kgs about a thousand miles. Long range, reliable passenger aircraft simply didn’t exist. Alcock and Brown had made a transatlantic crossing in 1919 in a Vickers Vimy and it wouldn’t be until 1927 that Lindbergh made his epic New York to Paris solo flight. In 1924 a lighter than air machine that could fly non stop for three thousand miles at eighty miles an hour while carrying fifty passengers was so far ahead of any heavier than air machine then in existence or projected that it’s not surprising the government opted to go with its Zeppelin program.

Two designs were proposed. The R101 would be a totally government project, while the R100 would be a private design, headed by the Vickers Company and built to a fixed contract price. With Barnes Wallis in charge of the Vickers project, design and construction moved smoothly.

When completed in 1929, the R100 measured 709 ft. (216 meters) in length, 130 ft.(40 meters) in diameter, had a 5.000.000 cubic ft.(141,600 cubic meters) displacement and was powered by six Rolls Royce engines producing 4.200 horse power. The R100s first flight was a success and it soon completed an Atlantic crossing from England to Montreal and return.

R101

In contrast the government led R101 project became bogged down by bureaucracy, bickering, continual design changes and pure stupidity. (Why is this not surprising? Read The Nomad Story ) The R101 was beset by problems from day one, and when on the 4th October 1930 it eventually set out on its first major long distance flight to India, it crashed in France killing 48 of the 54 people on board. This dampened the British government’s enthusiasm for Zeppelins and once again the bureaucrats dithered over the project's future.

The initial intention of having two airships built was to encourage innovation and ideas between the competing organisations. It was then proposed to evaluate both designs and take the best features of both, to create and build a “breakthrough” airship to be known as the R102.This was to have been the prototype of a fleet of passenger Zeppelins that would put Britain in the lead of world aviation.

However, as is often the way with anything governments touch, this wasn’t to be so. The bean counters decided to defer making any decision at all and then opted for delay instead, probably in the hope that everyone would forget about the program. Despite its success the R101 was laid up in its hanger where it remained until sold for scrap in late 1931. Barnes Wallis was reported to be scathing of the decision, referring to several politicians and prominent public servants as “nincompoops and blithering idiots” – statements that would one day return to haunt him.

However the experience with the R100 did pay dividends. Wallis had made a breakthrough in lightweight metal construction, incorporating a lattice work of interwoven supports known as geodesic construction. In 1934 this was applied by the Vickers design team to the Wellesley bomber, a single engine aircraft with an immense high aspect ratio wingspan, that was capable of flying long distances at high altitudes. A radical concept for its time, the Wellesley went on to establish long distance and altitude records prior to WW2.

Vickers Wellesley

In 1935 Wallis proposed another aircraft using geodesic construction. The Wellington as it became known, was a twin engine bomber that went into mass production in 1937 and later served with distinction throughout WW2. Somewhat eclipsed by the larger Lancaster and Halifax, the Wellington was developed through eighteen models and was the mainstay of Bomber Command until 1942. With a typical performance of 200kts cruise, 20,000ft ceiling carrying a 4,500lb bomb load and a range of 2000 miles, the Wellington’s performance wasn’t far short of the Boeing B-17. Capable of absorbing an extraordinary amount of battle damage, the “Wimpy” established an exceptional reputation during the war. Total Wellington production amounted to 11,300 aircraft, over a thousand more than the Douglas C-47 and only 1400 short of the B-17.

Vickers Wellington

When war was declared in 1939, Wallis was still with Vickers, heavily involved with Wellington production and working on several other designs including the Warwick and Windsor bombers. However in his usual irrepressible style he regard this as his “day job” and his “spare time” job involved a number of wartime committees established to examine ways of improving weapons, investigate new aircraft designs and various ways of wreaking havoc on Germany.

Wellngton bomber recovered from the English Channel fifty years after being shot down. The aircraft has been restored to show its unique geodesic construction

It was while serving on one of these committees that he realized that if German steel production could be disrupted, their war making capacity would be severely damaged. To do this he rejected the conventional concept of bombing their steel mills or weapons fabrication factories in favor of depriving them of the water essential to steel manufacturing by destroying the dams that supplied them.

He managed to convince the War Office that eliminating the dams was the logical way to go and then set about determining how it could be done. This was soon to prove to be no easy task. Not ony was it technically difficult, but during his career Wallis's abrasive nature had angered many bureaucrats, some of whom were now in positions of influence.

Coming soon: Development of the Bouncing Bomb