Who was Barnes Wallis?
Aeronautical Engineer and Inventor of the "Bouncing
Bomb".
Date and Place of Birth:
26th September 1887, Cromer House, Butterley
Hill, Ripple, Derbyshire, England.
Family Background:
Younger son of a doctor Charles Wallis and his
wife Edith .
Education:
Christ's Hospital, Horsham, London.
Chronology/Biography of Barnes Wallis:
1891: Family moved
to New Cross road, London where his father had found a new medical
practice.
1903: Left school
to work in a shipyard.
1913: He began working
for Vickers (which was to be succeeded by several successor companies
such as British Aircraft Corporation).
1924: Aircraft still
lacked the range to be useful for moving things around the empire
and thus the government turned to airships and started the Imperial
Airship Scheme.
1930: He was involved
in the geodesic wiring and light alloy construction for the Airship
R100, which was the largest airship yet designed. It undertook a
successful flight to Canada but was broken up after the tragedy
that befell its "sister" ship the R101 which was designed
by a totally different government team. The R100 team included Neville
Shute who was later to become famous as a novelist.
1932: Wallis went
on to use similar techniques of production in his aircraft the Vickers
Wellesley and the Vickers Wellington.
1938: Vickers Wellington
joins Bomber Command. Crash of the Hindenburg essentially put a
stop to airship production and design.
1940: The idea for
breaching dams with bombs originated when Wallis calculated the
explosive power required to break the Ruhr dams and discovered that
no existing bomber could carry the weight of such a large bomb.
He then realised that smaller bombs delivered accurately could do
the same job.
1942: Early in the
year Wallis had an idea of "a missile" which would be
dropped upstream of a dam and bounced to its target. Wallis showed
films of test drops to Government officials who sanctioned further
tests. This eventually led to the development of two separate versions
of the "bouncing bomb." The large one codenamed "Upkeep"
to be dropped by Lancasters and a smaller one called "Highball"
to be used against major ships such as the Tirpitz and dropped from
Mosquitoes.
1943: 617 squadron
was formed at RAF Scampton on March 21. Operation Chastise was the
mission to attack three dams on the Ruhr in Germany; the Möhne,
Eder and Sorpe, with the "bouncing bomb" and was flown
on 17 May. Nineteen Avro Lancasters took off from RAF Scampton,
Lincolnshire in three waves. The leader of 617 Squadron, Wing Commander
Guy Gibson, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his part in the raid.
Out of the 19 aircraft, 8 were shot down and 53 of the 56 crew from
those aircraft were killed. After the raid Wallis went on to build
large bombs developing his 10-ton bomb named "Tallboy Large",
and a smaller 6-ton version in August named "Tallboy Medium".
1944: The first Tallboy
bombs were dropped on 8th June at the Saumur railway tunnel in the
Loire Valley, France. The success of these bombs led on to an even
bigger bomb of 22,000lb called "Grand Slam"
1945: He became
a fellow of the Royal Society of London. 14th March. Grand Slam
bombs successfully felled the Bielefeld Viaduct where smaller versions
had failed.
1949: The goal in
flight after World War two was supersonic flight achieved by swept
wing aircraft. Preliminary tests of Wallis's Wild Goose model were
held at Brooklands Racetrack in June.
1950: First take
off of Wild Goose.
1951: Publication
of Paul Brickhill's book "The Dam Busters".
1952: Cancellation
of the WIld Goose project.
1954: First screening
of the "Dambusters" film based on the book which immortalised
Wallis and the crews of 617 Squadron. Wallis's next project was
called "Swallow". Ground runs on the rail trolley were
made at Predannack.
1955: First flight
of Swallow.
1957: The Sandys
Defence White Paper led to major cuts in the Armed Forces and Swallow
was cancelled.
1960: He produced
a new design for an “all-speed” aircraft with a top
speed of Mach 4-5. Much of this work led on to the TSR-2 and COncorde
projects although he was not directly involved.
1961: His designs
helped build a large radio telescope in New South Wales, Australia,
the Parkes Telescope.
1965: Wallis proposed
a fast, deep-diving submarine which he said would avoid detection
by surface ships. Wallis's ideas covered many engineering fields
and he worked on the redesign of cooling towers after there had
been a collapse at the new Ferrybridge power station.
1968: Wallis was
knighted by H.M. the Queen.
1971: Retires from
British Aircraft Corporation, but continues with aircraft design
at home.
Marriage:
23rd April 1925 to Molly Bloxham who was 18 years
his junior at St Lukes Church, Hempstead.
Date and Place of Death:
30th October 1979, Leatherhead, Surrey, England.
Age at Death:
92.
Site of Grave:
St. Lawrence Church, Effingham, Surrey next to
his wife. Wallis is in the South-East corner of the Churchyard between
the Vestry and the Old Vicarage. His headstone has an airship and
an aircraft on it. Wallis was once Secretary of the Parochial Church
Council for this church.
Places of Interest:
LINCOLNSHIRE:
Petwood Hotel, Woodhall Spa has small museum
about 617 Squadron.
LONDON:
RAF Museum London, Grahame Park Way
London, NW9 5LL
Science Museum Library holds his papers, South
Kensington.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE:
Newark [Notts & Lincs] Air Museum Ltd, Drove
Lane, Newark, Notts, NG24 2NY
SURREY:
Brooklands Museum, Brooklands, Weybridge.
Lived at White Hill House, Beech Avenue, Effingham
YORKSHIRE:
Yorkshire Air Museum, Halifax Way, Elvington,
York
Barnes Wallis Inn, Station Road, North Howden, Near Goole, has Wallis
memorabilia.
