The news that Squadron Leader Les Munro, the last surviving pilot of the famous Dambusters, had died earlier this week in his native New Zealand at the age of 96, provided a poignant reminder of a time that now seems like aeons ago.

In fact, it is just over 72 years since 133 RAF pilots and crew set off in their Lancaster bombers from RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire on the night of May 16^th, 1943 to bomb the Moehne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany, names firmly engraved in the memory of many a post-war British schoolboy.

Of the 133 airmen only 77 returned and whilst the mission largely achieved its objectives it didn’t cripple the German war effort as was hoped. The raid did however capture the imagination of the long-suffering British public and provided a massive boost to morale and national prestige after nearly 4 years of war and suffering.

There are now only two surviving crew left from the raid, old men now of course, and the death of Squadron Leader Munro is a reminder of how much we owe to all of those airmen both British and Allied, and of course to Roy Chadwick, the designer of the Avro Lancaster and Barnes Wallis ingenious inventor of the famous bouncing bomb which caused such damage to the dams.