We had intended to return to a real lunch in July but regrettably due to staffing shortages at Cuddington Golf Club we had to continue with another Zoom talk. This month saw the return of Jim Barnes to enlighten us on the life and times of the amazing engineer Barnes Wallis and the Dambusters Raid.
Barnes Wallis after leaving Christ's Hospital school with few qualifications originally trained as a marine engineer in Cowes and obtained an engineering degree via the University of London External Programme. He switched to building airships with Vickers in 1913 and is best known as inventing the light weight geodetics construction technique which enabled the construction of the successful R100 airship in 1930.
After airship construction was halted following the disastrous failures of R101 and the Hindenburg, Barnes Wallis moved to Vickers aircraft design at Brooklands. Jim encouraged us to visit the Brooklands Museum where examples of the Wellington bomber which used his geodetics structure are displayed.
Jim who served with 617 Squadron told us of the development of the 'bouncing' bomb, code named 'Upkeep' and the raids on the Ruhr Dams in May 1943. He showed us photos of the 617 'Officers Mess' at the Petworth Hotel where re-unions of former squadron members are held, along with the grave stone of Guy Gibson's dog which Jim maintained whilst working at RAF Scampton flying in the Vulcan Bombers.
Jim concluded his talk with details of Barnes Wallis's design of huge earthquake bombs and later post-war research into advanced aircraft swing-wing designs. Barnes Wallis died in October 1979 and is buried in St Lawrence's Church, Effingham.
Many thanks Jim for another fascinating talk and we look forward to seeing you for real in the not too distant future.
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