Seller: Stanley Louis Remarkable Books, Saint Charles, IL, U.S.A.
First Edition Signed
Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near fine to Fine. All 3 are first editions. Operation Chastise, commonly known as the Dambusters Raid, was an attack on German dams carried out on the night of 16/17 May 1943 by 617 Squadron RAF Bomber Command, later called the Dam Busters, using special "bouncing bombs" developed by Barnes Wallis. The Möhne and Edersee dams were breached, causing catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley and of villages in the Eder valley; the Sorpe Dam sustained only minor damage. Two hydroelectric power stations were destroyed and several more damaged. Factories and mines were also damaged and destroyed. An estimated 1,600 civilians - about 600 Germans and 1,000 enslaved labourers, mainly Soviet - were killed by the flooding. Despite rapid repairs by the Germans, production did not return to normal until September. The RAF lost 56 aircrew, with 53 dead and 3 captured, amid losses of 8 aircraft. This group includes three key works on Barnes Wallis and the operation that used his creative bombing method. 1. Mathematics with Love, The Courtship Correspondence of Barnes Wallis, Inventor of the Bouncing Bomb, by Mary Stopes-Roe, the daughter of Barnes Wallis, Macmillan, London, 2005. 363 pp. Black cloth with silver titles on the spine. No marks or damage at all. Unclipped DJ is also excellent. It is inscribed by the author on the title page "Best Wishes, Mary Stopes-Roe" Fine/Fine. Quite scarce signed. 2. Dam Buster, Barnes Wallis: An Engineer's Life, by Richard Morris, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 2023, 520 pp. Black cloth with gilt titles on the spine. No marks or damage at all. Unclipped DJ is also excellent. Fine/Fine 3. Barnes Wallis, A Biography, by J. E. Morpurgo, Longman, London, 1972, 400 pp. Gray cloth with gilt titles on the spine. No marks or damage at all. Unclipped DJ has slight fading on the jacket spine, but otherwise undamaged. Fine/Near Fine.