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The 'egg' the Lancaster should have laid that afternoon hung from the centre of her bomb bay, an obscene miscarriage, mockingly awaiting the urgent attention of some expert aeronautical obstetrician. The crew had departed more than an hour ago, leaving the huge aeroplane parked outside Squadron 'X' dispersal area, on the far side of the airfield at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire. Her four 1,480 horse-power Rolls Royce Merlins were cold and long silent - the propellers silhouetted against the failing light, triple blades bisecting a wingspan of one hundred and two feet. Twin Browning machine-guns hung slackly in the front turret -those in the mid upper were trained upwards and backwards towards the twin fins of the tailplane.

The aeroplane was beautiful, businesslike and deadly, but, in the opinion of Chiefy Powell she was, like most females, irritatingly unpredictable and on this particular Saturday afternoon in March 1943 - uncharacteristically unreliable. She was also preventing the dapper little RAF Flight Sergeant from enjoying his tea and discussing the possibilities of a night out with other NCOs in the squadron pub. It could be fairly said, therefore, that Flight Sergeant George Edward Powell was not a happy man. He was also out of his depth.

Born in Wrexham and named George Edward after two British kings, Powell had joined the Royal Air Force in 1928 and was by trade an administrator, although he'd served as an air gunner with Coastal Command during the early part of the war. The RAF provided Powell with both home and family. He was an organiser with a natural talent for overcoming difficulties. He also had a fair knowledge of aerial combat. But he understood little, nothing at all in real terms, about either bomb-bays or bomb release mechanisms. His 'real' trade was airframe technician.

It has to be admitted this deficiency had not troubled him much until that afternoon but was immediately acknowledged completely, if with irritated impotence. Powell therefore glared at the bomber with malevolence and as he did so, swore silently, lengthily and comprehensively. But 'bloody hell', were the only words he spoke aloud.

There was nobody to hear him. Powell stood alone, in sole charge of the bomber, forage cap cocked rakishly over his right eye, clad in battle-dress, the blouse open at the neck. Legs astride, hands on hips, he stared at the aeroplane as though willing it to eject the 'egg' hanging below its belly, by the sheer force of his considerable personality.

'You bastard!' he snarled, investing the expletive with all the venom Flight Sergeants traditionally direct at anything causing them serious problems. The 'egg' was a dummy - a massive cylinder, made of concrete, weighing 10,000 lbs, an enormous lookalike garden roller - the exact size and weight of a new weapon Chiefy Powell's new squadron was being formed to drop on enemy targets, previously impossible to attack with conventional weapons.

The only problem, Chiefy Powell ruefully reflected, was that the bloody weapon would not fall out of the bloody aeroplane, which in turn meant that unless he, Chiefy Powell, got it bloody sorted there would be no bloody raid, either. 'And,' he concluded gloomily to himself, wiping the toothbrush of a moustache clinging to his upper lip with the back of his right hand, 'I've no doubt that it will all be my bloody fault.'

Chiefy Powell did not know whether the weapon was a bomb, mine, or what. He did know it was secret. VERY secret. So secret that Guy Gibson, already a legendary figure in Bomber Command and one of the RAF's youngest and most successful Wing Commanders, was about to be given the job of training an elite squadron just to drop it - always providing, of course, Chiefy Powell and his happy band of Erks could solve the problem of persuading the bloody weapon to fall out of the bloody aeroplane.

But at 16.30 that Saturday afternoon Wing Commander Gibson was far from Chiefy Powell's thoughts. Powell's concentration was focused on the miscreant weapon.

He didn't know what it was, how it worked, what it was supposed to do, or when it was supposed to do it. And, it has to be admitted, if the Lanc hadn't belonged to his precious Squadron X, Powell couldn't have cared less. But it did - so he was interested and he did know the intention had been to drop it on the practise bombing range that afternoon. That it had not, was a considerable nuisance - and although Powell did not know it, he was already being drawn into a whirlpool of events that would eventually change the course of the Second World War.

The returning bombardier had told Chiefy that the solenoids triggering the release mechanism had definitely fired. Even so, the weapon had not dropped. They'd tried three times. Three times the pilot had passed over the target. Three times the bombardier had pressed the 'tit' and three times the weapon had refused to fall.

'What a bitch!' Powell's face twisted into a worried grimace. Little plumes of condensation jetted from his mouth as he concentrated on the aeroplane, desperately trying to think his way through to a solution.

Behind him, great clouds of rooks swirled like tea leaves around the bottom of a teacup in the early evening sky above the tall trees at the edge of the airfield. The birds were settling down for the night and their calling caused Powell to look away from the plane. For a moment his attention was diverted to a small colony of rabbits nibbling at the grass about 200 metres from the Lanc. Powell felt the hint of frost in the air and thought the Lincolnshire poachers might be in for a good night as he rubbed his mittened fingers together.

During his fifteen years in the RAF the Flight Sergeant had seen more than his fair share of sudden, as well as long drawn out, death. He was not an imaginative man. Reality absorbed his working days, so he had little time to let his imagination run riot. Nevertheless even two hours after the event, Powell could feel sweat break out in the small of his back, defeating the cold, as he remembered the Lancaster flying its final circuits.

Powell had been up there with them, sharing their apprehension, imagining the weapon breaking loose as the aircraft touched down. Powell could not help shivering as he remembered. The bomber had flown generous circuits around the airfield emptying its tanks. Only when the last few drops were spluttering through the fuel lines, just enough to keep the propellers turning, did it come in to land.

By then the sixth sense which customarily precedes imminent disaster had brought all those not occupied by essential duties to the base of the control tower. Not a movement disturbed their ranks as they stood, faces tilted towards the sky, gazing at the plane circling above them - silent prayers holding it aloft.

The young pilot, Powell later guessed he was only about 23, had been cool, calm even - no trace of concern distorting the stream of explanation flowing through the R/T as he levelled his wings into finals, coming in for the shallowest of descents. Even though fully laden, the Lancaster had seemed to float just above the runway. 'Get down you great black bastard,' the pilot had muttered over the open radio, and then the landing wheels kissed the grass in what Powell recognised as a perfect landing.

Chiefy Powell had been standing in the front rank of those watching the drama unfold standing between the blood wagon and the fire engine. Neither had been needed - 67,000lbs of Lancaster - the weights of the aircraft, weapon and the three young men making up the crew, compressed the telescopes of the landing gear with an audible sigh of relief, which Chiefy Powell immediately realised, might just have easily been the rapid intake of breath from the watchers. There was no brief roar from the engines as the propellers came to rest, neither did the young skipper touch the brakes, no doubt fearing any sudden deceleration would free the weapon, cork-screwing his aeroplane into scrap metal. The Lancaster ran almost the whole length of the airfield before finally rolling to a halt near the peri-track at Squadron 'X' dispersal point. Chiefy Powell led the headlong rush to greet the heroes, by then climbing down from their aeroplane, affecting expressions of studied nonchalance.

Only the pilot spoke. 'She's all yours, Chiefy,' he grinned. 'We don't want her back until she's laid that egg! I've heard of big birds getting egg-bound, but this is ridiculous.

'By the way,' he warned, 'don't forget the release gear's fired. That weapon could fall at any moment. I wouldn't want anybody underneath if it does.....' The pilot's words trailed off....the retreating pressure diminishing his voice. Nothing more needed to be said. He'd done his bit. Brought the kite and the weapon safely home. His crew as well. What happened next was not his problem. Out of his hands. He was just the driver.

Tipping the peak of his cap back from his forehead, and taking the carrying handle of his parachute in his right hand he ran to catch up with his crew walking rapidly away from dispersal, across the grass, towards the asthmatic Bedford waiting to take them to the flight hut.

Powell's first job was to get his Ground Crew to cordon the plane off and place it out of bounds. Then he stationed a guard to prevent anybody getting near the Lanc and the weapon - both for security and safety reasons. Powell had stood for about five minutes just looking at the aircraft, cap in hand, scratching the back of his head as he turned over at least a dozen possibilities in his mind. Then, striding across to the flight hut, he returned with a torch which he shone into the belly of the bomb-bay.

There was no mistaking the weapon. It was enormous, held fast into the carrier. He could not see beyond the bulge of the cylinder. He could not properly see the carrier to which the wretched thing was attached and he certainly couldn't see the release mechanism. So he couldn't tell whether the bombardier was right. He didn't know whether the solenoids had fired or not.

There may have been a 'glitch' in the circuits, he thought. The bombardier might be wrong. Maybe the solenoids had not tripped. Speculation was pointless. He couldn't see.

As he stared up into the bomb bay, the full extent of the problem became apparent. Freeing the weapon meant getting above it, and Powell could not see how that was possible without help from two others. It was a three man job, he reckoned. Even then it was not going to be easy. Getting the weapon down meant climbing above it. There was no room for that, unless the man was either very small, or built like a hairpin and, even so, such a manoeuvre would clearly risk the lives of the technicians underneath. Powell had no doubt that 10,000lbs of weapon, suddenly released, would terminate the career of the most enterprising technicians very rapidly indeed. It was a nasty problem.

'A very nasty problem indeed,' Powell told himself. A problem he had not asked for, did not want, and one that was quite beyond his experience. He also reckoned it was beyond the capability of any technician at Scampton and he was unwilling to expose his ground crews to such a risk. Yet Powell was not a man to give up easily, so he looked at the weapon, the bomb bay and the aircraft for another five minutes, running through, again, all the alternatives he'd already considered a dozen times, hoping he'd overlooked an obvious solution; unwilling to admit defeat.

Nothing, not even the glimmering of an idea, came to him. Finally he gave in. 'We need an expert,' he thought. There's nothing I can do here.'

Having made his decision he walked back to the flight hut, picked up the telephone and got through to Station HQ before demanding to be put through to Scampton's CO, Group Captain Charles Whitworth.

Being a Saturday it was several minutes before the CO came on the line and Powell had time to think about the Station Commander, a stocky, curly-haired man of around 30, an experienced pilot with a string of operations behind him and DSO and DFC ribbons on his tunic. Before Powell could wonder what his superior would think about his Saturday afternoon being interrupted, a brisk voice was asking.....'what can I do for you, Flight?'

Powell hastened to explain, as briefly as he could. Whitworth listened without interruption as Powell rapidly outlined the difficulty. He was very soon just as unhappy as his Flight Sergeant.

'You don't know for certain whether the bomb release gear has fired or not, Flight?'
'It's impossible to tell, Sir. But the bombardier says it has.'
'Can't you get above the weapon to take a shufty?'
'I suppose that would be possible,' Powell conceded, 'but not without a ladder and I'm not certain I'd know any more, if I could. We'd have to lean the ladder against the weapon to get above it. If the solenoids have fired, we might dislodge the damned thing and that would be very bad news for the technicians underneath. In any case I reckon the sudden release of all that weight would toss the airframe several feet into the air.'

The line went dead and for a moment Powell thought the CO had disconnected. It was a full minute before he heard the voice and then it was only to utter a single word. 'Tricky!'

'Too bloody right, Sir,' Powell agreed. 'Particularly for the poor bastards underneath.' As though an afterthought he added, 'there's no way this is a one man job.'

The fact that Powell was swearing in front of an officer did not escape Whitworth who instantly accepted this as a clear indication of the depth of his Flight Sergeant's concern. Powell did not normally lose his cool and Whitworth realised he would have exhausted all obvious possibilities, as well as all those not so obvious, before making the call. The matter was serious.

'So, Flight, what do you reckon?'

Powell shuffled the notebook upon which he'd been doodling. His eyes scanned the bare walls of the Flight Office, seeking some inspiration that might avoid an admission of failure. Powell was a proud man, but he could think of nothing. 'There's nothing me and my lads can do. We don't have the know-how, or the tools. We need an expert and he needs to be the best bomb release gear specialist the RAF has got.'

Powell could almost hear Whitworth's brain working. 'A boffin you think?' Having committed himself, Powell's response was immediate - 'I don't know about a boffin Sir, but we do need an expert. There's nothing we can do.'

Whitworth paused for a moment. 'Very well, then, Flight. We'll have to get you an expert. Leave it to me, I'll get back to you when we've found your man.'

Powell felt the tension relax as the burden of responsibility shifted. The relief was tangible. The Flight Sergeant disliked admitting anything he regarded as failure, so his reply was stiff and formal. 'Very good, then, Sir.' Whitworth hadn't a clue at that moment how the problem was going to get sorted. But he was an RAF career officer with faith in the system. There had to be a solution, but he doubted whether it would be found before Flight Sergeant Powell had finished his tea. Whitworth already knew the answer was not at Scampton. Powell would have exhausted every possibility before asking for help.

'No,' thought Whitworth, 'Group is going to have to find our man, and if they haven't got him, they'll have to get him from somewhere else. Somewhere there's got to be an expert who's got the answer to our problem.' It was a comforting thought, which he passed on to Powell.

'OK Flight, somewhere in the RAF there has to be a man with the right know-how. We'll find him and get him here. Sharpish.' Rubbing his chin reflectively Whitworth looked down at the notepad in front of him and realised he'd written the telephone number of 5 Group five times on the paper.

'Leave it with me Flight,' he said. 'I'll find your man. Get your tea and I'll call you back later.'

Powell shrugged his shoulders, rubbing his neck vigorously with his right hand to release the muscle spasm. For a while neither the Lancaster nor the weapon was his problem.

'Very good, Sir. Will that be all, sir?'

Whitworth smiled ruefully at Powell's eagerness to withdraw. 'Just for now, Flight.' He put the phone down. Powell heard the disconnection, replaced his own receiver, heaved a sigh of relief, left the Flight hut and started to walk across the airfield towards the mess hall. The rabbits were no longer nibbling the grass and the rooks had settled down for the night. Powell did not notice either of these things as he stepped out briskly across the airfield. He was already wondering what the cooks were serving for tea. He'd dismissed the problem of the Lancaster from his mind at once.

It wasn't that Powell wasn't committed. He was. But like most successful senior NCOs, he preserved his sanity by employing a simple philosophy.....if there was nothing he could do, there was nothing to be done and so far as Chiefy Powell was concerned, nothing to be done meant not even thinking about the problem until it was time to try something else. Psychiatrists were to make fortunes peddling this simple solution to the victims of corporate stress after the war.

So Powell relaxed, enjoyed sausage and chips covered in lashings of brown sauce, and four slices of bread and marge washed down with a pint of tea. The Lancaster was Whitworth's problem now.

Whitworth was a proud, resourceful man, but the thoughts running through his mind at that moment, were neither proud, nor resourceful. 'Bloody hell,' he groaned, 'how the hell do I explain all this to Group? I mean,' he thought sardonically, '.....Please Sir, our bomb won't fall out of our aeroplane does sound just a bit feeble.'

Whitworth's burden was considerable. As Scampton's Station Commander, getting Operation Chastise rolling was ultimately his responsibility. For a few moments Whitworth remembered the freedom he'd enjoyed as a young Pilot Officer when all he'd had to do was fly an aeroplane.

'It's true,' he thought, 'the greater the rank, the greater the responsibility.' Which meant Whitworth was reflecting on the chain of command and glad that it customarily operated at high speed in times of war. It had been only five days since Air Vice-Marshall the Hon Ralph Cochrane, Air Officer Commanding No 5 Group, Bomber Command, had been told about the weapon, upkeep and the operation - Chastise, by Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Bomber Command. Harris had told Cochrane to form and train a squadron to destroy the Ruhr dams.

Bomber Command comprised six groups at the outbreak of the Second World War and each Group developed a distinct personality. No. 1 Group was set up in 1936 and its squadrons formed the Advanced Air Striking Force in France. By January 1942, No. 1 Group was ten Wellington Squadrons, four of which were Polish and two Australian. No. 2 Group had its headquarters at Castlewood House, Huntingdon.

Its ten Bristol Blenheim Squadrons were among those that first crossed the German borders the day war was declared and next day mounted the first bombing raid on Germany. No. 3 Group was the first to be completely equipped with the Wellington. Based at Mildenhall, Suffolk, the group had been formed in 1936 and received its first Wellingtons in 1938. The Group mounted two raids on Italian targets from Salon in the South of France during June 1940, before France capitulated. No. 4 Group was headquartered at York from April 1940. The eight squadrons were all based in Yorkshire and Nos. 51 and 58 Squadrons dropped leaflets on German cities on the 4th September 1939 - the first night of the war.

Canada made a unique contribution to Bomber Command in the formation of No. 6 (RCAF) Group, manned almost entirely by Canadians and paid for by the Canadian people. Formed in the autumn of 1942, this group became operational with nine squadrons and a Heavy Conversion Unit in January 1943 and by the end of the war had grown to fourteen squadrons flying Halifaxes and Lancasters. Headquarters were at Allerton Park Castle, near Knaresborough, Yorkshire.

The Group which undertook most specialist operations was No. 5, formed on 1st September 1937 at Mildenhall as an offshoot of No. 3 Group. Two years later it had ten Handley Paged Hampden squadrons and was headquartered at Grantham, Lincolnshire. In 1945 No. 5 Group had grown to seventeen squadrons of Lancasters and one of Mosquitoes. This Group pioneered target marking and mine-laying techniques and carried out many daring daylight raids, notably those on Milan, Wesel, Augsburg and Le Creusot.

Throughout the war No. 5 Group was best known for its success in carrying out special operations. In 1943 this reputation was already well established so it was perfectly natural that Bomber Harris should turn to Ralph Cochrane when Churchill decided to back Barnes Wallis' Dambusting Raid ideas. Harris told Cochrane that if the dams were successfully breached much of the German armaments capacity would be destroyed. In doing so, he had reminded Cochrane that 10,000 tons of water were required to produce each ton of steel!

Cochrane told Harris that Guy Gibson was the man to lead the new Squadron, which he'd based at Scampton where Group Captain Charles Whitworth was the CO. Cochrane briefed Gibson and Whitworth two days later at his headquarters, St Vincent's Hall, Grantham, Lincolnshire, emphasising that, if successful, Operation Chastise could shorten the war by months, if not years.

'This will be,' he said, 'one of the most important bombing raids of the war - if not the most important. It's a one-off raid, which we'll never be able to repeat.'

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