RAF Bomber Command's Dam Busters - 'let all that water loose'

F/O Douglas Hackett DFC RCAF was b/a in F/Lt Warren Roberts' 405 Squadron crew, lost on the 30^th January 1944 Berlin raid. I have been preparing notes for Doug Hackett for some time now, hopefully I'll be posting his page very soon.

In mid-May 1943 P/O D Hackett was with 424 Squadron who were making preparations at RAF Topcliffe in Yorkshire for their imminent detachment to No. 205 Group in the Middle-East. Having been employed on operations against the Ruhr, Hackett and his crew (pilot Sgt Donald F G Parker RCAF) would complete their tour in Tunisia during the bombing campaign against Sicily and Italy.

The Dams raid has been researched to the nth degree, but I am able to add a contemporary view of the legend. Doug wrote a letter home 'to Mother & Dad' in Kingston, Ontario the day after the night of 617 Squadron's 'Operation Chastise' saying:-

'I've just read about the dams that were smashed open last night, that was really quite a good job. One of the fellows put a piece in the 'Line Book' about it. He asks “What's the good of our starting fires in the Ruhr if they go and let all that water loose.”'

'Not a sausage' - WW2 technical term?

The RAF is renowned for spawning a multitude of its own slang sayings.

The phrase 'not a sausage' – meaning -' nothing at all' supposedly derives (or so www.urbandictionary would have us believe) from cockney rhyming slang – 'sausage and mash' : cash. To my mind this doesn't sound quite right. I much prefer the version presented to me by one of my glass clients last week.

Sally's mother was a wartime WAAF whose explanation for the phrase 'not a sausage' stemmed from interpreting a radar screen display. If a contact appeared on her screen it would be a sausage shaped image - no contact – no sausage.

So - 'what can you see?' - 'can't see a sausage sir!'