The Möhnesee

My easter weekend wasn't nearly as depressing as last year's. I finally got round to doing what I'd always wanted to do as a kid: play ducks and drakes on the Möhnesee.

The Möhnesee was the main target of Operation Chastise in the second world war, as planes of the RAF attacked the dam with Bouncing Bombs. The bombers flew over the jut of land visible here (this is where I took the photo, too) before releasing the bombs around 400m from the dam wall. The fifth bomb breached the wall, sending a wave of water down the Möhne valley and into the Ruhr.

I got the train from Bochum to the other side of Dortmund, then cycled to the dam, ate lunch at the rather expensive Seehof restaurant (the reservoir is now a major tourist centre) and walked to the jut of land in order to launch a flat stone or two at the wall. The water was too choppy for any serious assault, but I got one stone to make four jumps before it sank far short of the wall.

The dam wall has a promenade so you can walk across, or possibly even drive across with a car. I stood on the wall for a couple of minutes, wondering if you could hide a 3-ton bomb in a fake sausage van. Fit the bomb with a hydrostatic fuse, drive onto the wall, tip it into the lake and run...

I will now try to change the tone to a more sombre one. The raid was part of the "Total War", where civilian targets were selected in order to damage the war production. The aim was to kill workers, destroy factories and homes and to restrict water and food supplies and energy production. Over 1000 civilians were killed, including hundreds of Prisoners of War. Of the 133 aircrew involved, 53 died, and those who returned safely had remote prospects of surviving the war. I'm glad that I can go to the Möhnesee on a bicycle and not in a Lancaster bomber, and I'm glad that when I throw stones at a lake, nobody is throwing anything back.