… that the other night’s sleep was something special, then I’m not sure what to say about last night’s. In bed by 22:30 after a nice meal of pasta, mushrooms and tinned veg, I remember nothing until about 06:30. Perhaps there was the odd lorry shunting around somewhere in the vicinity but I really didn’t care less.

Mind you, I was off on my travels during the night. I was a serial killer with bodies all over the place, including inside the doors of my car behind the door cards. And I remember having to move them and dispose of them properly, so extracting them from their hidey-holes was interesting, particularly as they now had the size and consistency of sausages.

After a nice leisurely breakfast of bread, jam, fruit juice and coffee, I hit the road and fahr’n fahr’n fahr’n-ed up the autobahn for my first dam.

I wasn’t on the autobahn for very long – the Lady Who Lived In The SatNav soon had me in the mountains.

I came to a dead stop in the small town of Bilstein.

We saw some War memorials in Austria last year, but this is the first one that I ever recall seeing in Grmany. Interestingly, it contains names from the 1866 war against Austria and names from the 1870-71 war against France, but nothing from World War I or World War II.

Whilst World War II might in some circumstances and some quarters be considered controversial, I’m totally bewildered as to why the dead of World War I haven’t been honoured with a memorial.

As for World War II, my own opinion is that probably 99% of the German military were just as much victims of the war as anyone else and were no more guilty of war crimes than anyone else in any other army. Regardless of the cause that they fought for, their individual sacrifice should still be commemorated and I reckon that they deserve a memorial.

From there, the Lady Who Lives In The SatNav took me right into the mountains and over some stunning roads (some of which I was obliged to decline).

There were some beautiful things to see too, such as the village of Rohrenspring – just one of a thousand places that I could have stopped to photograph had there been anywhere convenient to park.

Still, I arrived at the Sorpe Dam soon enough and had a good drive round.

And it’s easy to see why it is that, despite the importance of the Sorpe Dam, the dambusters were unable to breach the dam.

They couldn’t fly along the length of the dam (although I’m not sure why as it’s a clear “in and out) but came in over the church steeple, dropped their bombs and then climbed up and out of the valley.

and you’ll notice the dam – on the right-hand edge of the photo about halfway up. There isn’t much to aim at, is there?

Only one of the bombs hit the dam and that did no more than damage the parapet. And there isn’t any evidence that I could see of the damage.

However if you notice the photo, it’s actually a composite photo. Some of the seating bays have stone walls and facings and are clearly the original onces. Some others have wrought iron railings.

It’s tempting to think that the wrought iron ones are the modern ones built as a cheap temporary measure to replace original ones destroyed in the blast.

However, you can see how much water is in here judging by the height and the weight of the barrage here.

That really is an impressive structure and had the dambusters been able to let that lot go, there would have been a catastrophe. But they were always on a hiding to nothing with an earthen-banked dam. The earth would simply absorb the shock of the explosion.

From there, I went to look at the Mohne Dam.

This was the classic dam, the one about which everone has heard and which collapsed in dramatic fashion after three direct hits. The planes had to fly at a height of about 60 feet at 240 mph right between the two towers, which were equipped with machine guns, and drop a bouncing bomb in a precise position.

30 years or so ago, you could still see where the stone from the new repair work differed from the original.

Today, however, I couldn’t see any difference at all, despite having a good luck around. But what did impress me was that within just a mere 4 months, this dam had been rebuilt of sorts and was back doing its job again.

And that’s the big issue with the British Bombing campaign. If it didn’t involve the gratuitous killing of defenceless civilians, “Bomber” Harris dismissed it as a “panacea target” and refused to carry it out, even when presented with a direct order.

Once the dams had been bombed, Harris abandoned them, when it was odds-on that they would be rebuilt. Anyone normal would have had high-level bombng raids every week to damage the rebuilding, and that was what most of the Germans expected.

Most except Alber Speer, that is. The German Minister of Economic Planning was well-aware that Harris would never come back to the dams (there was one further raid on the Sorpe Dam with the huge earthquake bombs, but they didn’t work and in any case it was far too late to influence the outcome of the war) and that they could be rebuilt in peace.

And now I’ve found a hotel right on the shore of the lake, with the water lapping at my feet, and this is where I’m staying the night.