MANY people know that last week was the 70th anniversary of Operation Chastise – the attack that gave the Dambusters their name.

What most people do not know is that Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s famous Lancaster aircraft was broken up at Wroughton in 1947.

On May 16 and 17 1943, Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron dropped bouncing bombs on German dams, causing catastrophic flooding in the Ruhr valley.

The Möhne and Edersee Dams were breached, and an estimated 1,600 people were thought to have drowned.

The operation was led by Gibson, who at 24 was already a veteran of more than 170 bombing and night-fighter missions.

Dan Gurney, 73, who worked as a RAF fireman, said in hindsight the destruction of the plane was a tragedy.

“But the war was over and we needed new materials, and there were hundreds of Lancaster planes that were all scrapped,” said Mr Gurney, of Royal Wootton Bassett.

The 73-year-old’s other claim to fame was being inspected as a cadet by the man who invented the bouncing bomb – Barnes Wallis.

“A long long while ago I met two or three people involved in the raid. I even met Micky Martin, the pilot, at RAF Lyneham.”

Another local who has links to the famous operation is Florence Cole, who was a codebreaker during the Second World War and spent six months at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, headquarters of the Dambusters, shortly after the raid.

Unlike military personnel today, the now 91-year-old said she did not have a choice about enlisting.

“I started off when I was called up – we had no choice. I went to Ingsworth Lane in Gloucester for my training and then onto Cranwell where the Royals were and then to Scampton,” said Mrs Cole, of Shrivenham.

While at Scraptom, she worked in observations, and often saw personnel returning from missions.

She said: “I used to watch the crew coming in, all smiling – and you know the reason why, don’t you - they’d come back. They’d survived.”

While she was with the base Mrs Cole developed a life-long respect for the Dambusters and a sense of injustice at the lack of recognition for their work.

The Dambusters’ work in the Second World War was again recognised last June, when the Queen unveiled a memorial to Bomber Command in Hyde Park.