Big Bang : Tallboy bomb

Back in 2004 I visited the Siracourt V1 site, one Tallboy had hit the very lengthways centre of the bunker roof

but to the edge of the north side..

Detonation at 11miles /sec occurred while the bomb was still 'in the 3 metre thick concrete roof.

I know this because there , still in the concrete 60 years later, , was a fist sized portion of the nose of the bomb.

And I know this because I have compared the portion against the nose of the Tallboy permanently standing at the entrance to the scrapyard in Tetney /Lincs..

That mission was led by Cheshire flying a Mustang.

Barnes Wallis was based at the vickers factory in Weybridge, his offices still exist in what is now a museum site, the factory long gone! I was fortunate to be an apprentice for British aerospace at the Weybridge site in the 1980s.A very interesting place, built on the 1930s Brooklands racetrack and the first commercial airfield in the country.Also birthplace to the Wellington bomber as well as the tall boy and grandslam . Wallis's offices were located in the old club house at the end of the finishing straight, an example of each bomb stood upright nose down either side of the old entrance doors. I remember that in the main machine shop, at the far end near the stairs to the offices, the nose cone turning lathe still stood since the 1940s, gathering dust. Along with the profile Mills that machined the engine spars for the Vc10.

While his achievements with aeroplanes and their armaments are very well known, his greatest project IMHO was the design and construction of the Stratosphere Chamber which can still be seen at the Brooklands site, at the time the largest in the world.

it was so successful commercially that Vickers ran it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Link

Bert