Eighth operation Dortmund-Ems Canal dam
Title
Eighth operation Dortmund-Ems Canal dam
Description
Handwritten note giving brief details of the operation and a relevant newspaper cutting titled 'Barges littered the fields'.
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Rights
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Contributor
Identifier
PPopeKMJ18010054
Transcription
BARGES LITTERED THE FIELDS
By BASIL CARDEW
Lancasters hitting again at Germany’s inland waterways last Tuesday night, struck a blow comparable in power and effect with the brilliant breaching of the Mohne Dam.
The strikes were perfectly timed. The Dortmund-Ems and Mittelland Canals were choked with hundreds of barges, many 300 feet long, carrying supplies to the German armies on the Western Front and raw materials to the remaining industries in the Rhur.
The Dortmund-Ems Canal which links Germany’s north-western ports with the battle area, was bombed in the Ladbergen district, where it divides into two channels and crosses the river Glane by two aqueducts.
There are now two enormous holes in the bottom of both branches of the canal exactly at the point where it crossed the river. The aqueducts have fallen, damming the river’s flow and water has flooded back over the countryside to a distance of nearly a mile.
There is also a large new breach in the embankment of one of the two branches. Pouring through the holes in the aqueducts the canal water has increased the devastation caused by the damming.
Barges are lying on the canal bed and half the fields out of action. Altogether more than 16 miles of the Dortmund-Ems water way is dried up along a stretch where there are no gates or locks and in many places where the canal rises above the flat low countryside.
[underlined]
Eigth [sic] Operation.
Dortmund-Ems Canal Dam
Tuesday Night. 21st November 1944
Airborne. 6hrs 10mins.
[/underlined]
By BASIL CARDEW
Lancasters hitting again at Germany’s inland waterways last Tuesday night, struck a blow comparable in power and effect with the brilliant breaching of the Mohne Dam.
The strikes were perfectly timed. The Dortmund-Ems and Mittelland Canals were choked with hundreds of barges, many 300 feet long, carrying supplies to the German armies on the Western Front and raw materials to the remaining industries in the Rhur.
The Dortmund-Ems Canal which links Germany’s north-western ports with the battle area, was bombed in the Ladbergen district, where it divides into two channels and crosses the river Glane by two aqueducts.
There are now two enormous holes in the bottom of both branches of the canal exactly at the point where it crossed the river. The aqueducts have fallen, damming the river’s flow and water has flooded back over the countryside to a distance of nearly a mile.
There is also a large new breach in the embankment of one of the two branches. Pouring through the holes in the aqueducts the canal water has increased the devastation caused by the damming.
Barges are lying on the canal bed and half the fields out of action. Altogether more than 16 miles of the Dortmund-Ems water way is dried up along a stretch where there are no gates or locks and in many places where the canal rises above the flat low countryside.
[underlined]
Eigth [sic] Operation.
Dortmund-Ems Canal Dam
Tuesday Night. 21st November 1944
Airborne. 6hrs 10mins.
[/underlined]
Collection
Citation
“Eighth operation Dortmund-Ems Canal dam,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed April 19, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/9394.
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