Dam brilliant doco

The Dambusters
Screens on The Big Picture on the ABC on Wednesday, September 17, at 8.30pm.
Reviewer: Paul Cross

Wallis’ assistant Martin Boorer.

It is now 60 years since a squadron of Lancaster bombers took off from England to strike at Germany’s industrial heartland in a daring and unprecedented raid for its time.

Spring 1943 was to be the time of the Dambusters – Wing Commander Guy Gibson and the men of No. 617 Squadron – and of an English engineer, inventor and aircraft designer, Barnes Wallis.

As early as 1941 Wallis had, in his spare time, been researching ways of breaching the walls of the dams of the Ruhr Valley, incapacitating Germany’s ability to produce weapons and shortening the war.

His first design was for an “earthquake” bomb, a torpedo-shaped missile that was dropped from a great height, in fact from a stratosphere bomber of his own design. The war office rejected the idea.

It was a little known naval technique dating from the Napoleonic War that first inspired Wallis to develop the “bouncing bomb”. During that war gunners would skip cannon balls off the water in an attempt to breach the hull of an enemy ship close to the waterline.

At about the same time Wallis was working on the bomb, the Lancaster entered service and a means of delivery was achieved.

The Dambusters and Operation Chastise is the story of this unique chapter of World War II. Using a combination of original footage, modern dramatisation and interviews with the surviving people involved in the project, including Wallis’ assistant Martin Boorer, the tale unfolds as a visual timeline of the events as they happened – the failures and successes that would lead to one of the most daring raids of the war.

Without being too cryptic or giving away too much of the story, The Dambusters is a must for all of the golfing fraternity as well as those who take even a casual interest in this bloody period of recent history.

Doctor makes a comeback

Doctor Who
Series starts ABC, Monday, September 15, 6pm.
Reviewer: SGT Jonathan Garland


Ladies and gentlemen – the Doctor is in. Generations have grown up on the adventures of the time-and-space-travelling alien, whose several actors, multitude of companions and menagerie of enemies became the longest-running science-fiction series ever made.

A cult following has led to the publication of more than 100 original Doctor Who novels, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest book range built around a single character.

Doctor Who, the TARDIS and the Daleks are recognised icons the world over.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of his creation, ABC is screening the entire Doctor Who series from episode one.
An Unearthly Child, the episode that introduced the Doctor and his granddaughter Susan to the world, screens on the ABC at 6pm on September 15.

It is 1963, and London schoolteachers Ian and Barbara pay a concerned visit to the home of one of their pupils, Susan.
Susan is incredibly intelligent for her age but lacks basic knowledge of current events, such as the unit of currency England uses.

In a junkyard, the teachers meet Susan’s grandfather and stumble into a battered police box to discover some rather large secrets about the strange pair.

Now with an entourage, the Doctor and Susan travel 100,000 years into the past, landing in a Palaeolithic landscape where they soon discover they are not alone.

With four episodes showing each week from Monday to Thursday, and 700 episodes to see, fans are going to be tied to the couch for a while.

And if you’re not yet a fan, check out the episode where it all started. You might become one.
You have an appointment with the Doctor.