Press Release

Television actor and vintage plane enthusiast Martin Shaw next week presents a documentary from the BBC which aims to uncover brand new information about the RAF's famous wartime Dambusters raid. Dambusters Declassified can be seen on BBC One in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire on Monday 13 September at 7.30pm.

Executive producer Ian Cundall said: "Many people think they know the story of the Dambusters but the truth is even more extraordinary than the famous movie version of the raid. Our interview with Guy Gibson's girlfriend sheds new light on a complex character who led his men to success on what was an almost impossible mission."

Martin Shaw, who holds his own private pilot's licence and flies vintage planes, can be seen in the documentary flying over the Upper Derwent Valley in the Peak District above Sheffield where 617squadron famously practised their bomb runs before embarking on their mission to destroy dams in Germany during the Second World War. 

He is joined in the cockpit of the Piper Navajo plane by war hero and Dambusters expert Wing Commander Chris Norton, who led the Harrier jump jets of the RAF's elite No. 1 Squadron against targets in Kosovo and the latest Gulf War.

The pair trace the entire wartime route from RAF Scampton – home to the original 617 Squadron – to the Ruhr Valley in Germany where a local survivor talks about the raid. 

Martin Shaw said: "This has been an amazing journey for me... I've learned so much about a story that I knew very well. So what have I learnt along the way? Well, the Dambusters story and the men who made it possible. It's not like the movie at all – oh, no, in truth it's a far more unbelieveable, a far more amazing story than that."

The programme will be broadcast later in the year, across the country on BBC Two. 

AB2