Note: This account was collated from the various versions Captain Eastwood told his children and grand-children.
The tale certainly changed with time. It is evident that he progressively added material which reached the 'Public Domain'. Yet, to the end, he remained a very private person, loyally and fiercely protected by his formidable wife and extended family.
As the last of the 'Nukers', Captain Eastwood became the target for a bizarre spectrum of protesters, ranging from anti-nuclear to neo-Nazties. Homeville did not welcome such kindly. Those who'd espoused 'Infirmative Action' often emerged from the surrounding semi-desert and 'Bad Lands' in a distressed state, incoherent, confused, purged of their fervour. The local joke was those lost to 'Misadventure' had been 'Incurables'...
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"Good afternoon, gentlemen." The elderly figure had a pronounced Brit accent, looked as if he'd be more at home in tweeds than the light desert clothing. He hauled a photo-ID pass from his shirt pocket, said, "This claims I am Brian Walsh, a Canadian consultant. At least that last part is correct...
"First, may I congratulate your aviation skills ? I am assured there is now a famous shortage of pickle-barrels on the dry range, and several target buoys have had to be grappled, dredged from Lake Tahoe.
"You have been dropping the Type 44 Mark_1 'Training Item'. It has the same weight, balance and aerodynamics as the RAF's 'Mk 1 Tallboy', which is best described as a 'Heavy Penetrator'." His wave cued a young NCO to unroll a ten-foot banner between two easels. "This is the real deal: You could safely describe it as a very big, very bad 'Lawn Dart'...
"It is brutally simple: The thick casing is a length of worn-out battle-ship gun barrel. The tapered nose is a solid casting. The tail fins ensure it will slam nose first into massive defences such as the layered concrete lids of Atlantic Coast U-Boot pens.
"There are two fuses. The first waits about a 'hand-grenade' after impact to ensure optimal penetration. Should that fuse fail, the second waits from five minutes to five hours to discourage salvage and damage control...
"Should my 'Tallboy' make a 'hard-strike' on an armoured pen, it will severely compromise the integrity, if not provide an actual sky-light. You may imagine what blast and falling debris will do to any quay-side submarine or E-Boat. And, yes, the 'Shock and Awe' for morale...
"A near-by 'soft-strike' is scarcely less potent: Have you seen pictures of the springs and 'sand-blows' where earthquakes find 'made ground' ? Much shaken land briefly turns to 'quick-sand', that staple peril of 'Saturday Serials'. Near-by foundations, rail-lines and hard-standing unevenly subside. Doors and gates warp, jam. Cranes and hoists seize, topple. Service pipes and drains leak or rupture, often causing hidden wash-outs which further under-mine the site.
"A 'soft-strike' in the outer harbour will collapse the steep flanks of dredged channels. As 'Tallboy' raids are often combined with mine-laying, business is further impaired. Should a 'Tallboy' land just outside the mouth of a pen, the occupant will be shaken like a straddle depth-charge. Joints, seams, seals, frames and bearings wracked. Like a wheels-up landing, it's probably going for scrap. One submarine, slammed against the quay-side, simply sank at its moorings...
"As you have a much longer range than the RAF Lancasters flying out of now-liberated Ireland, the Germans are very, very wary about where and what you may target...
"Oh, yes, we know they have 'eyes on'...
"You may have noticed the immense white Maybach limousine which seems to show up like the proverbial 'bad penny' ? Or the braw convoy of 'Military Police' which follows at a polite distance ? Yes, Carlos Enriques, the Mexican military attaché, and 'Helga Bron', his buxom 'Dutch' secretary, exhibit an unhealthy fascination with your squadron's activities.
"Of course, provided they stay *that* side of fences and markers, their diplomatic status protects them...
"As it happens, Carlos' sister is married to a senior diplomat in Mexico City's German legation, and 'Helga' is no more Dutch than me...
"Now we come to the 'Unseemly Incident' at the small town just North of here. That new saloon opened, initially offering a welcome discount to Services' personnel. A bus full of thirsty ground-crew rolled up. They drank rather too much. Several began singing ribald songs with explicit lyrics such as, 'We're gonna damn, Damn, DAMN those big Ruhr dams !!' and, 'Gonna be the biggest Flood since Noah: Start building your Arks !!!'
"When colleagues tried to shush them, a brawl ensued: A classic, punch-throwing, chair-tossing, table-tipping, 'Cowboy Saloon' brawl, as seen in the movies.
"Horrified locals and, yes, Carlos and 'Helga' hid under their side tables. Their 'unofficial escort' of Military Police charged in, over-powered, removed the miscreants. Two 'Men in Black', perhaps FBI, then swore all witnesses to silence. Except, of course, for Carlos and 'Helga', whom they could only entreat to employ appropriate discretion.
"The saloon closed, has not re-opened. The offending ground-crew vanished, their records expunged...
"The RAF regularly fly photo-recon missions over potential targets such as the Ruhr dams. Forty-seven hours after that saloon incident, their 'Catch Me If You Can' Mosquitos reported big, big convoys of men and materiel converging on those dams. Many, many anti-aircraft guns, search-lights, Radar, barrage balloons. A doubling of the area's day and night-fighter provision. More anti-torpedo netting...
"Even barges and lighters full of stones moored along the face of each dam to prematurely detonate my 'Tallboys'...
"The good news is those Ruhr dams are not your targets.
"I repeat: Those dams are not your targets.
"They never were your targets.
"Nor are you going to Berlin. Or the Baltic. Or the Fjords...
"You, gentlemen, are after much, much bigger fish...
"That saloon was a film set, rigged with hidden cameras. The entire 'ground-crew' were Hollywood stunt-men. One of the trucks dogging that vast Maybach had a film crew and long lenses. When the B-movie comes out, entitled 'To Catch A Spy', that footage will provide 'location' shots for the studio's look-alike Maybach and actors .
"Now the 'Funnies' are done, we come to the 'Main Feature'...
"I take it you have grown up with 'Modern Mechanix', 'Air Detective', 'Amazing Stories' and their ilk ? Uh-huh. How many of you read the unsettling Robert Heinlein tale, 'Solution Unsatisfactory' ?" His sweeping gaze found a suddenly pale quorum. "Good. I hoped so. Makes the next part easier to explain...
"Yes, if you assemble a 'Critical Mass' of a specific Uranium isotope, it will go two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and onwards unto 'Boom'.
"Except it will fly apart before useful damage is done...
"Analogy with 'Black Powder': You can pile a small heap, light, it will fizzle and spark enthusiastically, but mostly harmless. Conflagrate rather than explode. To do the needful, you must ram-rod a ball and wad into a musket, or a shell into a big coastal fort's gun. Miners must tamp shot-holes...
"So, how to assemble this 'Critical Mass', then persuade it to stay thus until worthwhile consequence ?
"There are potentially better ways to do it. Much better. At least thrice the 'yield'. But, like jets, not just yet. So, to save a year or more, we must resort to a 'Quick and Dirty' alternative, adapting a 'Tallboy'.
"Lose the heavy nose-cone and traditional explosive fill. Put part of your war-head in the front, part in the back. Pull the safeties then, like an engine 'starter round', use a blank charge to drive latter into former...
"One such 'Device', detonated at optimal height above this vast air-field would raze everything, every-one within the fence, plus an uncertain distance beyond.
"Probably blow out most of the windows in town, start a lot of fires....
"Snag is, from drop point to air-burst altimeter fuse is forty seconds." He looked around. "Forty seconds. Forty-two at best. The huge flash will be bad, but we can adapt welding masks and navy turret-wear.
"The bang, though, will chase you at five seconds per mile, hit like a squall-line. Allowing for the arc and time to fire-wall throttles without blowing your engines, that's tight...
"Drogue chutes proved unreliable. So, your aircraft need more speed. I've been assured that the entire list of problems with your current engines have been noted, addressed. More powerful, more reliable engines, which will safely 'spin up' a few seconds faster. Effective auxiliary cooling flaps. Better, electric-feathering propellers. A 'silver-plate' fuselage with flush-rivets, polished to a gleam to reduce air-friction, with no weight penalty for paint. Which the flash would probably peel.
"To further save weight and add speed, all gunners bar but your tail-guy stay home, other positions faired over. He gets a third 50-cal instead of that skew-firing 20mm, plus lots more ammunition. As you'll be cruising much higher and a full dozen MPH faster than a standard 'Bird', a lot faster than an RAF Lancaster, interception will be rather more difficult.
"Attacks will take place at night, a long week apart to ensure maximum panic.
"The plan is for 'Device' and 'Camera' air-craft to go wide of their target, turn and come in from the North or South. The 'Camera' crew will path-find, drop a very, very big parachute flare. This will allow 'Device' crew to get 'eyes-on', while ruining Germans' night vision. It will also confuse via reports of an 'Infernal Device' descending by parachute or drogue.
"Yes, I know you have that, um..." Hand-twirl, "mapping system, but it has its moments, its exasperating quirks. Among other issues, it prefers bold street plans, wide rivers.
"So, target acquired, safeties pulled, 'Device' away. Time to 'Get Out Of Dodge'. Bank West. Fire-wall throttles. Welding goggles etc on. 'Brace, Brace, Brace'.
"And you've made history."
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Note: There is no evidence that Barnes Wallis was involved in the 'Manhattan Project', the logical 'Tallboy' adaptation or the B-29's ingenious auxiliary cooling flaps.
There is no evidence that he gave such an explicit talk to the 'Silver-plate' crews.
However, given the degree of documentation redaction, there is no evidence he didn't...
Certainly, Carlos Enriques, depicted to 'Comic Opera' perfection in 'To Catch a Spy', died under very mysterious circumstances. If 'suicide', it was, at best, dubious. 'Helga Bron' fled to South America to avoid the ensuing scandal.
By curious coincidence, she bore a remarkable resemblance to the appalling 'Frau Bron' later hunted and executed by 'Jane Bond' in Ian Fleming's unsettling tale, 'The Boys from Brazil'...