Tumblr takeover: Sex, jokes and gifs

20 May 2013 Last updated at 13:17 GMT By Dave Lee Technology reporter, BBC News Users on David Karp's Tumblr platform have posted more than 50 billion entries since the site's inception Yahoo is desperate to be cool again.

And, like that kid at school who always got the newest gadgets and video games to impress his "friends", there's seemingly no shortage of money available to get what it wants.

Now, just two months after splashing out millions on a UK teenager's app Summly, Yahoo is set to buy one of the hottest properties in social media: Tumblr.

It will reportedly cost $1.1bn (£723m), a smidgen more than Facebook paid for photo-sharing service Instagram last year.

Yet with users already threatening to leave Tumblr en masse, will simply owning something trendy actually boost Yahoo's internet cred?

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It feels like someone is plunging a white hot poker into the woodwork, and setting it slowly on fire.”

End Quote Tumblr user "It's very hard to just buy something cool from somebody else and for it to remain cool," says Robin Klein, a partner at technology investors Index Ventures.

"It's important that the leadership at Tumblr comes into Yahoo, stays in Yahoo, and is a key participant there."

Chief executive Marissa Mayer has confirmed that founder David Karp is to stay with the company. Jimmy Wales, creator of Wikipedia, says this is an important component if the site is to remain a success.

"For a long time Yahoo was viewed in the industry as a very marketing-led company such that any respectable technologist would cringe if they had to work there," he told the BBC.

"Marissa is herself a respected technologist, full-on, and a great business person. And I think she is making all the right moves."

Global in-jokes

But what exactly has she bought?

Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales gives his reaction to Yahoo's deal with Tumblr

Tumblr describes itself as a way to "effortlessly share anything" using a mixture of text, pictures, videos and various other formats.

In plain English, Tumblr can be best described as something that exists between Twitter and a traditional blog, for people who have more than 140 characters to say - but not much time in which to say it.

This formula has seen the site notch up more than 100 million registered blogs, which between them have published more than 50 billion posts.

The site was set up in 2006, when Mr Karp put together the first bit of Tumblr's code in a two-week period between jobs. Within a year, Mr Karp was - according to his business partner at the time - now the reluctant chief executive of a rapidly expanding start-up.

But the huge levels of traffic came with predictable teething problems. Tumblr soon started to suffer from a lack of stability, with its equivalent of Twitter's "fail whale" - the screen presented when the service was over capacity - becoming a common and frustrating sight for users.

Several rounds of investment later, and with an employee base that has expanded from two back then to 175 today, the ship has been well and truly steadied.

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Yahoo's chief executive took to Tumblr in an attempt to ease the worries of users. This is what she said:

"We promise not to screw it up. Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.

"We will operate Tumblr independently. David Karp will remain CEO.

"The product roadmap, their team, their wit and irreverence will all remain the same as will their mission to empower creators to make their best work and get it in front of the audience they deserve.

"Yahoo! will help Tumblr get even better, faster."

And now, Tumblr thrives. Famed for its lightning-quick set-up speeds allowing people to have a great-looking, full-featured blog in seconds, Tumblr is centre stage in the internet community.

Tumblr's forte lies in viral hits or memes, global in-jokes which capture the mood of sometimes niche but passionate readers.

One recent example, White Men Wearing Google Glass, pokes fun at the ever-so-dorky appearance of those keen to show off Google's latest invention.

Last year's stand-out hit was Texts From Hillary Clinton - a collection of images captioned with humorous examples of what the then US Secretary of State may have been writing.

Clinton herself was a fan - the last image is one of her with the blog's creators.

Tumblr is even credited with bringing about the resurgence of the animated gif - an image format that until recently had been seen as tacky and outdated, but is now a key component of discourse and comedy online.

Not safe for work

All that sounds very appealing to Yahoo and its investors - but there is one elephant in the room that needs to be acknowledged. Or rather, naked people in the room.

Tumblr is bursting with amateur pornography. The company does not give a breakdown of how many of its sites are adult-orientated, but it's clear it has no issue in accommodating them.

The site's terms of service say sharing of explicit pictures is fine - as long as it is clearly labelled as NSFW, meaning not safe for work.

As for explicit video, it's a no-no to use Tumblr's own video feature to upload adult clips, but embedded videos uploaded elsewhere is not a problem - indeed, Tumblr even recommends a specific pornographic site to do just that.

It's an approach that could create problems for Yahoo, predicts Index Venture's Robin Klein.

Yahoo's Marissa Mayer is working to revive the company's fortunes

"This is where segmentation becomes so important," he tells the BBC. "Advertising must go to where it wants to be.

"There's no way advertisers will be happy to end up on porn sites."

US technology news site AllThingsD has reported a "source close to the situation" as saying Yahoo would have a hands-off approach to running the site - porn and all - once it is under their control.

Abandon ship!

But that hasn't stopped some users getting nervous.

"They're going to lose a number of bloggers," predicts Mr Klein.

"I'm sure they've factored that into their thinking. They're going to have to manage this."

Wordpress - a rival blogging platform - reported that more than 72,000 people imported their Tumblr blogs to Wordpress in just one hour on Sunday evening.

Within moments of the news of the probable buyout becoming public, bloggers flocked to Tumblr to express their dismay.

One user wrote: "Tumblr has been my safe place for three years now, and it feels like someone is plunging a white hot poker into the woodwork, and setting it slowly on fire. Thanks Yahoo."

A search for the term Yahoo on the site brings many more examples - some with colourful language.

Much of Tumblr's development team will join Yahoo

Yahoo will be hoping that, like so many internet storms, this anger will drift away - leaving behind a highly active, highly profitable bounty.

"Tumblr so far has not made a huge amount of money," says Luke Lewis, UK editor of news site Buzzfeed.

"But the potential is there. The people who use Tumblr are really young, they are really engaged and spend hours a day on Tumblr."

And while seemingly unpopular, Yahoo does at least have one thing going for it, according to one user.

"At least it wasn't bought by Facebook."

Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC

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VIDEO: YouTubers welcome charging plan

YouTube has launched a trial scheme allowing channels to charge users for the videos they watch.

A small number of channels will offer subscriptions starting at $0.99 (£0.64) a month.

Each channel will offer a free 14-day trial and many will have discounted annual rates.

JJ, who is behind the KSIOlajidebt channel, and Ali-A, who uploads regular Call of Duty gameplay videos, give their thoughts.

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Summer-born 'need exam score boost'

10 May 2013 Last updated at 14:18 GMT By Judith Burns BBC News education reporter All school tests should be marked on a sliding scale according to pupils age, says the study Summer-born children should have their exam marks boosted to compensate for being almost a year younger when they sit tests, a report argues.

In England, pupils born in August are less likely to get good GCSEs or go to university than those born in September, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says.

Some may even drop out of school.

The age-adjusted scores should be used to calculate school league table positions, the authors argue.

The report draws on an array of official data, including the National Pupil Database, which contains details of every pupil in England.

Report co-author Lorraine Dearden said: "In a world where everything was fair we would expect the proportion of kids by month of birth who get the expected level at each age to be the same."

But the report finds this is not the case, with a significant gap even at GCSE level. More than 60% of September-born pupils achieve five A* to C grades, compared with less than 54% of those born in August.

Mild special needs

August-born students are also around two percentage points less likely to go to university when they leave school, one percentage point less likely to attend a leading university and one percentage point less likely to complete a degree.

Some 12.5% of August-born pupils are assessed as having mild special educational needs by age 11, compared with only 7.1% of those born in September.

"Our research shows that children who are relatively young in their year have lower self-confidence, lower belief in their academic ability, and are more likely to start smoking younger than their relatively older peers," said co-author Claire Crawford.

The authors argue that being 11 months younger than the oldest pupils in the year when they sit tests is the main driver of the differences in test scores.

It outweighs the effect of having had less time at school in areas where summer-born children start education later in the year.

The report says the solution is to "age-adjust" national achievement test scores, arguing that this "is a simple and straightforward way of ensuring that those born towards the end of the academic year are not disadvantaged by taking the tests younger".

The team analysed scores from the Key Stage 2 tests, which are taken by all pupils in their final year of primary school in England. Primary school league table positions depend on pupils achieving an expected standard.

Sliding scale

They found that August-born pupils scored on average seven points less than classmates born in September.

They conclude that pass marks should rise for September-born children by three points: "So the oldest children would have to perform slightly better than they do at the moment in order to reach the expected level, which would now be an expected level for a given age rather than at a particular point in time."

The marks would change on a sliding scale, with the pass mark for children born in October and November rising by two points; for January and December-born children by one mark; staying the same for February and March children; and reducing by one point for those with April or May birthdays, by two points for those born in June or July, and by three points for those born in August.

The authors recommend that similar age-adjusted scores be extended to other school tests, from assessments of six-year-olds' reading skills to the crucial exams taken by 16-year-olds.

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If you started having different exam grades for children born in different months it would be extremely complicated. No one would understand it and there would be disputes”

End Quote Dame Sally Coates Academy headteacher However, the authors acknowledge that the differences are most dramatic when children are first at school, and lessen as they grow older and the relative age gap reduces. There is no evidence that they persist into adulthood. So the exam results given to prospective employers should be absolute scores rather than age-adjusted, they concede.

'Intensive intervention'

Head teachers warned that tinkering with pass marks could have unintended consequences.

Brian Lightman, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "Telling summer-born children that they don't have to perform as well as their peers will do nothing to raise their self-esteem, confidence or achievement in later life.

"Employers need graduates who have reached a certain standard of education. Giving some students a grade which is adjusted downwards would lower their standard of achievement when it actually needs to be raised. This will have the opposite effect to what is intended."

Dame Sally Coates, head of Burlington Danes Academy in west London, told the Today programme on Radio 4 that she had not personally seen evidence of a birthday-related performance gap at secondary level.

She suggested that instead of tinkering with exams there should be "intensive intervention for younger children in early primary school".

Dame Sally said: "If you started having different exam grades for children born in different months, it would be extremely complicated. No one would understand it and there would be disputes."

Prof Rachel Brooks, of the University of Surrey, agreed early intervention could help prevent disparities in educational outcome.

She said: "The way in which pupils are grouped can have an effect - streaming tends to compound disadvantage, while summer-born children tend to do better within mixed-ability classes."

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: "We trust teachers to put their pupils' results into context when discussing them with parents, particularly for young children where age can have a strong influence on the scores.

"In addition, we have changed the schools admissions code to make it easier for parents to defer their child's entry until they reach their fifth birthday."

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Is Ecuador home to the world's best chocolate?

5 June 2013 Last updated at 23:08 GMT By Irene Caselli Esmeraldas province, Ecuador Ecuador has some of the oldest varieties of cocoa trees, which have distinctive flavours In the lush province of Esmeraldas, on Ecuador's northern border with Colombia, farmers are proud to say they produce "black gold".

They are not talking about oil, Ecuador's main export, but cocoa beans.

The smooth, bitter-tasting paste extracted from the beans is the key ingredient in chocolate and one of this Andean country's claims to fame.

It is also deeply connected to the history of Ecuador, the world's largest exporter of cocoa until the beginning of the 20th Century.

Plant disease and the rise of new cultivations in British and French colonies across Africa and Asia saw Ecuador lose its top spot in the early 1900s.

Cocoa started losing its appeal to farmers and was replaced by bananas and coffee, which were more lucrative.

West Africa became the world's leader in cocoa production and exports, with a focus on so-called "bulk" or "ordinary" beans, used for processed chocolate-flavoured candies and sweets.

Connoisseurs say fine chocolate has as many distinctive tastes as fine wine. Vintage chocolate

"Fine" or "flavour" beans, the top-quality varieties used in gourmet products because of their superior taste, account for only 5% of the world's cocoa production, but demand is increasing.

Much like wine, chocolate reflects the flavours of the region where cocoa beans are grown, and how they are dried and fermented.

Over the last decade, as the demand for more flavourful cocoa has risen, Ecuador has emerged as the pre-eminent exporter of fine beans.

It is a favourite destination for globetrotting chocolatiers in search of the best, and cocoa production has also become a sustainable source of income for Ecuador's farmers.

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After 250 years exporting cocoa, nobody knew how to make chocolate in this country”

End Quote Santiago Peralta Ecuadorean chocolate maker "Farmers didn't use to pay much attention to cocoa," says Ignacio Estupinan, a 66-year-old farmer who is known in the area as Don Nacho.

"Now everybody knows how valuable cocoa is. It's the best business we have," he adds.

Scholars believe cocoa plants first grew in the Amazon basin, possibly in the area that now corresponds to Venezuela, another large cocoa exporter.

However, a recent archaeological study suggests that Ecuador may have been the original home of the cocoa bean.

Archaeologist Francisco Valdez found ceramic pottery dating to 3,300 BC that contained microscopic remnants of cocoa.

The discovery, made in Ecuador's southern Amazonian region of Zamora Chinchipe, suggests that cocoa beans were being harvested and consumed more than 5,000 years ago.

The West's love affair with chocolate started much later - in the 16th Century, when Aztec ruler Montezuma introduced Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes to a spicy chocolate drink, known as "xocolatl".

When sugar was added to the mix, the drink became a fad in Europe, and cocoa much sought after.

Ecuador played a key role in introducing chocolate to the West.

Unlike other Spanish colonies in South America, where gold and silver were abundant, Ecuador was exploited for its cocoa.

A scene depicting Spanish explorer Hernan Cortez meeting Montezuma , king of the Aztecs

Ecuador's native cocoa beans are known as "Nacional" or "Arriba", a name believed to derive from the location of its discovery. Arriba means "up river" and many cocoa plantations were located along the Guayas river, which flows towards the port of Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city.

Top quality

In her book Chocolate Unwrapped, Sarah Jane Evans, one of the UK's leading food writers and a founding member of the Academy of Chocolate, says that the characteristic of Ecuador's fine cocoa is "a floral profile with blackcurrants and spice."

Chocolate tasters say the aroma of Ecuador's cacao is more complex because Arriba beans vary hugely in taste and size according to the area in which they are grown.

"Each bean has a special, different flavour," says Santiago Peralta, founder of Pacari, a successful Ecuadorean brand of fine organic chocolate.

Mr Peralta says the quality of Ecuador's chocolate is due to the country's diversity in terrain and equatorial location on the equator.

While Ecuadorean chocolate is known for its floral characteristics, some beans taste more like fruits, while others have a nutty flavour.

Continue reading the main story It takes six months for cocoa beans to ripen. Harvests take place twice a yearThe beans, which are covered in a white pulp, are removed from the podsBeans are put in large heaps and covered up to ferment. This takes about a week. and is when the cocoa flavour starts to developBeans are then dried for a week then taken to the chocolate factoryThey are then roasted, and separated from their shells in hulling machinesThe insides of the bean, called nibs, are turned into a liquid or chocolate liquorThe chocolate liquor is blended with cocoa butter, and other ingredients and stirred for several hoursThe resulting thick mixture comes out and is poured into bar-shaped containersThe bars are now ready to be packaged and eaten, about four days after the cocoa beans reached the factory"We tailor-make our chocolate according to the cocoa beans we receive," Mr Peralta says, adding that he tastes every new batch of beans that arrives.

Mr Peralta's dedication is one of the reasons Pacari has become the success story of Ecuador's cocoa boom.

"We wanted to have the best quality - it was the only chance we had to make it," he explains.

"After 250 years exporting cocoa, nobody knew how to make chocolate in this country."

In 2002, together with his wife, Carla Barboto, Mr Peralta went looking for old cocoa trees, while developing a fair-trade model to give farmers better pay for a better product.

The experiment worked. His chocolate company won several prizes at the 2012 International Chocolate Awards for its combination of flavours and a successful alternative business model.

One of its bars, Raw Chocolate, was judged the best "dark plain" bar in the world.

Pacari's Ecuador-based production did not go unnoticed.

Other Ecuadorean companies started making their own chocolate and foreign chocolate-makers came to Ecuador not only to source their beans, but also to produce bars.

Local pride

New York-based Red Thalhammer visited several cocoa-producing countries before settling for Ecuador.

A native of Austria, Ms Thalhammer had previously worked on branding for gourmet food and was not ready to let go of those high standards for her own chocolate.

"Ecuador has super-high quality cocoa," Ms Thalhammer says.

She started her own chocolate line, called Antidote Choco, made entirely in Ecuador.

Several other chocolate-makers have followed suit. One company, Ecuatoriana de Chocolates, opened up a factory in 2007 to help chocolatiers go from bean to bar in one location.

The implications go far. For example, in Esmeraldas, one of the poorest provinces in the country, farmers can now get more money if they produce high quality cocoa.

"In the past, Esmeraldas was not considered a cocoa-growing area, but now it has been producing prize-winning chocolate," says Daysi Rodriguez, a community worker in Esmeraldas. "This fills us with pride!"

On his farm, Don Nacho looks at a 50-year-old cocoa tree.

He works on his own on the 60-hectare farm, where he grows 30 different varieties of fruit, besides cocoa.

He seems tired, but he also seems to care about something else, more important.

"We have to work together to make our country look good abroad," he says.

Ecuador's new black gold may be providing a rather stable future for farmers, while at the same type putting Ecuador back on the chocolate map.

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IMF chief Lagarde made key witness

24 May 2013 Last updated at 20:28 GMT Speaking after a second day of questioning, Ms Lagarde insisted she had always acted in the interests of the state

A French court has decided not to place the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, under investigation over a payout made when she was finance minister.

Ms Lagarde was instead made an assisted witness in the case, meaning she will be called upon to testify but is not directly under suspicion.

Some 400m euros (£342m; $516m) was paid to disgraced tycoon Bernard Tapie in 2007.

Ms Lagarde has denied any wrongdoing.

"My status as assisted witness is not a surprise to me, since I always acted in the interests of the state and in conformity with the law," Ms Lagarde said after a second day of questioning that lasted some 12 hours.

The status of assisted witness is far less damaging for Ms Lagarde than if she had been placed under formal investigation, which could have put her under pressure to resign, the BBC's David Chazan reports from Paris.

He says there will be relief in France, where there were fears the country's image would be tarnished.

The Court of Justice of the Republic, which investigates ministerial misconduct, is looking into claims that Mr Tapie, a controversial business figure, may have received favourable treatment because of his support for the former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

'Best solution'

Ms Lagarde decided to use arbitration to settle a long-running legal battle between the state and Mr Tapie. The tycoon received a much bigger payout than he might have been awarded by a court.

Continue reading the main story 1993: Credit Lyonnais bank handles sale of Adidas, in which Bernard Tapie is a majority stakeholder1993-2007: Court battle drags on as Mr Tapie claims Credit Lyonnais undervalued the sale and that he was cheated following the winding-up of the once publicly-owned bank2007: Mr Tapie, a former Socialist, switches to support Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election. Ms Lagarde, Mr Sarkozy's finance minister, intervenes in the Tapie case to order binding arbitration2008: Special panel of judges rules Mr Tapie should receive damages of 285m euros (400m after interest added)2011: Public prosecutor recommends judicial investigation into Ms Lagarde's actionsMarch 2013: French police search Ms Lagarde's Paris apartmentApril 2013: Ms Lagarde receives summons to appear before magistrate for questioning The IMF chief insists the award was the best solution at the time. She is not accused of profiting from the payout, but she is being questioned over the alleged misuse of public funds.

The case stretches back to 1993 when Mr Tapie sold his stake in sports company Adidas to Credit Lyonnais. Soon afterwards, the bank sold on the stake for a much bigger profit.

Mr Tapie claimed the partially state-owned bank had defrauded him by deliberately undervaluing Adidas at the time of the sale, and the arbitration panel found in his favour.

Ms Lagarde's predecessor as head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was forced to resign in 2011 after a New York hotel maid accused him of sexual assault. Charges were later dropped.

The BBC's correspondent in Paris, Christian Fraser, says that after that scandal, few in France want to see another prominent French politician embarrassed on the world stage.

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In pictures: Cleveland women rescued

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How effective was the Dambusters raid?

15 May 2013 Last updated at 00:10 GMT Seventy years ago an RAF bomber raid destroyed important German dams. At the time many argued it was only a propaganda victory. It was much more than that, writes historian Dan Snow.

At 9.28pm on 16 May 1943, the first of 19 Lancaster heavy bombers lifted off the runway into a clear, still early summer night.

It was another British raid on the Ruhr region of Germany. The industrial heartland of Hitler's war machine was straining to produce tanks, ammunition and aircraft for a final, titanic assault on the Soviet Red Army on the Eastern Front.

British aircraft had been levelling entire neighbourhoods, blasting and incinerating homes, factories and people in a series of massive but clumsy blows.

This raid was different. This was a raid aimed with astonishing precision against a choke point in Germany's production chain. As such it was the ancestor of today's "smart bombs" and surgical strikes.

It was a raid sent to destroy a series of mighty dams, wreaking havoc with the Ruhr's vital water supplies. Known as Operation Chastise to its planners, it is remembered simply as the Dambusters raid.

The story of the Lancasters that left RAF Scampton that night is utterly remarkable for so many reasons. There was the ingenuity of the weapon they carried - a purpose-built bomb, codenamed Upkeep, designed by the brilliant Barnes Wallis to bounce along the surface of water like a skimming stone to avoid obstacles placed in its way.

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Dan Snow presents The Dambusters: 70 Years On, live from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, on Thursday 16 May, 19:00 BST on BBC Two.

The skill and bravery of the pilots who flew at night, at 100ft (30m) or less over enemy territory is breathtaking. They flew so low that one hit the sea, which tore off the underslung bomb, and scooped up seawater into the fuselage, while another was engulfed in flames as it ploughed straight into high voltage electricity cables.

The aircraft that did make it to the dams pressed home their attacks with a reckless disregard for their own safety. The results certainly impressed the world at the time - two dams were breached, and a third damaged.

As flood water surged down the valleys, factories and infrastructure were badly affected. The combination of science, flying skill, grit and the obvious impact of the raids made it front page news around the world and turned the Dambusters into celebrities.

Continue reading the main story Barnes Neville Wallis was born 26 September 1887 in Ripley, DerbyshireHe developed a drum-shaped, rotating device that would bounce over water, roll down a dam's wall and explode at its base for the Dambusters raidBecame a Royal Society fellow in 1954 and knighted in 1968; died 20 October 1979The post-war film, enduringly popular, cemented the raid in the popular consciousness. Yet this celebration of the raid provoked a backlash. Experts such as Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland - the official historians of the Strategic Air Offensive - believed that it was oversold, its achievements exaggerated and other Bomber Command raids unfairly ignored.

These voices point to the speed at which the dams were repaired, and production of energy, steel and other armaments resumed. British planners had known that the success of the raid largely depended on the German ability to rebuild the dams in time to store up the autumn rains.

The Germans certainly rose to the challenge: the dams, which had taken five years to build, were repaired by armies of forced labourers working around the clock in just five months.

A major hydroelectric power station at Herdecke was out of action for weeks, not months, thanks to a similarly Herculean effort. Thousands of troops, Hitler youth, prisoners of war and enslaved workers were thrown at the task.

Canals were dredged, factories rebuilt, river banks reinstated, bridges replaced. Britain's bomber supremo, Sir Arthur Harris, who had opposed the raid as harebrained all along, with some justification, wrote later: "I have seen nothing... to show that the effort was worthwhile except as a spectacular operation."

Senior Nazis downplayed the damage after the war. Albert Speer, the German armaments minister, expressed amazement that the repair operations were left untroubled by further bombing raids which would have delayed the vital reconstruction and turned a nuisance into a major crisis.

Time has thrown up a wealth of information about the impact of the raids, much of it unavailable to an earlier generation of historians.

In James Holland's recent book, Dam Busters: The Race to Smash the Dams, he states that "it is time to put the record straight". He insists that the damage was "absolutely enormous" and it was "an extraordinary achievement".

He points out that every bridge for 30 miles below the breached Mohne dam was destroyed, and buildings were damaged 40 miles away. Twelve war production factories were destroyed, and around 100 more were damaged. Thousands of acres of farmland were ruined.

Germans instantly referred to it after the raid as the "Mohne catastrophe". Even the cool Speer admitted that it was "a disaster for us for a number of months". German sources attribute a 400,000-tonne drop in coal production in May 1943 to the damage caused.

19 May 1967: Members of the original Dambusters crew in front of a WWII Lancaster bomber

Another German report into the effects of the raid talked about "considerable losses of production" caused by "the lack of water" and that "many shaft mines, coking plants, smelting works, power stations, fuel plants and armaments factories were shut down for several days".

The fact that a titanic effort was made to repair this damage shows how high a priority the dams were, and it meant resources were shifted from elsewhere. Nowhere was this costlier to the Third Reich than on the beaches of Normandy.

Hitler had ordered the construction of a massive network of defences against an Allied invasion. Now thousands of workers who should have been toiling in France were redirected to the Ruhr to repair the dams. A year later allied troops would have faced far more significant defences had it not been for the Dambusters raid.

No raid mounted by so few aircraft had ever caused such extensive material damage. It did not bring German war production to a permanent halt, but nobody had expected it to.

Its critics talk of its propaganda impact as if wars are fought by dispassionate robots rather than soldiers, workers and politicians with all the irrational cauldron of human emotions. Propaganda, as Churchill knew so well, is as much a part of war as killing enemy soldiers.

The most important impact of the Dambusters raid may indeed have been in convincing people on both sides that the Allies were winning, and that, often, is how wars are won and lost.

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