Sir Barnes Neville Wallis was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise to attack the dams of the Ruhr Valley during World War II.
Wallis as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service
R100 airship
The Möhne Dam, breached by bouncing bombs
Valentin U-boat pen, with its roof of 4.5 metres of reinforced concrete blown open by a Grand Slam bomb
A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be pre-determined, in a similar fashion to a regular naval depth charge. The inventor of the first such bomb was the British engineer Barnes Wallis, whose "Upkeep" bouncing bomb was used in the RAF's Operation Chastise of May 1943 to bounce into German dams and explode underwater, with an effect similar to the underground detonation of the later Grand Slam and Tallboy earthquake bombs, both of which he also invented.
"Upkeep" bouncing bomb at the Imperial War Museum Duxford
Remains of a Highball test prototype recovered from Reculver in 1997, now at Herne Bay Museum
The Möhne dam breached by Upkeep bombs
Highball bouncing bomb prototype, now on display at Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset