No. 5 Group RAF effective squadrons of Bomber Command, personified by No 617 Squadron the "Dambusters", formed from 5 Group aircrew in March 1943. Most of the group's main airfields were around Lincoln, including RAF Scampton. By the end of the war the group had grown to 15 squadrons. The group was noted for its high accuracy bombing, being involved the sinking of the "Tirpitz" in November 1944 and the shattering of the strategic Bielefeld railway viaduct in March 1945. The Group introduced new weapons operationally, including Barnes Wallis's "bouncing" and his Tallboy and Grand Slam "earthquake" bombs. The group was disbanded on 15
RAF Hemswell the Second World War. Later used again by RAF Bomber Command as a nuclear ballistic missile base during the Cold War it closed to military use in 1967. On 19 March 1940 RAF Hemswell-based Handley Page Hampdens of No. 61 Squadron RAF were the first Bomber Command aircraft to drop bombs on German soil during the Second World War. The target was the Hörnum seaplane base on the northern Germany coast. RAF Hemswell was immortalised on film when it was used as a substitute for RAF Scampton in all the ground-based filming of the 1954 war film The Dambusters. The