Kembs Raid Introduction

 Introduction of the Kembs Maerkt Barrage Raid

During the Tunis campaign  in the spring of 1943, the Allies captured German Army general staff plans, which contained studies on the military uses of water dams.These documents reviewed and explained on how floods or tidal waves could be built into the system of defense of the "Reich " by massive opening or destroying the dams, especially on upper Rhine. The Allies knew pretty well that they had to be extremely cautious on this issue

The disaster which a dum demolition could cause was already seen on May 16, 1943, when British bombers of the special operations Sqd 617 successfully bombed the Eder and Möhn dams and poured over 336 million tons of water into the Ruhr and Edertal flooding main Reich industrial areas. The Schluchse Barrage on the Black Forest, whose demolition would have threatened also Southernly parts of Germany and some parts of NW Switzerland mainly city of Basel, with its 108 million tons of water, was almost as much as the Möhne Dam.

Dum Busters Ops "Chastise " Raid May 16,1943

The only dam which was completely under German control was the barrage of the Kembserwerk at Märkt near Weil Am Rhein. He was considered particularly vulnerable because he was closest to the surgical area. In order to exclude his arbitrary use by the Germans,US Army Eng.Corps Maj.Stanley Dziuban demanded that these would be destroyed or rendered incapacitated. This was effectively done by RAF on 7 October 1944.
                                                          

Maj.Stanley Dziuban US Army Eng Corps

 At the same time, agents of the  OSS  (Office of Strategy Service), the extremely versatile American sabotage and espionage organization, were parachuted at the Schluchsee area in the Black Forest , who had the task of preventing the barrage from being blown up. So far nothing has become public about this activity, so that one can not say whether it is due to them or an other authority nor Schluchseedamm was ever blown up and thus large areas of our borderland, including North West Switzerland or city of Basel was ever flooded.

   Pan view of Kembs Dum & Electrical Powerplant 1932 (Balair)

Post 1944 summer Allied landing campaign in northern and southern France,when the crossing of the Rhine and the transfer of hostilities to Germany would only be a matter of few months or weeks, engineers of the 6th Army Eng.Corps was assigned with operational planning.

They already undertaken experiements in Vicksburg (Mississippi) a "Waterway Experimental Station of the US. Army and had also built in a French factory in Grenoble a full-scale model of the Rhine River where they wanted to test the impact of dam bursting and openings.

It was over 200 m long and with the important dams, bridges (even the 5 bridges in the nearby Basel and locks were not missing either )  The model represented about 150 km of the current flow, starting at the exit of Lake Konstanz at Bodensee. Of particular importance was alos the modelling of Schluchseewerk in Schwarzwald.

At this laboratory the reduction of the Rhine water was exactly determined in the event if one or an other dam open, in case of a natural flood or the dam would be blown up. Thanks to the technical evaluation of the test results, the Allied engineers were able to predict the water level for every point of the Rhine in just a few minutes.

They were also able to determine which items were eligible for the construction of military bridges or which areas would be threatened by floods. Thus, in the winter of 1944, the locations for depots, hospitals, dumping grounds, reserve bridge material, etc. were chosen for the planned offensive. 

In addition, an alarm service and a water level forecast were established, which had its headquarters in Paris. Their agents in Switzerland sent several daily reports of water levels, rainfall, etc., and had the task of reporting all attempts by the Germans to seize the dams.

The seven dams of the Rhine from Angst to Eglisau were controlled as common property of the German and Swiss authorities. Without violating Swiss neutrality, the Allies were therefore not allowed to try to shut them down. But they could also count on Switzerland to do everything possible to keep the dams intact and not to misuse them for military purposes, as it did in fact prove. 

Nevertheless, it was agreed with the US Air Force that should immediately destroy any dam that would be taken or opened by the Germans during the Rhine offensive of French and US troops .

The final objective was to destroy the Kembs Barrage lock gates which it was feared it

would opened by the Germans to inundate the valley near Mulhouse, France where there
was likely to be in Allied advance .