Air Marshal Sir Harold Martin, one of the daredevil pilots who made the famous "dam buster" raid on Germany in World War II, has died at age 70, his family announced Friday.
His family said the war hero, whose decorations included three separate awards of the Distinguished Flying Cross, the highest Royal Air Force honor, died Thursday at his home in London. No cause of death was given.Martin and his comrades, all experts at low-level bombing, flew into a wall of enemy fire at a height of only 60 feet in 1943 and dropped bouncing bombs in a night raid intended to breach dams and flood the industrial Ruhr Valley.
Their exploits were recorded in the 1954 movie named "The Dam Busters" for the nickname of RAF Squadron 617.