Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (2 page)

On 13 September 105 and 139 Squadrons received orders to vacate Horsham St. Faith by 28 September, as the Americans were due to arrive to base medium bombers there and in November the 2nd Bomb Wing would assume control of the airfield for P-47 and later Liberator operations. The Mosquitoes were to move to RAF Marham 9 miles south-east of King’s Lynn where they would replace 115 and 218 Squadrons of 3 Group. Amid the changeover, on 19 September, six crews in 105 Squadron attempted the first daylight Mosquito raid on Berlin. Two pilots Sergeant Norman Booth
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and Flight Sergeant K.L. Monaghan  were both forced to return early. Flight Lieutenant Roy Ralston and Flying Officer Sydney Clayton bombed Hamburg after finding Berlin covered by cloud. George Parry and ‘Robbie’ Robson were intercepted on two occasions by Fw 190s but managed to evade them. Parry jettisoned his bombs near Hamburg and turned for home, heading back across the north coast of Germany and into Holland. At 1,000ft, just off the Dutch coast, two 109s attacked but although one of them scored hits, Parry dived down to sea level and soon outran them. Squadron Leader Norman Henry Edward Messervy
DFC
, an Australian from Point Cook, and his navigator Pilot Officer Frank Holland in M-Mother were shot down by an Fw 190 piloted by
Schwarmführer Oberfeldwebel
Anton-Rudolf ‘Toni’ Piffer of 2nd
Staffel
/JG1.
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The Mosquito crashed 30 kilometres NNW of Osnabrück with the loss of both crew. Messervy was a second tour man having flown sixty-eight operations on Blenheims and PR Spitfires on 3 PRU in 1941. Only Warrant Officer Charles R. K. Bools
MiD
and Sergeant George Jackson succeeded in bombing the ‘Big City’.

A few days later the expert low-level raiders in 105 Squadron were told to prepare for a long overwater operation, which would be flown at heights of just 50-100ft. George Parry, now a squadron leader, would lead, with ‘Robbie’ Robson as his navigator. The three other crews were Pilot Officer Pete W.T. Rowland and Pilot Officer Richard ‘Dick’ Reilly, Parry’s No 2; Flying Officer Alec Bristow and Pilot Officer Bernard Marshall; and Flight Sergeant Gordon K. Carter and Sergeant William S. Young. Their target was the
Gestapo
HQ in Oslo. The Norwegian Government-in-Exile in London had been made aware by reports from the Norwegian Underground that morale in their
Nazi
-subjugated homeland was at a low ebb. They also learned that a rally of
Hirdsmen
(Norwegian Fascists) and Quislings would take place in the Norwegian capital between 25-27 September and it therefore seemed an ideal opportunity for the Mosquitoes to help restore national pride. As well as disrupting the parade, they were to bomb the
Gestapo
HQ between the Town Hall and the Royal Palace, which stands on a hill.

On 25 September the four Mosquitoes, their bomb bays empty, taxied out at Marham and took off for Leuchars in Scotland, where the operation came under the control of Wing Commander Hughie Edwards
VC
DFC. The raid involved a round-trip of 1,100 miles with an air time of 4 hours 45 minutes, the longest Mosquito mission thus far, the crews using dead reckoning along the entire route. The Mosquitoes were refuelled and bombed-up with four 11-second delayed-action 500lb bombs and they set off at low-level, 50ft all the way, to Norway. They went through the Skaggerak, made landfall at the southern end of Oslo Fjord and flew up the eastern side. As they flew up to a police radio station perched on a hill Parry hit the flexible 45ft-high radio antenna, although it did no damage to his Mosquito. Crews had been briefed that there would be 10/10ths cloud at 2,000ft over Oslo but it was a lovely day with blue sky. They had also been told that there were no fighters to worry about, but the Germans had brought some Fw 190s south from Stavanger for a flypast during the parade. They had landed at Fornebu and had only been on the ground a short time when, at 15.00 hours, the Mosquitoes swooped out of brilliant autumn sunshine over the centre of Oslo. A lookout at the southern end of Oslo Fjord reported the bombers and two Focke Wulfs got into the action although, fortunately, the rest did not get off in time. The pilot of the leading fighter was 22-year-old
Unteroffizier
Rudolf ‘Rudi’ Fenten, who had temporarily left his unit to train on and pick up the new Fw 190 at Sola/Stavanger. Flying the other Fw 190 was 24-year-old
Feldwebel
Erich Klein of 3./JG5 based at Herdla near Bergen. Both pilots were very experienced. Fenten had been in the
Luftwaffe
since 1940, while Klein had joined it in 1937. Fenten at first thought that the twin-engined aircraft flying ahead of him in two pairs were part of the flypast. (The Mosquito was still top-secret and largely unknown to the German units.)
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Then he realized they were too low and he chased after Carter’s Mosquito whose port engine was set on fire.  Fenten followed until the Mosquito exploded in front of him and crashed into Lake Engervannet near Sandvika.

Parry meanwhile, was concentrating on ‘buzzing’ the parade and taking a line south-west over the centre of Oslo for the bomb run. Pinpointing the town hall near the harbour with the old Akerhus fortress, the Royal palace, at one end of the main street and the high dome of the building housing the
Gestapo
headquarters was simple enough. Parry was flying at 280-300 mph when he dropped his bombs. Erich Klein, meanwhile, went after Pete Rowland and Dick Reilly. The two aircraft chased around the fir trees north of Oslo for many minutes until Klein struck a tree with his wing and he was forced to return to Fornebu.
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Some of the Mosquitoes’ bombs did not explode but everyone thought that it was a remarkably successful raid especially because it was the first long-distance raid the Mosquitoes had carried out. All three crews were debriefed and they flew back to Norfolk the next morning to rejoin the squadron at Marham. The post-mortem and camera pictures taken on the raid revealed that at least four bombs had entered the roof of the
Gestapo
HQ; one had remained inside and failed to detonate and the other three had crashed through the opposite wall before exploding.

On 26 September George Parry flew down to Hendon to travel into London to Broadcasting House where that night he broadcast the story of the raid on the BBC Home Service. Listeners heard that a new aircraft, the Mosquito, had been revealed officially for the first time by the RAF and that four had made a daring roof-top raid on Oslo. Parry recalled that the Air Ministry had ‘cooked up’ a script but he felt that it was not true but they said, ‘Don’t worry old boy, it’s for the public. They’ll lap it up’. Parry however changed it and the broadcast was very different to the handout he had been given by the Air Ministry. ‘On Friday afternoon Quisling and I had an appointment in the same town. Quisling had a big crowd with him, I believe it was one of his party rallies. I only had a little crowd and we were in four Mosquitoes  and they gave us very short notice. But we were punctual.’ The BBC paid George Parry five guineas, which he gave to the RAF Benevolent Fund.

On 30 September Parry flew to Newmarket in a Mosquito with Flying Officer Thomas, to meet the people from the Norwegian Embassy. Parry landed on the racecourse runway and was soon in animated conversation with the four Norwegians in a large hotel in the centre of Newmarket. They had been very pleased with the raid and its outcome.

October was a mix of low-level shallow-dive raids at dusk on targets in Belgium and Holland and high-level attacks on German cities. It was also a month when several crews were lost to the ‘Butcher Birds’ of JG1 and JG 26. On 9 October Wing Commander Edwards and ‘Tubby’ Cairns and another Mosquito crewed by Warrant Officer Charles R.K. Bools
MiD
and Sergeant George Jackson set out to bomb Duisburg.
Feldwebel
Fritz Timm of 12./JG1 shot down Bools and Jackson over Belgium.
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At dusk on Sunday, 11 October three pairs of Mosquitoes were despatched to bomb Hanover but two of the Mosquitoes were intercepted by Fw 190As of II./JG26 while
en route
over Holland.
Unteroffizier
Günter Kirchner of the 5th Staffel took off from Katwijk and intercepted Pilot Officer Jim Lang and Flying Officer Robin P. ‘Tommy’Thomas 2 kilometres from Utrecht and shot them down.
Unteroffizier
Kolschek of the 4th Staffel was credited with shooting down Squadron Leader James G.L. ‘Jimmy’ Knowles
DFC
and Flight Sergeant Charles Gartside. Lang and Thomas survived to be taken prisoner but no trace was ever found of Knowles and Gartside who had flown a tour on Blenheims and had only just returned from a ‘rest’ at 13 OTU Bicester before they were posted to 139 Squadron on 3 August. It was Kolschek’s second Mosquito victory as he had been credited with having shot down and killed Pilot Officer Geoffrey Downe
RAAF
and Pilot Officer Alfred Groves
DFM
on 15 August near Ghent-Mariakerke in Belgium during the operation to Mainz.
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Night Intruder operations were flown against targets on the continent. On 30 October Sergeant Reginald Levy and Sergeant Les Hogan and Flying Officer William ‘Bill’ Blessing
RAAF
and Sergeant J. Lawson in 105 Squadron attacked the
Luftwaffe
night-fighter aerodrome at Leeuwarden in Holland. Levy was born in Portsmouth and had lived in Lancashire for most of his youth before beginning pilot training in the USA with the first class of UK cadets in the ‘Arnold Scheme’.

By the time he was sent to 17 OTU for conversion to Blenheims he had 200 hours, an enormous figure by the standards of the day. His instructor had 63 hours! One day he was at dispersal when the aerodrome was well and truly ‘beaten up’ by an aeroplane the like of which he and his fellow pilot’s had never seen before. It finished the ‘beat up’ by feathering an engine and departed in an upward roll. It was June 1942 and this was Levy’s first sight of the Mosquito. From then on there was no other aeroplane for him. Levy, who thought that he was fortunate to be one of the two crews selected for posting to 105 Squadron, remembers:

We attacked Leeuwarden successfully but I was hit by flak from the ground defences coming across the boundary of the airfield. The port engine was set on fire and the instrument panel and windscreen disappeared with the nose of the aircraft. I was hit in the leg, although I didn’t feel it at the time and my observer, Les Hogan, was hit in the arm. At 40ft or so control was tricky. So I called Les to press the extinguisher button on the port engine, which I had feathered. He promptly pushed the starboard one! The good engine was filled with foam, coughed once or twice and then, miraculously, the good old Merlin caught again and we snaked along almost sideways at about 160 mph. I had to jam my foot under the rudder bar to keep it straight as the rudder-trim handle had been shot away. We went out over the aptly named Friesian Island of Overflakee, straight between two German ships, which opened up on us. Luckily we were so low that they could not get their guns to bear down on us and the ship on the port side hit the ship on the starboard side, starting a fire in the bows. During the return flight over the sea Les wound down the trailing aerial to try and signal base. The aerial hit the sea and Les yelled that he had been hit again, but it was the handle whizzing round which had banged him in his seat. We managed to get back to Marham, but I couldn’t go into cloud as we had no instruments and we were actually in the circuit when our long-suffering Merlin packed up. We went down into a nearby wood, skating along the tops of the trees, demolishing about thirty (according to the farmer who claimed compensation) before we came to a standstill and promptly blew up. My feet had gone through the side of the fuselage and I was helpless. Les Hogan stepped out of the front (there was no nose, it was in Leeuwarden), took off my boot and we ran like mad despite the wound in my leg, which was now making itself felt. We didn’t have a scratch on us from the crash, which had completely demolished the Mosquito. Had the Mosquito been a metal aircraft I am sure that my foot would have been severed and I am sure that we were saved by the complete break-up of the aeroplane. After three weeks in Ely hospital we were back at Marham and operating again.
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On 7 November Squadron Leader Roy Ralston led six Mosquitoes at wave-top height across the Bay of Biscay to attack two large German blockade-running motor vessels in the Gironde estuary. The operation had been mounted at short notice and preparation had been minimal. The ships’ crews were taken completely by surprise as the 500lb bombs fell full on them and things only got hectic afterwards, but no one stayed around for long. The Mosquito flown by Flight Lieutenant Alec Bristow and Pilot Officer Bernard Marshall was shot down by flak and they survived to be taken prisoner. Ralston was to become one of the most accomplished and skilful low-level bomber pilots of the war. A raid on 9 December demonstrates his quick thinking and rapid response to a given situation. He spotted a German troop train about to enter a tunnel on the Paris to Soissons railway line and immediately decided on a plan of action. Unlike the more conventional thinking of the ‘average’ pilot he did not attack the train itself but decided to create more havoc with an unconventional attack. He dropped down to tree-top height behind the train and dropped a bomb into the mouth of the tunnel. He then quickly orbited the tunnel and bombed it at the other end before it emerged, thus effectively entombing the train, its crew and cargo in the tunnel.

Meanwhile, plans were well advanced for mounting 2 Group’s biggest operation of the war, an attack on the Philips works in Eindhoven, Holland from low-level. Although some industrial processes had been dispersed to other sites, Eindhoven was still the main centre, especially for research into electronic counter-measures and radar. Preparations for Operation Oyster, the most ambitious daylight raid conceived by 2 Group, had been given the green light on 9 November. Originally plans called for the Strijp Group main works to be bombed by twenty-four Venturas, twelve Mitchells and twelve Mosquitoes, while twelve Venturas and thirty-six Bostons would at the same time attack the Emmasingel Lamp and valve works half a mile to the east. The slower Venturas would lead the way at low level with HE and 30lb incendiaries before surprise was lost. On 17 November a full-scale practice was held on a route similar to the one to be used, with the St. Neots power station as the ‘target’. Many basic lessons were learned, while other problems associated with a mixed force, such as the differences in bombing techniques and cruising speeds, were exposed. The Mitchells fared particularly badly on this first practice but even worse were the Venturas. Next day thirty of their crews tried again on their own on the same route and a vast improvement was recorded. On 20 November on the third practice, all four aircraft types took part. The aircraft flew east beyond the English coast then turned north. The tightly packed formation of Venturas was at almost nought feet but the ‘tailgating’ effect meant that they were flying in each other’s slipstream and this caused aircraft to twist and yaw with the fearsome danger of hitting the water or another aircraft. At Flamborough Head, where they turned inland to the supposed ‘target’, the Venturas became entangled with Bostons and Mosquitoes ‘in a frightening shambles’, exacerbated by a simulated attack by Spitfires, which dived amongst them ‘with amazing daring’. Surprisingly, there were no collisions, even though more than 100 aircraft were involved. Next day a frank post-mortem took place and then came the announcement: the target was Philips’ Radio Factory at Eindhoven. The Bostons were to go in first and bomb from a medium height, followed by Venturas carrying a mixture of incendiaries and delayed-action bombs and finally the Mosquitoes would sweep in to distract the fire fighters. To bluff enemy defences, fighters would make three diversionary sweeps and there would be top cover as well.