Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (4 page)

Sergeant pilot H.C. ‘Gary’ Herbert
RAAF
in 105 Squadron, whose navigator was Sergeant C. ‘Jakey’ Jacques, wrote:
²⁰

Quite a long trip. The leader got lost on the way out and led us around Denmark for over half an hour before we found the target. We went past a small coastal ship and it plastered us with tracer but didn’t hit anybody. When we eventually found the target it was getting dark but we hit it good and proper. We attacked between two big chimneys and hit the machine shops and power station. Our bombs were delayed half-hour, three hours, 6 hours and 36 hours to disorganise the place for a while. Other kites had 11second delay bombs as well as long delay. We got quite a lot of light flak as we left the target but kept on the housetops and nobody was hit. When we got well away it was pretty dark and one of the kites was hit by flak and exploded on the ground at 17.13 hours. The two sergeants in it [James G. Dawson and Ronald H. Cox] were damn good chaps too. Petrol was getting short so we throttled back to 230 mph and as we passed the last island on the west of Denmark we went straight over a machine-gun post at 200ft. It threw up a lot of flak but I jinked and dodged it OK. We came back quietly and landed in the dark at 8 pm.

One kite ran out of juice and crashed about 20 miles away [killing Sergeant Richard Clare and Flying Officer Edward Doyle of 139 Squadron, who hit a balloon cable and tree at East Dereham after the starboard engine failed]. We flew number two to Wing Commander Edwards
VC
. However, we had a scare on the way back when we were struck by lightning twice and each time a ball of fire appeared on the wing and gradually died out. I looked at the wing but there wasn’t a mark on it. Seems queer to me but the weather man said it had happened before so I couldn’t have had the DTs. [Edwards landed with only fifteen gallons of fuel in his tanks; enough for about another six and a half miles]. Invited the Officers over to the mess in the evening to have a few drinks and fight the battle again. Nice evening. At the time for the bombs to go off we drank a toast to them. On Friday 30th some news came in from Sweden of our raid on Copenhagen. Apparently it was a huge success and the Diesel works were flattened. A sugar factory and another six-storey building burned to the ground. They thought our delay bombs were duds but they all went off OK on time.

On 30 January there was some trepidation among Mosquito crews at Marham who were due to raid Berlin to disrupt speeches in the city’s main broadcasting station on what was the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s seizure of power. Three crews in 105 Squadron led by Squadron Leader ‘Reggie’ W. Reynolds
DFC
and Pilot Officer E. B. ‘Ted’ Sismore would bomb Berlin that morning when
Reichsmarschall
Hermann Göring was due to speak. In the afternoon three Mosquitoes of 139 Squadron would arrive over Berlin at the time Dr. Joseph Göbbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, was due to address the German nation at the Sports Palast. Most of the pilots and navigators could not face breakfast. An exception was Flying Officer A.T. ‘Tony’ Wickham one of the three pilots in 105 Squadron who was taking part (with his navigator, Pilot Officer W.E.D. Makin). Wickham heartily drank three tins of orange juice and polished off half a dozen fried eggs. A month earlier, as a young pilot officer going on his first trip, a high level dawn raid on cities in the Ruhr (when casualties were particularly heavy), his reaction during a gloomy five o’clock breakfast had been quite different. Wickham suddenly burst out and said, ‘I suppose this is a death or glory effort?’ Hughie Edwards lent forward, looked at him and said, ‘There is no glory in it and that’s what makes it so worthwhile.’ Flight Lieutenant John ‘Flash’ Gordon
DFC
and Flying Officer Ralph G. Hayes
DFC
who three days earlier had returned with a damaged port wing, completed the trio of aircraft due in Berlin for ‘elevenses’

The three Mosquitoes arrived over Berlin at exactly 11.00 hours and the explosion of their bombs severely disrupted the
Reichsmarschall
’s speech. Listeners heard a few muffled words followed by confusion of many voices, then another shout or bang after which, the microphone was apparently switched off and martial music played. It was then announced that Göring’s speech would be delayed for a few moments. But after three-quarters of an hour, martial music was still being played! That afternoon the three Mosquitoes of 139 Squadron flown by Squadron Leader Donald F.W. Darling
DFC
and Flying Officer William Wright, Flight Sergeant Peter John Dixon McGeehan and Flying Officer Reginald Charles Morris and Sergeants Joe Massey and ‘Lofty’ Fletcher arrived over Berlin at the time Göbbels was due to speak. They dropped their bombs right on cue. However, the earlier raid alerted the defences and flak brought down the Mosquito flown by Darling and Wright. Both were buried in Berlin’s 1939-45 war cemetery. That night ‘Tony’ Wickham treated British listeners to the BBC’s 9 o’clock news to an account of the action. ‘Lord Haw Haw’ trying to sound convincing in a German broadcast to any who cared to listen, announced that, ‘Thanks to the U-boat campaign Britain is so starved of materials that she has been compelled to build her bombers of wood.’ Reynolds was awarded the
DSO
while all the other officers received the
DFC
and the sergeants,
DFMS
.
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The Berlin performance brought the following message from Sir Arthur Harris to the air officer commanding 2 Group:

Please convey to all concerned and particularly to the crews of the aircraft, my warmest congratulations on the magnificent daylight attack carried out on Berlin by your Mosquitoes. Their bombs coincided with an attempt by Göring to broadcast to the German people on the tenth anniversary of Hitler’s usurpation of power and cannot have failed to cause consternation in Germany and encouragement to the oppressed peoples of Europe. 

On the afternoon of 14 February, in what became known as the ‘Great Tours Derby’ six Mosquitoes of 139 Squadron attacked the engine sheds in the French city from low level. The following evening, twelve Mosquitoes of 105 Squadron attacked the goods depot from low-level and on the 18th, twelve Mosquitoes made a shallow dive attack, two aborted and one aircraft failed to return. On 14 February Hughie Edwards, who had been promoted Group Captain four days earlier, left 105 Squadron to take up a post at HQ Bomber Command prior to taking command of RAF Binbrook on the 18th.
²²
Edwards’ successor was Wing Commander Geoffrey P. Longfield who on 26 February led an attack by twenty Mosquitoes of 105 and 139 Squadrons on the Rennes Naval Arsenal.

Ten aircraft were to go in at low level led by Longfield and ten Mosquitoes of 139 Squadron were to follow just behind, climb to 2,000ft and dive bomb behind the first wave. Longfield’s navigator Flight Lieutenant Roderick Milne lost his bearings on the final run up to the target, which took the Mosquitoes to an airfield 6 miles south of the target. The airfield defences sent up a hail of light flak as the Mosquitoes turned towards the target. On low-level attacks the Mosquitoes had always flown in echelon starboard and any left-hand turns created no problems as all members of the formation could keep the aircraft on his left in sight. However, Longfield, who had turned too far to the left, suddenly turned right again. In a sharp turn to the right as each pilot lifted his left wing to turn right his wing obscured the aircraft to his left because he could not drop down as in higher altitudes. Canadian Flying Officers Spencer Kimmel and Harry Kirkland who were formatting on Longfield, sliced into their leader’s tail and Longfield went up into a loop and dived straight into the ground west of Rennes St. Jacques. Kimmel lost height and disappeared below the trees at 300-mph. Longfield and Milne and Kimmel and Kirkland all died. (On the way home a 139 Squadron Mosquito flown by Lieutenant T.D.C. Moe and his observer 2nd Lieutenant O. Smedsaas, both
RNAF
, crashed and the two Dutchmen were killed).

By the time the others reached the target Warrant Officer ‘Gary’ Herbert, who before the operation had agreed to change positions with Kimmel, could see the dive-bombers already starting their dive. The Australian pilot knew his formation would be blown up by the 11-second delayed action 500lb bombs carried by some of the Mosquitoes if they went in. He therefore turned violently to the west and climbed to about 700ft and dived below the other formation and got his bombs on the target. Others in his formation bombed alternative targets. Pilot Officer G. W. ‘Mac’ McCormick, a young officer on only his fourth operation did not see the dive-bombers until it was too late and he went in at low level [139 Squadron were dropping 500lb MC (medium capacity) bombs with instantaneous fuses]. Herbert said, ‘God knows how he got through because photographs showed him right in the middle of the bursts. He came back with his radiators full of flock from bombed bedding stores. He used up a lot of luck today.’ Next day ‘Mac’ McCormick and visiting Wing Commander John W. Deacon were killed on a training flight when they failed to pull out of a dive from 30,000ft and crashed a mile to the south-east of Marham at Brick Kiln Plantation.

On Sunday, 28 February six of 105 Squadron’s Mosquitoes led by Wing Commander Roy Ralston went to the John Cockerill Steel works at Liège. Four more led by Pilot Officer Onslow Thompson
DFM RNZAF
and Pilot Officer Wallace

J. Horne
DFC
went to the Stork Diesel Engine Works at Hengelo, in what was the eighth raid on the Dutch town by Mosquitoes. At Liège the Mosquitoes bombed at about 200ft and results were ‘good’ but at Hengelo things were different. Teenager Henk F. van Baaren, whose father owned a shop in the Brinkstraat, saw at first hand the repeated bombing of his town, the first by RAF heavies on the night of 24 June 1940. This experience made a big impression on the young Dutchman. A single aircraft dropped bombs, which fell in the centre of town at the corner of the Brinkstraat, a street with shops whose shopkeepers, like his father, lived with their families on the first and second floors above. The bombs fell on a shoe-shop and a pub killing two adults and two children. Many of the inhabitants moved to the safety of the outskirts of town or in neighbouring villages The van Baarens moved to Enschede, 6 miles away and stayed there at night for six weeks with his grandparents, cycling back and forth to their shop during the day. Henk witnessed the first Mosquito raid on Hengelo, by 105 Squadron on 6 October 1942 and eleven more Mosquito raids on Hengelo thereafter including the one by 105 Squadron on 28 February. Although there was a war going on the Dutch still had their football matches. Tubantia, one of the local clubs was playing on the field situated between the Stork works and the Hazemeyer factory, which produced AA predictor and telecommunications equipment. After the match, at just after 18.00 hours local time, when all the supporters had left the area, the formation attack began. Thompson and Horne bombed from 550ft.
²³
Then Flying Officer David Polgase
RNZAF
and Sergeant Leslie Lampen bombed from a height of only 150ft. Afterwards they saw a column of smoke rising 300ft into the air over the target. Another crew bombed from 100ft. The debriefing reports suggested that the bombing had been accurate. However very little damage was done to the factories and some large houses opposite the football field were hit. Elsewhere in the town more houses were damaged. Ten people were killed, including seven members of one family. One crew bombed Borne hitting several houses. Three people were killed and several were injured.
²⁴

On 3 March Wing Commander Peter Shand
DFC
led ten Mosquitoes of 139 Squadron to the molybdenum mines at Knaben in South Norway. Bomb bursts accompanied by orange flashes and a red glow were seen on and around the target, which resulted in the plant being enveloped in clouds of white and brown smoke and debris being blown to a height of 1,000ft. Four Fw 190s intercepted the Mosquitoes on the homeward journey and Flying Officer A.N. Bulpitt and his navigator, Sergeant K.A. Amond were last seen being pursued by two Fw 190s and crashed into the sea. Flying Officer J.H. Brown’s Mosquito was hit and badly damaged but he made a successful crash-landing at Leuchars despite the loss of his hydraulics to operate the undercarriage and with no air speed indicator, rudder controls or elevator trim.
²⁵
AOC Air Vice Marshal J.H. d’Albiac sent his congratulations for a ‘well planned and splendidly executed attack... Mosquito stings judiciously placed are very painful.’

On 4 March Squadron Leader Reggie Reynolds
DSO DFC
led a successful attack by six Mosquitoes at low level from 50-200ft on engine sheds and repair workshops at Le Mans. Bad weather prevented any further operations until 8 March when three Mosquitoes bombed rail targets at Tergnier, 12 miles south of St. Quentin in France, from low-level and Flight Lieutenant Gordon led another pair of Mosquitoes in an attack on the railway shops at Lingen in Germany. The Mosquito flown by Sergeant W.W. Austin and Pilot Officer P.E. Thomas was hit by flak and crashed on the return trip at Den Ham in Holland. Both men survived and they were taken prisoner. Jean Hallade, a member of
Samson Reseau
(network) in the French Resistance witnessed some of the low-level raids by Mosquitoes over France. He recounts:

I watched Mossies make shallow dive attacks on Aisne’s marshalling yards, to slow and disturb the Germans’ supplies into France of material such as food, steel, trucks, oil, chemical, coal, alcohol and aircraft built and manufactured in France for the Third Reich under Vichy’s laws. French railways using strategic marshalling yards such as Tergnier, Laon, Hirson and St. Quentin transported all these materials. Rivers and canals were also used. Underground sources were to transmit to London numbers of convoys, loads carried, tonnage and destinations when we were alerted by abnormal quantities of concrete, wood, aggregates, tools, de Cauville compressors, cranes, Renault lorries and trains etc going to the St. Omer area, Arras, St. Pol-sur-Ternoise and Watten. Each of these sites took around fourteen trains per day. Resistance, as with
Samson’
s OCM played a part to slow down these activities by a week, waiting for the RAF’s raid. February had been a quiet month as the weather for the most part was a mess for low level and poor visibility with snowstorms. Monday, 8 March however had ideal weather, which people called ‘an air show sky’; ideal for aircraft missions. At 18.30 hours some friends and I of
Samson Reseau
saw, arriving from the west at around 400ft above the Oise River, three Mosquitoes flying aligned as in a parade.
²⁶
They flew in line astern going straight to Tergnier marshalling yards. Bombs were dropped at 18.41 hours. The population and I heard it and we all felt the blast. We then saw much smoke and fire with the Mossies, at chimney level, on their way back home. They landed at 20.15 hours without any trouble. Twelve 500lb HE bombs were dropped, most on the loco depots and hangar repair shops, destroying several wagons and repair material, spares etc. The eight other bombs fell on railroads pulverising nine of them plus igniting a large number of wagons, causing total confusion and panic. Traffic was reduced to a single railroad for several days. These ‘insect stings’ considerably confused and slowed down railroad traffic to the Littoral and V weapon sites. Several supplies were ‘lost’. They were finally found a couple of weeks later in south Germany. A fresh-bread convoy destined for XV Army took a week to arrive at its final destination with its absolutely rotten freight. The confusion of the raids was a nice opportunity for sabotage. Several techniques were implemented to increase the German disaster!