Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (6 page)

On 19/20 April there were no Main Force operations and six Mosquitoes of 2 Group failed to locate rail workshops at Namur in bad visibility and returned without loss. On the night of 20/21 April nine Mosquitoes of 105 Squadron and two from 139 Squadron led by Wing Commander Peter Shand
DSO DFC
carried out a bombing attack on Berlin. This was a diversion for 339 heavy bombers attacking Stettin and eighty-six Stirlings bombing the Heinkel factory near Rostock. The Mosquito ‘night nuisance’ operations were also designed to ‘celebrate’ Hitler’s birthday. Over Berlin it was cloudless with bright moonlight and the Mosquitoes dropped their bombs from 15,00-23,000ft. Flak was moderate and quite accurate but the biggest danger proved to be night-fighters. One of these was
Oberleutnant
Lothar Linke,
Staffelkapitän
12./NJG1 who the night before had claimed to be the second
Nachtjagd
pilot to destroy a Mosquito whilst flying a standard Bf 110G.
³⁴
Linke, again led by his night-fighter controller
Eisbär
(‘Polar Bear’), overtook Shand’s Mosquito at high altitude and at high speed in a power dive, shot the Mosquito down over the northern part of the Ijsselmeer at 02.10 hours. Shand and his navigator Pilot Officer Christopher D. Handley
DFM
were killed.
³⁵

Late on 27 May, ‘a glorious, clear, hot but slightly misty late May evening’ the final large-scale daylight raid by the Mosquito IVs of 2 Group took place when fourteen Mosquitoes were given two targets deep in Southern Germany. The briefing was very long and complicated. It meant flying at low level for well over three hours over enemy territory, of which a good two and a quarter would be in broad daylight. Six aircraft of 139 Squadron led by Wing Commander ‘Reggie’ W. Reynolds
DSO DFC
and Flight Lieutenant ‘Ted’ Sismore
DFC
set out to attack the Schott glassworks at Jena. A few miles further on eight Mosquitoes of 105 Squadron led by Squadron Leader Bill Blessing
DFC
and Flying Officer G.K. Muirhead were to bomb the Zeiss Optical factory, which at that time was almost entirely engaged on making periscopes for submarines. One of the 105 Squadron pilots taking part was Flight Lieutenant Charles Patterson, with the Film Unit cameraman Flight Sergeant Leigh Howard as his navigator. Patterson recalls:

We saw the red ribbon running longer than we’d ever considered, right down into SE Germany near Leipzig and the target, the Zeiss optical lens works at Jena. It gave a great sense of anticipation and excitement that such a tremendously long trip was going to be undertaken but not undue alarm because it was so deep into Germany, an area that had never seen daylight flying aircraft before. We rather assumed that by going deep down not only could we achieve a great deal of surprise but there night be much light AA fire round this factory and what there was the gunners would be inexperienced.

At seven o’clock all around the perimeter the engines started up and everybody taxied out. Forming up on these trips with a full muster of Mosquitoes was quite a lengthy business, the leader circling slowly round and round the airfield for everybody to get airborne and catch up. The two formations swept across the hangars and the airfield at low level, an impressive sight and quite an exhilarating experience for the crews themselves. We settled down for the long flight right across to Jena in clear daylight as it was certainly a good 2½ hours before dusk. The Dutch coast was crossed with no difficulty but at the Zuider Zee we suddenly found ourselves flying slap into a vast fleet of little brown-sailed fishing vessels. In front of me the whole formation broke up and weaved in and around them, before we settled down again. On past the Ruhr and down near Kassel we went, then on into the Thuringian Mountains where the Möhne and Eder dams are. Even then we were only two-thirds of the way. You felt you were in a separate world, which has no end and will go on forever. On and on over the trees and the fields and the rising ground we went, mile after mile. Then suddenly, my navigator drew my attention to something. I looked across the starboard wing-tip and I had a clear view of Münster cathedral quite a few miles away, the interesting thing being that I was looking up at the towers, not down on them!

We carried on past Kassel then suddenly we came across all the floods of the Möhne dam raid which had taken place only ten days before. For 20 minutes there was nothing but floods. It was fascinating and confirmed in our minds what an enormous success the raid must have been. We flew between the Möhne and Eder dams and suddenly came over a mountain ridge and there was a dam [Helminghausen] beneath us. On the far side the front formation was just topping the far ridge when flak opened up. It didn’t look very serious. An enormous ball of flame rolled down the mountainside, obviously an aircraft but it wasn’t long after that I learnt that it was two Mosquitoes, which had collided. Whether one was hit by flak or whether it caused one of the pilots to take his eye off what he was doing and fly into the Mosquito next to him, nobody will ever know. But two had gone.
³⁶

We flew on over this mountainous country, over ridges and down long valleys with houses on both sides. On my starboard wing-tip we saw a man open his front door and look out to see these Mosquitoes flashing past. We saw the door slam in a flash of whipping past. Suddenly, the weather began to deteriorate and this had not been forecast. I think everybody was assuming that we’d soon fly out of it but it got worse and we were over mountains. We now began to fly right into clouds. Flying in formation in cloud and knowing you’re right in the centre of Germany gives you a rather lonely feeling. Blessing put on his navigation lights to try and enable us to keep formation. Everybody put on navigation lights. I was very nervous flying on instruments in cloud and although I did my best to keep the next aircraft in view, I lost him.
³⁷

H.C. ‘Gary’ Herbert in the 105 Squadron formation adds.
³⁸
‘A bit further on another 139 kite [
B-Beer
flown by Reynolds and Flying Officer Ted Sismore] feathered his port airscrew and turned back. He got home OK.’

Ted Sismore recalled. ‘As soon as we picked out the tall chimneys of the Schott factory the ground gunners began firing at us with all they had. We dropped our bombs on the factory building and almost at once three 20-mm shells hit us. A large piece was knocked out of our port airscrew and Reggie was hit in the left hand and knee.’

H.C. ‘Gary’ Herbert continues:

Just before we turned to make the last run up the valley to the target the clouds came right down to the deck and the formation had to break up. When the clouds broke I found the formation OK but three other kites were gone.
³⁹
So six kites out of the formation went on to attack. Visibility was extremely bad and as we approached the target at nought feet we suddenly saw balloons over it. Then the fiercest cross fire of light flak I have ever seen opened up. I was last in the formation by this time. Free to go in how I liked I broke away and climbed up the mountain at the side of the town hoping to fox the gunners and dodge the balloons, which I expected would be spread across the valley. I didn’t do either. As we went up the mountain they poured light flak down at us and we dived down the other side. The only thing to do was to weave straight in dodging the flak and praying not to hit a cable. We did that and as we screamed down the flak poured past us and splattered all over the town. They put a light flak barrage over the target hoping we would run into it but somehow we dodged it and put our bombs fairly in the glass grinding section: a sixteen storey building. We were hit in several places on the way out.

The heavy cross fire they put up over the glass grinding building (my target) was not directed at us but obviously to deter us from going through it. They don’t know how close they were to succeeding! I was absolutely terrified and did not think anybody could get through that and survive and was sorely tempted to turn away and bomb and alternative target. The only thing that made me go through was the thought that I couldn’t face men like Hughie Edwards, Roy Ralston, Reg Reynolds and say, ‘I lost my guts and turned away. I now know that heroes are really cowards whose conscience would not let them hold their heads high in the presence of real brave men. Subsequent reports confirmed that I was not the only one who was tempted to turn away.
⁴⁰
However, we managed to get away OK and only ran into one lot of flak on the homeward journey. We dodged it OK. When we got back we found that our hydraulics were out of action and had to put our wheels and flaps dawn by hand. The throttles wouldn’t close and I had to cut the switches to get in. Made it OK. Two other kites crashed when they got back and both crews were killed.
⁴¹
Another kite was missing, making five crews los: our heaviest loss. It was certainly my stickiest operation and everybody else reckoned it was the stickiest too. There were so many aircraft pranged on the flarepath when we got back that we were ordered to go to an alternative aerodrome: Swanton Morley I think. We came back by car, which took many hours in the blackout. By that time all the Bigwigs from Headquarters, who were there to decide whether we should continue as a low level squadron or be switched to PFF [Path Finder Force] work, had left.
⁴²

On 4 June the Mosquito crews learned of a change in their role. They would do no more daylight ops. Instead the two squadrons joined Fighter Command and they were the first Mosquito units to join the specialist Pathfinder Force (later No.8 (PFF) Group), which had been formed from 3 Group using volunteer crews on 15 August 1942. At Marham 1655 Mosquito Training Unit (later relocated to Warboys) was tasked with training the specialist Pathfinder Force.
⁴³
In 8 Group 105 Squadron became the second Oboe squadron and 139 Squadron high-level ‘nuisance’ raiders, flying B.IX Mosquitoes.

CHAPTER TWO

On High

I
n July 1940 the PRU (Photographic Reconnaissance Unit) was in desperate need of an aircraft not only capable of carrying multi-camera installations, but which was faster than the Blenheim and able to photograph areas beyond the range of a PR Spitfire. The answer lay in the development of the DH 98 Mosquito but the Air Ministry had taken some persuading. Ever since 1938, the de Havilland company at Hatfield had been trying, without success, to convince them that its unarmed bomber, which was to be mostly built of wood and had a crew of only two, could operate successfully in hostile skies without the need for defensive armament. The company argued that the DH 98’s superior speed was its best defensive weapon against enemy fighters. Late in 1939 there was still strong opposition to any unarmed bomber version but the AOC-in-C, Bomber Command, conceded that there was a need for a fast, unarmed, reconnaissance aircraft, equipped with three F24 cameras. It was agreed that a two-man crew in any reconnaissance version put forward by de Havilland was acceptable (although at first the Air Ministry wanted them seated in tandem). On 1 March 1940 a contract was placed with de Havilland for fifty DH 98 aircraft, including nineteen PR versions.
⁴⁴
On 21 June 1941 the Air Ministry decided that nine of these aircraft
⁴⁵
should be converted to unarmed bombers and these came to be known as the PRU/Bomber Conversion Type, or B.IV Series I.

On 13 July 1941 W4051 was flown to Oxfordshire by Geoffrey de Havilland and handed over to 1 PRU at Benson, which was then commanded by Wing Commander G.W. Tuttle
OBE DFC
where it became the first Mosquito to be taken on charge by the RAF. By September 1 PRU had ten Mosquitoes on strength.
⁴⁶
Until night photography using magnesium flares released through a tube in the cockpit floor were available in early 1943, all PR flights had to be made during daylight. They were restricted to times between first photographic light and last photographic light and these times varied with the seasons according to sunrise and sunset. Early camera installations were mounted to take oblique shots and they were used for mainly low-level sorties. Later 1 PRU switched to mostly high-level vertical photography. The cameras were fitted with a film magazine, loaded for either 250 or 500 exposures, mounted on top of the camera and the rolled film was advanced automatically after each exposure. A T.35 controller controlled the cameras and the photographers set the apertures and shutter speed before the flight according to weather forecasts. The time interval between exposures was controlled to provide a 60 per cent overlap, so that every object on the ground appeared on two photographs. These photos could be manipulated under a stereoscope to provide a magnified, three-dimensional image that provided much more detail than a single vertical print. The pilot could also take control and aim the oblique camera.

During tests on 16 September
Benedictine
’s
⁴⁷
generator packed up over the Bay of Biscay and with no power to drive the cameras, 25-year old Squadron Leader Rupert Francis Henry Clerke (an old Etonian) and 32-year old Sergeant Sowerbutts (a pre-war Margate barber) were forced to abandon the sortie. They were pursued by three Bf 109s but the PR.I easily outpaced them at 23,000ft and returned safely. Clerke and Sowerbutts made the first successful Mosquito PR.I sortie the next day when they set out in
Benedictine
at 11.30 hours for a daylight photo reconnaissance of Brest, La Pallice and Bordeaux, before arriving back at Benson at 17.45 hours.
⁴⁸

On the 20th, Flight Lieutenant Alastair L. ‘Ice’ Taylor
DFC
and his navigator, Sergeant Sidney E. Horsfall successfully photographed Bordeaux, Pauillac, Le Verdon and La Pallice. Taylor was a brilliant PR Spitfire and Mosquito pilot who specialised in Dicing (low level PR of specific targets). The third flight was made when Taylor and Horsfall covered Heligoland and Sylt in
Benedictine
. After proving their worth over northern France, four of the PR Mosquitoes
⁴⁹
were transferred to operate from Wick, in Scotland, with Squadron Leader Taylor in command. In October 1941 the PR.I Mosquitoes carried out sixteen successful sorties to Norway. On 4 December, Taylor, who by now was the first PR pilot to fly over 100 sorties, and Horsfall, flew
Benedictine
on a PR sortie to cover Trondheim and Bergen, but they failed to return. It is thought that after they were badly shot up by new German high-level anti-aircraft guns, Taylor put down in the sea to prevent the aircraft falling into enemy hands. After eighty-eight sorties, this was the first loss of a PR Mosquito. By December the unit had moved to Leuchars, near the Firth of Forth. The new base proved more suited to PR operations, greatly reducing the time taken to send photos to the Central Interpretation Unit at RAF Medmenham.

Unkindly referred to by pilots outside the unit as ‘Pilots Rest Unit’, No.1 PRU was anything but and its operational cycle was about to become even more far reaching. On 15 January 1942 Flight Lieutenant John R.H. Merrifield overflew Gdynia, in Poland and Danzig in eastern Germany in W4061 but his targets were obscured by cloud.
⁵⁰
On 20 February W4051 was flown to the Franco-Spanish border and over marshalling yards and airfields at Toulouse, in southern France. On 22 February Flight Lieutenant Victor Ricketts and his navigator, Russian born Sergeant Boris Lukhmanoff, covered Cuxhaven and Kiel to take photos of the
Gneisenau
in dry dock there. On 2 March the same crew (in W4060) photographed the
Scharnhorst
undergoing repairs at Wilhelmshaven, whilst W4059 photographed the
Gneisenau
again. W4060 and W4051 also photographed the French coast prior to the commando raid on St. Nazaire and on 3 March Flight Lieutenant John R.H. Merrifield successfully returned to the Danzig-Gdynia region as he recalls.

I took off from Leuchars at 10.25 hours with the intention of photographing Copenhagen, Danzig, Gdynia and possibly Königsberg (later Karliningrad) in Russian Lithuania. We set course for Copenhagen, climbing to 20,000ft over the North Sea and cruising at 280 mph. We sighted the Danish coast at Esbjerg, visible through patches of medium cloud and photographed the town and harbour. We then climbed to 23,000ft and flew towards Copenhagen. Medium and low cloud increased to 10/10ths and we were soon flying through a layer of cirrostratus. Copenhagen was not seen, so we altered course for Gdynia on ETA. Soon afterwards all low and medium cloud disappeared, though high cloud persisted, but we could see the Baltic Sea underneath us, covered with large patches of ice. We were making intermittent condensation trails in the cloud, so climbed to 24,000ft where the trails ceased. After 2 hours 50 minutes flying time we crossed the German coast at Leba and about 5 miles west of Gdynia the cirrostratus thinned and over the target disappeared altogether. We ran over Gdynia with cameras on, but while doing so noticed that a persistent trail was forming behind us, so descended to 23,000ft and did another run. We then proceeded to Danzig and photographed the town and harbour with Neufahrwasser from the same height. Königsberg was the next objective and it was photographed, with adjacent aerodromes, also from 23,000ft. From here we could see over 100 miles to the east, well into Lithuania. After 3½ hours flying we set course for Leuchars, encountering such a strong head wind that it was 15.25 hours before we passed Gdynia. Accordingly we descended to 18,000ft and cruised at 2,000 rpm in MS gear to economize in fuel. Fortunately as we flew west the wind decreased and we left the Danish coast at 16.30 hours, photographing Esbjerg again on our way out. After an uneventful trip across the sea we landed at Leuchars 18.10 hours.

Although the PRU’s first priority remained that of keeping a watch on the
Kriegsmarine,
1942 would see it being called upon to cover an increasing number of RAF Bomber Command targets. On 14 February the famous ‘area bombing’ directive was issued to Bomber Command and eight days later it became the responsibility of ACM Sir Arthur Harris, the new chief of Bomber Command, to carry it out. Harris immediately questioned the Admiralty’s monopoly of PRU operations and felt that Bomber Command’s need was now much greater. A full moon was predicted for the night of 3/4 March so Harris decided to send a mixed force of 235 aircraft, led by the most experienced crews in Bomber Command, to bomb the Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt just west of the centre of Paris. It was calculated that approximately 121 aircraft an hour had been concentrated over the factory and all except twelve aircraft claimed to have bombed. Photographic evidence was vital so even though the results of an RAF heavy raid had not been photographed before, a PRU Mosquito crew was ordered to make the flight. A deciding factor in the decision to go ahead was that PR Mosquitoes were equipped with a wireless, whereas most PRU aircraft were not. After talking things over with his observer, Victor Ricketts decided that he and Boris Lukhmanoff could probably get home safely using the wireless, so they offered to fly the sortie, in W4060. They took off from Benson at 11.15 hours in heavy rain and thick cloud. Ricketts recorded:
⁵¹

At the time of leaving we could not see across the aerodrome. I thought, ‘Are you a sucker to take this on?’ But it was too late to turn back then, as we had lost sight of the ground. We did not see ground again until Boris, a very keen type, said, “Well, I think we are somewhere near Rouen, not very far from Paris and it is time we came down”. We still could not see anything and it was raining like Hell and there were thick clouds.

We went down to 1,000ft. At 900ft we caught sight of the ground and he was reasonably happy. We found the River Seine and, as it was quite obvious that we could not navigate to Paris in that weather, we decided to fly along the twisting river. The only way we could do it was for Boris to lie on his stomach in the nose of the aeroplane, saying, “Turn right, now left etc.”, as the river twisted. Very soon we found ourselves over the roofs of houses and saw people in the streets running for cover, thinking the bombers had come back again. We could not find the works now, so we went on and came out of clouds at 600ft to see people running like mad. Finally Boris said, “There it is” and I just caught a glimpse of roofs full of holes 500ft below. We had no time to take a picture, so Boris got his cameras ready and we hurried back, found the river and Boris said, “Here’s the factory”, started his cameras and said. “Oh! Boy Oh! Boy did they give that place the works!” We went over it once, across the middle and then it vanished into the mist again. We were very disappointed when we saw a golf course full of bomb holes. However, it had ruined a good golf course. We flew back over the factory, trying to get the other end of it. Boris said, “I don’t want you to run into the Eiffel Tower, which is about 1,000ft high”. We flew back up the river and had to come down to 400ft. We tried to do it a fourth time but lost it. Boris said we had been over for 34 minutes now. I thought we had been stooging around long enough and that the Huns would just about be bringing up their flak by then. He was very disappointed and I suggested he should stay if he wanted to, but he decided to come along too.

We went off flying blind all the time, up to 5,000ft thinking that the wily Hun would expect us to go back low as we had come in low. Back over the Channel we knew from the weather we had left that it would be very unlikely we could get home, so decided to try and come back very low down over the Channel and sit down on one of the coast aerodromes. I put the undercarriage down in case we hit the South Downs. We came lower and lower, until the clock registered 0ft. Then we managed to see the surface of the sea. The Mosquito is rather fast for that sort of weather. The beach suddenly flashed underneath the wheels and we gave up the idea of trying to land there. We shot up again into the clouds and called up the base by radio. Base said they could not see across the aerodrome, but gave us a bearing to come back. The whole country was blotted out so I wandered backwards, got south of the base with undercarriage lowered and speed as low as possible. Fortunately I just caught a glimpse through a tiny hole in the clouds of hangar roofs and a couple of aeroplanes parked. I thought where there are aeroplanes there’s an aerodrome and where there’s an aerodrome that’s where we are landing. Boris got his nose down again, trying to see a clear way of getting down. We went round the aerodrome about six times and the sixth time we came out of cloud, narrowly missing a corner of the hangar and just sat down and stamped on the brakes. The Mosquito shuddered and finally came to rest. It was quite like old times on the Press, dashing to the telephone and getting in touch quickly with my place. I said, “We found the target. My boss said, “At 3,000ft?” and I said “No, 400ft”. He said that none of the pictures would come out at that height, but I bet him that they would and later collected the dough.

The low-level obliques showed that 300 bombs had fallen on the factory, destroying 40 per cent of the buildings.
⁵²
Ricketts was decorated with the
DFC
and in the weeks to come he and his Russian born observer made long-range sorties to Bavaria, Mulhouse and Stuttgart.

In March two of the longest photographic reconnaissance sorties were flown by Mosquitoes. On 11 March Flight Lieutenant John Merrifield covered Bødo and on the 25th Flight Lieutenant Victor Ricketts
DFC
and Boris Lukhmanoff covered Königsberg. On 30 March Flight Lieutenant Merrifield was flying W4061 over Trondheim at 18,000ft when he noticed a Bf 109 in his mirror about half a mile behind and 500ft above. He wrote:

It was making a trail of black smoke, presumably because it was at full throttle. I increased revs from 2,400 to 3,000, switched over from F.S. to M.S., pulled the cut-out and dived gently. My observer reported another 109 on our starboard quarter about the same distance behind. We levelled off at 14,000ft but did not seem to draw ahead. Observation of the enemy aircraft was difficult because they were dead astern and we were making a lot of black smoke ourselves. After a quarter of an hour they were no longer to be seen, so boost was reduced to 6lb and revs to 2,700. Shortly afterwards my observer reported one aircraft crossing our tail 400 yards astern but no fire was opened. Thereupon I opened up again and flew out to sea towards cloud, which was entered ten minutes later. I could not say what speed was reached during the dive but at 14,000ft the IAS was 320, which was afterwards computed to be 395. Engine temperature remained below 100C and oil temperature below 80C the whole time. The port engine had to be changed later because of an internal glycol leak.