Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (33 page)

George Nunn recalls:

I got slightly blinded. The next thing I knew we were upside down. The nav. was not strapped in because he had been down in the nose, bombing. So, at that moment, he was up against the roof, all the gyros had toppled and so the instruments went berserk.

Harris adds:

As the aircraft was pushed around by George, I lost all sense of direction or attitude. I was forcibly shot out of my seat and crashed into the top of the perspex canopy. Then I was floating in the cockpit. Also floating was my parachute, which I grabbed and clipped on to my parachute harness. This harness was worn before entering the aircraft and the parachute itself was stowed in a special container in the bomb-aimer’s position. The violent movements of the aircraft had dislodged it. It has two ‘D’ rings, which clip onto two hooks on the harness and the parachute was then in place on the chest; ready to jump. As I clipped on the parachute George said, very quietly: “I can’t see. I’ve been blinded by the searchlights. Bale out, quickly.” Having assured me that he would follow me out, I scrambled down to the nose, where the escape hatch was situated. It consisted of a square hole in the floor, with a door on the inside floor and another on the other side. This was the normal method of entry and exit. I found the handle, but I could not budge the door. Suddenly it was pitch black. The searchlight had gone out.

I cursed then, as I could not see and I could not open the escape hatch, possibly due to the twisting action of the aircraft or due to pressurisation. I gave it up and went back to George. He was still in his seat. As the aircraft turned over slowly, I saw fire through the top of the cockpit. I was looking down at the ground and the fires were the result of the heavy bomber attack on Potsdam. I asked George if he could see. He had closed his eyes to try to get his vision back. As several minutes had passed since he was blinded. I asked him if he would open his eyes and look for the fires. Fortune was with us as he saw the red light of the fires, now on his left side. Using the fires as reference, he slowly and carefully brought the aircraft on to a level keel. The instruments on the flight panel were useless. All the gyro-operated ones were spinning furiously, including the artificial horizon and compass. A careful reading of the altimeter, still moving erratically, showed the height as 20,000ft. Then, checking even more carefully, we found it to be 2,000ft; only 1,600ft above the ground. A check on my watch showed it was 15 minutes since evasive action had started. The Mosquito had descended at about 2,000ft per minute, so, luckily for us, it must have stayed level or even gained height at times.

Using burning Potsdam as a datum, I was able to give George a direction to go for England and then we climbed hurriedly away, shaken but undismayed. As the gyros settled we were able to resume normal flight and 110 minutes later were over base. An inspection of the aircraft on the ground showed a hole through the rudder and through the tail fin from a cannon shell. Following this line of sight, it missed the cockpit by an estimated 3 inches. There was no trace of any other hits. While on the staff of the RAF Flying College in 1955 I read a report by a German pilot of an Me 262. On 15 April 1945 he shot down a Mosquito just north of Berlin at

01.30 hours. Apparently he couldn’t follow us down!

George Nunn commented:

I flew back on the Turn and Bank Indicator until the instruments recovered. We were minus half the tail, but this didn’t affect the flying qualities of the aircraft.

Flight Lieutenant Mike Young and his navigator-observer Flying Officer Ted Jenner flew their first op on 142 Squadron on 11/12 April 1945 when 107 Mosquitoes attacked Berlin in three waves. According to Jenner the crew’s arrival at Gransden Lodge on 6 April had been a chastening experience:

On arrival Mike and I were directed to a Nissen hut to dump our kit before seeing Wing Commander B.G.D. Nathan. We were greeted by; “Oh you’ll be the replacements. Have these two beds; the bods who had them got the chop last night!”
¹⁸¹
Life, all of a sudden, seemed to become very precious! Watching the take-off with the Wingco later that evening, Lancasters of 405 RCAF at 19.30, Mosquitoes at 20.30, we were startled by a very large explosion nearby. A Mossie of 692 Squadron had felt obliged to jettison their ‘Cookie’ in the circuit! An evening or two later the crater was observed on a liberty run into Cambridge; impressive tribute to the power of the 4,000 pounder.

On our first operation the Navs. were issued with topographical maps of Northern Europe with over-printed Gee lattices. Somehow, we got to the target on time, dropped our 500lb bombs and turned for home. As a sprog Flying Officer I was fairly alarmed to find Gee so erratic, giving me impossible wind-speeds and ground speeds of over 600 mph. I knew that the Mossie was fast but thought, ‘this can’t be right!’ We got back somehow on time but mentioned the hairy trip at debriefing. It turned out that the problem had arisen due to the Allies fast advance into Germany, with consequent movement of the mobile Gee transmitters. We had been issued with obsolete maps relating to previous positions. Thereafter, the WAAFs double checked the maps before issue and we had no further trouble. At breakfast the following morning one of the crews mentioned ‘port engine running a bit rough on way home’. It transpired on a visit to dispersal later that an unexploded 20mm cannon shell was buried deep into their port engine boss, much to their surprise! At this time of the war, few of us ever saw an enemy aircraft, but some of them evidently saw us! On 19 April we took off for Berlin once more, returning to base after 45 minutes due to a faulty fuel pump and consequent non-functioning port engine. We knew the Mosquito could fly on one engine but the Gee had also gone U/S and it seemed pointless to press on to the enemy coast. Our debriefing was unpleasant: We had put up a real ‘black’, so we were told it was no eggs and bacon breakfast.

When the last attack on the Big City by Mosquitoes took place on the night of 20/21 April the progress by the Soviet forces converging on the Reich capital from the east was very plain to see. Tracer from field artillery could be seen going into Berlin itself when seventy-six Mosquitoes made six separate attacks on the Big City. Flying Officer A.C. Austin and Flying Officer P. Moorhead flying Mosquito XVI ML929 claimed the last bombs dropped on the ‘Big City’ when they released four 500 pounders at 14.14 hours British Time. All the aircraft returned safely. Two Mosquitoes were lost on 21/22 April when 107 Mosquitoes bombed Kiel. Another attack was flown against Kiel on 23/24 April by sixty Mosquitoes who returned without loss.

On Sunday, 25 April, 359 Lancasters and sixteen Mosquitoes set out to bomb Hitler’s ‘Eagle’s Nest’ chalet and fifty-five barracks at Berchetsgaden, deep in the Austrian Alps. Eight of the Mosquitoes were Oboe markers. One was crewed by Flight Lieutenant Derek James
DFC
and Flight Lieutenant John C. Sampson of 105 Squadron. Sampson recalls:

We took off at 07.25 and the flight was 4 hours 15 minutes. We carried four red TIs to mark for the heavies. We flew at 36,000ft because of the Alps and, since Oboe signals went line of sight and did not follow the curvature of the earth, the further the target, the higher one needed to be. (Following the Normandy invasion, Oboe ground stations were located on the continent thus increasing the effective range of the system). I heard the first two dots of the release signal and then nothing more. We were unable to drop and brought the markers back to base. On investigation, it was established that a mountain peak between the ground station and the aircraft had blocked out the signal. No Oboe Mosquito was successful this day.

On 25/26 April twelve Mosquitoes dropped leaflets over PoW camps in Germany telling Allied prisoners the war was almost over. On 29 April flights to deliver food to the starving Dutch population in German-occupied Holland began. The operation, called Manna, took place using RAF and USAAF heavy bombers, their bomb bays filled with provisions instead of bombs, the food dropping areas being marked by the Oboe Mosquitoes. Meanwhile, it was feared that the enemy might stage a last stand in Norway when ships laden with troops began assembling at Kiel. Therefore, on the night of 2/3 May three final raids by 142 Mosquitoes of 8 Group (and thirty-seven Mosquitoes of 100 Group) were organised. In the first raid, a record 126 aircraft from 100 Group led by sixteen Oboe Mosquitoes attacked airfields in the Kiel area with Napalm and incendiaries. In the second and third attacks, one hour apart, 126 Mosquitoes of 8 Group bombed through thick cloud using H2X (the US development of H2S) and Oboe. It was the last Bomber Command raid of the war.

In the period January-May 1945, LNSF/FNSF Mosquitoes had flown almost 4,000 sorties. Altogether, 8 Group’s Mosquito squadrons flew 27,239 operational sorties between May 1943 and 2/3 May 1945. (During these sorties, about ten thousand 4,000lb ‘Cookies’ were dropped on Germany). Yet they had the lowest losses in Bomber Command; just 108 (about one per 2,800 sorties). (A further eighty-eight Mosquitoes were written off on their return because of battle damage). This is an incredible achievement, even more remarkable when one considers that well over two-thirds of operations were flown on nights when the heavies were not operating.

CHAPTER SIX

The Banff Strike Wing

I
t was on 27 March 1943 that five crews from 235 Beaufighter Squadron were told that they were to be members of a new squadron that was to be formed. One of Coastal Command’s tasks was to attack German capital ships, which lurked in the Norwegian fjords ready to break out for raids on the rich shipping lanes of the North Atlantic. One of the capital ships that posed the greatest threat to Allied shipping in 1943 was the
Tirpitz
, but sinking it with conventional weapons was out of the question. No.618 Squadron was formed at Skitten, a satellite airfield for Wick in Coastal Command, under strict secrecy on 1 April for the sole purpose of using Dr. Barnes Wallis’ ‘Highball’ weapons against the
Tirpitz
and other capital ships at sea. (This was just one month before 617 Squadrons attack on the German dams on 16/17 May). The new 618 Squadron was made up of eight former Coastal Command Beaufighter crews including the CO, Wing Commander G.H.B. Hutchinson
DFC
and his navigator. Eleven other crews and their aircraft came from 105 and 139 Squadrons at RAF Marham. The Beaufighter crews joined the Mosquito crews at Marham on 30 March. When they had their first glimpse of a Mosquito Flying Officer A.H. ‘Hilly’ Hilliard and his navigator, Warrant Officer Jim Hoyle realised that their new squadron was to be equipped with these already legendary aircraft. Jim Hoyle recalled that Sergeant Joe Massey and his navigator Sergeant ‘Lofty’ Fletcher were from 139 Squadron. They had each been awarded a DFM for taking part in the first daylight raid on Berlin a month or so earlier. Jim continues:

I immediately remembered seeing them on a cinema newsreel, particularly ‘Lofty’ who responding in a very casual way to his interviewer, made the immortal remark that, “as we approached the target area there was a sudden break in the cloud and bless my soul, there was Berlin”. Like me, Joe was from South Yorkshire and we quickly became firm friends. It was a sad irony that after such an adventure, he was later to lose his life in a road traffic accident whilst serving in the Far East.

Hilly and I made only one conversion flight in a Mosquito at Marham and for me it seemed a real treat to sit beside my pilot with a superb forward view, after previously being cooped up in splendid isolation, halfway down the fuselage of a Beaufighter. A day or so later we set off on the long rail journey to our new home at Skitten, north of Wick. Here we were very puzzled when our new Mosquitoes arrived as we immediately noticed a large gaping space under the fuselage from where the bomb doors had been removed. We were soon to learn that this space was to accommodate two bouncing bombs with the name of ‘Highball’ and that the squadron had been specially armed with these new weapons to attack the German battleship
Tirpitz
.
¹⁸²
We did a lot of exciting low-level formation flying, up hill and down dale over the mountains of Northern Scotland, including mock attacks on an old French battleship, which had been moored very close to a hillside on Loch Cairnbawn in Sutherland. It all ended in anti-climax when the planned operation was aborted.
¹⁸³

Fortunately for us we were among four crews who were to regroup as 618 Squadron Special Detachment at Predannack under the leadership of Squadron Leader Charlie Rose
DFC DFM
. For pay and rations we were to be attached to 248 Beaufighter Squadron and later in 1944 at Portreath, when 248 also converted on to Mosquitoes we were to be absorbed as ‘C’ Flight on that squadron.
¹⁸⁴
At a very quick briefing Charlie told us that our new Mosquitoes had been armed with yet another new weapon, a 57mm Molins gun, which fired 6 pounder shells and which was soon to be known as the ‘Tsetse’ after the fly which induced Sleeping Sickness in its victims.
¹⁸⁵
The purpose of this heavy gun was for attacks on U boats, as they made their way into the ports of Lorient, St Nazaire and La Pallice etc on the western coast of France. At the time, we were told that information was being received from secret sources in France about the arrival of these U-boats, which had to make their final approach to the French coast on the surface because of underwater defences.

Hilly and I made our first flight in the new Mosquito on 18 October 1943 and we soon got down to some serious firing practice with our new gun. There was a hell of a bang when Hilly fired his first shot and although Charlie had warned us what to expect, it was still quite a severe shock to the nervous system. A flash eliminator had not yet been fitted and I noted with astonishment that a great tongue of flame, about 30ft in length, seemed to leap out of the front of the aircraft as each round was fired. I also observed that at the same time, the airspeed indicator went back to zero and such was the power of the recoil that it did in fact feel as though the plane had been literally stopped in its tracks. Although there had been some strengthening to the nose, it really was quite astonishing the amount of punishment that the Mosquito would take. No wonder it was later to become known as the Wooden Wonder.
¹⁸⁶

Sad to say the very first time that the gun was fired in anger, on 4 November, Charlie Rose was shot down by an armed trawler close to the French coast and he was killed.
¹⁸⁷
For most of the time after that the Tsetse Flight was under the command of Flying Officer Doug Turner.
¹⁸⁸

By 1 January 1944 248 Squadron Mosquito Conversion Flight had mustered sixteen Tsetses and four FB.VIs available for anti-shipping operations. On 16 February, 248 and 618 Squadrons were moved to Portreath and the former would now provide fighter cover for the Tsetses for 618. On 20 February 248 Squadron flew its first interceptor and anti-shipping patrols in the Bay of Biscay. On 10 March four Mk.VIs, which escorted two XVIIIs to an area about 30 miles north of Gijon on the Spanish coast, got into a vicious dog-fight with eight to ten Ju 88s flying top cover for a German convoy of four destroyers and a U-boat. One of the Ju 88s immediately fell to a head-on attack by the four VIs and a second was shot down into the sea in flames shortly afterwards. The XVIIIs, meanwhile, went after the convoy. Squadron Leader Tony Phillips carried out four attacks on the U-boat and Flying Officer Doug Turner, two. They damaged a destroyer and Phillips blasted a Ju 88 out of the sky with four shots from his Molins gun. One of the shells literally tore an engine from the Ju 88 and it spiralled down into the sea.

On 25 March 1944 two Tsetses (one crewed by Flying Officer Doug Turner and Flying Officer Des Curtis and the other by Flying Officer A.H. ‘Hilly’ Hilliard and Warrant Officer Jimmy Hoyle) escorted by four Mk.VIs of 248 Squadron, came upon a formation of two armed minesweepers and a destroyer. In the middle of these escorts was U-976, a Type VIIC of 769 tons, commanded by
Oberleutnant zur see
Raimund Tiesler, which was returning to St Nazaire after being recalled from her second war cruise. The two pairs of escorting Mk.VIs dived on the escorting ships down sun and opened fire with cannon and machine guns. A heavy fusillade of fire from the ships came up to meet them. Doug Turner opened the attack on U-976 and got off five rounds with the Molins. Every burst was accompanied by recoil, which whipped the needle of the airspeed indicator back to zero. Turner made four attacks in all and fired off all his twenty-four rounds. One of the shells in the first diving attack destroyed one of the guns on the U-boat. Hilliard attacked U-976 on the waterline below the conning tower before breaking off. About ten hits were seen on the conning tower and on the forward deck near and below the waterline. After the attacks U-976 sank and Jimmy Hoyle saw an oil patch which he estimated to be l00 yards long and 30 yards wide. Survivors from the U-boat were picked up by the minesweepers. For this and earlier successful strikes, both Doug Turner and Des Curtis were awarded their DFCs.

On 27 March the same Tsetse crews, but with six FB.VIs of 248 Squadron, set out for the same area again. Intelligence had monitored the course taken by two Type VIIC U-boats, U-769 and U-960, which were due to arrive at La Pallice escorted by four ‘M’ Class minesweepers and two
Sperrbrechers
(merchantmen converted to flak ships). Jim Hoyle continues:

We set off with Doug Turner leading. In our pre-flight cockpit drill ‘Hilly’ and I discovered that neither the VHF nor intercom were working. This meant of course that we would not be able to make verbal contact with the other aircraft and that we would have to rely on sign language for our own internal communication, as the noise of the engines made normal conversation between pilot and navigator impossible. We took off at 07.00 hours and following the familiar route, we soon had the French Island of Ushant in sight. Carrying on round the Brest Peninsula and the Ile de Sein we flew on past the Ile de Croix, Belle Ile and the Ile de Noirmoutier. After rounding the Ile de Re and close to the mainland, we came across two U-boats escorted by four M-class minesweepers and half a dozen other ships. Some were
Sperrbrechers
, which had a rather fearsome reputation as they were armed to the teeth with anti-aircraft weaponry. Flak from these ships as well as from distant coastal batteries became intense and the sky seemed to be covered in flak bursts and tracer fire. I can still remember the odd, isolated feeling of being cut off from all verbal communication whilst watching the other Mosquitoes milling around the convoy without knowing precisely what was happening.

Suddenly Hilly peeled off and went into a headlong dive straight at one of the U-boats [U-960, commanded by
Oberleutnant zur see
Günther ‘Heini’ Heinrich]
¹⁸⁹
firing his Tsetse gun as he went in. Another Mosquito flown by Flight Lieutenant Jeffreys
DFC
had latched himself on to our port side to attack an adjacent escort ship whilst the remaining Mosquitoes were attacking other ships in the convoy. Meanwhile, I was busy with my heavy hand-held camera and one of my photographs was later to confirm a direct hit on the conning, tower. [The hit damaged U-960’s periscope and inflicted shrapnel wounds to Heinrich and some of his crew].

‘Hilly’ Hilliard adds:

We had commenced our run-in and the formation began to climb from our low-level height and, as we did so, I counted about nine ships. On reaching 2,000ft I saw a U-boat at the rear end of the convoy, which was heading east. Behind the U-boat was a
Sperrbrecher
. The U-boat was in an ideal position, side-on, for a beam attack. I dipped my port wing to turn into it, as did the escort Mosquito on my left, so I dived for the U-boat and the escort went for the
Sperrbrecher.
Both of us had the sun behind us! At this time the rest of the formation was still climbing. As my R/T was u/s I was unaware of any orders being given regarding the attack on the shipping. During the attack there were plenty of black puffs from the anti-aircraft shells bursting all around us. The flak was everywhere. I saw spouts of water each end of the U-boat where my shells had hit the sea. I fired seven shells and I was sure that I hit my target. (As they were armour piercing shells, any contact would not show up like an explosive shell). I saw a green light fired from another ship, indicating that enemy aircraft were attacking the convoy. Just before I ‘skimmed over’ the U-boat at roof-top level I noticed the gunners near the conning tower pull their gun to the upright position. When we were slightly overhead that gun there was an

almighty bang from underneath us.

Jim Hoyle continues:

After ‘Hilly’ had finished his attack he sped out to sea away from the coast. When I put my camera down. I saw to my consternation that the inspection cover doors over the machine guns had opened up and were now flapping madly in front of us. I realised that we must have been hit by flak and Hilly nodded grimly to acknowledge that he was already well aware of that fact. I had visions of one or both doors breaking off altogether as they continued to judder away on the long journey back and I wondered what effect it would have if either of the doors smashed through the cockpit window and landed in my lap. I decided that this could be safer than if they crashed into the tailplane. Either way, it wasn’t a particularly happy prospect. When we finally landed at Portreath, we immediately spotted a large jagged shell hole, plumb in the centre of the nose cone at front of the fuselage with surrounding shrapnel damage caused by the resulting explosion. We were very fortunate that the Tsetse planes were among the very few Mosquitoes to carry armour protection in the nose section.

The brakes on the Mosquito failed and ‘Hilly’ Hilliard had to switch off the engines and come to a standstill at the end of the runway. He states:

Within minutes our groundcrew were towing us off with the maintenance tractor. We had been airborne for 4-hours and on checking the fuel gauge the port one was registering zero and starboard 10 gallons! On examining the aircraft the German 37mm shell from the U-boat had penetrated the circular inspection panel which on the underside of the Mosquito, dead centre of the nose. It had entered and exploded in the ammunition chamber, which housed the machine gun cartridges. Inside the chamber the cockpit was protected by armour plating, which was pitted with shrapnel, so we were lucky the shell did not set off any of the cartridges! If the shell from the U-boat had hit the Mosquito 3 to 4ft either side of the nose it would doubtless have hit a radiant cooler and thereby overheated an engine, putting it out of action. At debriefing we learned that five of the Mosquitoes sustained flak damage which caused one to crash land. My escort had a gun jam when he dived for the
Sperrbrecher
but he arrived back OK with no damage.
¹⁹⁰

On 11 April nine FB.VIs and two XVIIIs of 618 Detachment escorted by five FB.VIs from 248 Squadron and six from 151 Squadron at Predannack, took off on another coastal patrol from Portreath. One Mosquito crashed into a hill on takeoff and one of the Tsetses returned early with mechanical problems. The others pressed on to St. Nazaire where they came upon a U-boat with a four-ship escort and an air umbrella of about a dozen Ju 88s. The FB.VIs attacked the escort ships and then turned their attention to the Ju 88s while Flight Lieutenant B.C. Roberts went after the U-boat. He saw spouts of water near the hull of the U-boat as he fired his Molins but could claim no definite hits. Flak was extremely heavy and Wing Commander O.J.M. Barron
DFC
, CO of 248 Squadron, and another Mosquito were shot down. Two of the Ju 88s were claimed destroyed. A third Mosquito was lost in a crash landing at Portreath. At the end of April 248 Squadron ground crews began fitting drop tanks in place of bombs below the wings of the Mosquitoes as the role of the squadron changed to land targets in support of the coming invasion of France. In May the 618 Squadron Special Detachment joined 248, the Tsetses now making attacks on surface vessels as well as U-boats. Their technique was to fire the armour-piercing shells through the wooden deck planking of the ships while rocket-firing Beaufighters went in at 500ft in a shallow dive.