Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (48 page)

Among the attributes of our pension was a still made by earlier residents and a stock of Munchen Lowenbrau beer. It was my first introduction to this beer and I have enjoyed it ever since, when I can find it. We were given a lot of freedom and I very much enjoyed my time in Falun. Meeting some members of the Danish Resistance movement, which, of course we had set out to help, heightened my enjoyment. They took me around and we had a great time until we had to return to Stockholm prior to flying home. Peter Thomas, as a result of his senior rank, stayed at the British Consulate while I was sent to a dirty and evil smelling hotel. I protested immediately, but was told we would be leaving that night. Fortunately my Danish friends had given me the address of the local Danish Resistance office in Stockholm, which I quickly visited. They were eager to help and took me to a nicer hotel where I spent several nights until flown out. I also met a charming young Danish girl Henny Sindunq, a resistance worker from Copenhagen. She took me around Stockholm and we had supper together every evening until like Cinderella, I had to leave to head out to the airport in preparation for flying home. Fortunately the weather was bad and we were returned to our respective lodgings in the small hours of the morning. Henny would dutifully turn out the next day and we would dine at a different restaurant of her choice. This went on for four or five nights until I finally crept off in a very cold DC 3 finally landing at Wick in Scotland after an absence of 24 days.
²²⁹

By November 1944 107, 305 (Polish) and 613 Squadrons of 138 Wing finally arrived in France, to be based at Epinoy near Cambrai, France. On 21 November, 136 Wing was created within 2nd TAF by the arrival, from Fighter Command, of 418 and 605 Squadrons, which transferred to Hartford Bridge. That month 2nd TAF Mosquito night fighters shot down fourteen enemy aircraft. In December 464 RAAF and 487 RNZAF Squadrons sent advance detachments to Rosieres-en-Santerre, France. In February 1945 the two squadrons, along with 21 Squadron, all of 140 Wing, left southern England and landed at Amiens-Rosieres-en-Santerre. Their arrival coincided with the first anniversary of the Amiens raid by 140 Wing Mosquitoes in February 1944, when the ‘walls of Jericho’ had come tumbling down.

The
Luftwaffe
was powerless to stop the Allies’ inexorable advance westwards but there was one last attempt to try to halt the Allies. Since 20 December 1944 many
Jagdgeschwader
had been transferred to airfields in the west for Operation Bodenplatte, when approximately 850
Luftwaffe
fighters took off at 07.45 hours on Sunday morning 1 January 1945 to attack twenty-seven airfields in northern France, Belgium and southern Holland. The 4-hour operation succeeded in destroying about 100 Allied aircraft, but it cost the
Luftwaffe
300 aircraft, most of which were shot down by Allied anti-aircraft guns deployed primarily against the V-1s. During January 2nd TAF’s Mosquito night fighters exacted a measure of revenge, shooting down seventeen enemy aircraft.

On 22 February 9,000 Allied aircraft were pressed into action for Operation Clarion to deliver the coup de grace to what remained of the German transport system. Their targets were railway stations, trains and engines, crossroads, bridges and ships and barges on canals and rivers, stores and other targets. No.2 Group put up every available crew and every serviceable aircraft, flying 215 sorties, 176 from the Continent and the remainder by 136 Wing in England. It was to be the last time that the Mosquitoes operated in daylight in such numbers. One of the Mosquito crews in 21 Squadron that took part was Bert Willers and Les Bulmer, who had teamed up with his new pilot after Ed McQuarrie had finished his tour.
²³⁰
Les Bulmer remembers:

Clarion was a change from night operations. Each Mosquito squadron was given a particular area to patrol and 21 Squadron was given the area north of Hanover. By this time we were based in France at Rossieres-en-Santerre and we flew north to the Zuider Zee and then turned east. At Dimmer See ‘A’ Flight broke away to the NE and ‘B’ Flight continued east until we approached Nienburg. Here we split into two groups of four, one of which led towards the Hanover area. We found some engines and trucks in Schwarmstedt station and deposited our two bombs upon them plus a burst of cannon. Our No.2, Pilot Officer Bolton did the same but there was not enough left for the other two aircraft so they went off to do their own thing. On the way back west we saw a column of smoke from a train at Lemforde and we turned towards it. But we’d been seen and a lot of 20mm flak came our way even though we were some distance off. We decided that discretion was the better part of valour and we left well alone. As we headed west a single-engined aircraft, which we couldn’t identify, passed above us going in the opposite direction. Things were uneventful until we neared the Zuider Zee when we spotted two trucks travelling south. We were almost on top of them before we saw them so we tried to emulate a Stuka and dived almost vertically and gave them a burst of cannon. Bolton probably wondered where we had gone. All the way from Hanover he’d kept about a mile behind us and we couldn’t think why. He later told us that he didn’t want to get caught up in the flak, which we were attracting. Bert and I were blissfully unaware of this and thought what an uneventful trip it had been.
²³¹
On 10 March Bert Willers was called into the CO’s office after we returned from our 23rd trip together and he was told that it was our last one. I’d been on the Squadron since 15 February 1944 and done seventy-five ops. It was rather like getting a reprieve from a death sentence.

During the remaining months of the war, 2nd TAF squadrons and those of Fighter Command and 100 Group flew Bomber Support, Lure and Intruder operations to preselected airfields on the other side of the ‘bomb line’. E.S. Gates, George Topliss’ navigator on 613 Squadron, who had flown their first operation on 23 July 1944, recalls:

I vividly recall the atmosphere in the cockpit of our elegant and powerful Mk.V1 Mosquito bomber as we thundered down the main runway at RAF Lasham at the start of another trip. I would settle into my seat with a complete sense of security and accepted perhaps naively, that our aircraft would see us through another operation. A gentle easing back of the stick and up we would climb into the night sky. Somehow it felt reassuring to place one’s faith in a complicated mass of machinery. The persistent, powerful drone of the Rolls Royce engines, a steady vibration through the warm, snug cockpit, the pale opalescent glow of the instrument panel and the green flickering haze from the Gee set, all created a unique tiny world, completely remote from the reality of the earth below and the unpleasant war in which we were engaged.

Each navigational log has its own story to tell. Our first operation on 613 Squadron was to patrol a small area of northern France for an hour, searching out enemy road and rail transport. After my meticulous navigational planning and exceedingly thorough preflight checks by George, we were on our way. Crossing the coast near Littlehampton we flew south-east to enter enemy occupied France at Quiberville. Acting as he had been instructed, George commenced evasive action to confuse any enemy aircraft and flak. Unfortunately, his actions confused us more than the enemy. George later admitted that he scared himself to death as he nearly lost control by making over-violent manoeuvres. On all future operations we took no evasive action, relying on the speed of the Mosquito to take us quickly beyond any enemy coastal defences.

On one pitch-black night we dived steeply to attack a light in Germany and saw the dark silhouettes of trees rush past on the starboard side as we abruptly climbed away, a split second from oblivion. Then there was that occasion when, working as an Intruder pair, Frankie Reede dropped a flare as we took up a favourable position to attack the target. Naked under the yellow light and bear blinded by its brilliance, we were engulfed by a tangled trellis of coloured tracer shells. Identifying nothing and with the instinct of self-preservation uppermost, we dived away into the blackness beyond the flare.

The terse comment, ‘weather bad’ in my log for our operational trip on 4 November 1944 sets the scene but in no way does it portray the fearful experiences we encountered in heavy thundercloud over the North Sea. The aircraft writhed and creaked in the terrifyingly violent air currents; rain and hail spun off the propellers, the inherent charges of static electricity making them glow like huge Catherine Wheels; then there was the clatter of ice against the fuselage as chunks spun off the blades. Finally, after what seemed an interminable period of terror, we broke out of the clouds to find ourselves flying serenely down a huge valley between mountains of cumulonimbus. A half moon illuminated the massive towers and turret tops in a cold, pale glow and black fearful shadows were cast in the depths from which we had just emerged. Such images are forever indelibly etched in the memory. I can recall even more distinctly, those visages of squadron friends who flew off into the night never to return. The reality of life was often brought home to us at the termination of an operation. Frequently, fellows with which one had shared the previous evening’s entertainment in the mess were posted missing. Every crewmember on the squadron was known to the others and each time an aircraft failed to return we all felt the loss. Nevertheless one carried on, inevitably thinking ‘Its never going to happen to me’. And the Fatal Sisters, as they accompanied us on sixty-six operations against the enemy, decided not to sever one’s life thread. We completed our last Intruder trip with 613 Squadron on the night of 19 April 1945. As our Mosquito trundled towards the end of the runway on our return from northern Germany I made my final entry in my last operational log of the war. ‘04.35 hours – landed safely.’

CHAPTER NINE

The Shell House Raid

D
r. Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, the
Gestapo
chief in Denmark, was a troubled man. He knew that Germany had lost the war but that was not his main concern. The 31-year old SS
Sturmbannführer
concluded that the successful pinpoint raid by Mosquitoes of 2nd Tactical Air Force on the headquarters at Aarhus on 31 October could be but a prelude to an even bigger raid on his own headquarters in the centre of Copenhagen. Hoffmann had expert knowledge of the resistance movements and had arrived in Copenhagen in September 1943 to direct
Gestapo
operations. In May 1944 his expanding organisation had moved from the Dagmarhus, a large building in the city hall square and had taken over the Shell House overlooking St. Jørgen’s Lake in the centre of the city.
²³²
The
Shellhaus
had been built in 1934 as the new headquarters of the famous international oil company, A/S Dansk Shell. Each of the five floors of the building, which also had a cellar and an attic, was made of steel-framed reinforced concrete and on the outside the
Gestapo
installed screen walls with firing slits and barbed-wire barricades. As a deterrent against air attack, the Shell House had been camouflaged with green and brown stripes. (In fact, as it turned out, the stripes proved to be an added recognition aid as the building was the only one in the city to be camouflaged!) Following the D-Day landings in Normandy in June resistance activity in Denmark increased and the
Gestapo
began a new reign of terror against Danish saboteurs and resistance groups and the population at large. On 7 October in an effort to eradicate railway sabotage, Hoffmann decreed that captured resistance members and saboteurs would be carried on all trains transporting German troops. It had no effect and the
Gestapo
headquarters in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Odense stepped up interrogation and intelligence gathering. At the same time the
Gestapo
records within
Shellhaus
became the key to wholesale discrimination of the resistance movement.
²³³
Telephone taps on the lines between German High Command in Copenhagen and Berlin, had revealed plans to wind up the resistance movement in Copenhagen conclusively; the consequences of which would have allowed the release of 100,000 German troops to bolster the Battle of the Rhine. Such an event could have caused a major Allied defeat.

By the end of October 1944 the
Gestapo
had managed to capture several members of the Freedom Council, an underground movement,
Frit Danmark
(Free Denmark) and other groups. Not only was the capture of several key members of the Freedom Council a blow to the efficiency of this organisation, it was also a serious threat to Danish Resistance and the SOE organisation in Denmark. Signals to England requesting the bombing of
Gestapo
HQ were being received on an almost daily basis by the middle of January 1945. As the attack on Aarhus had showed, air attack was the only effective way of destroying these heavily defended headquarters. (The Danish police had made attempts to destroy the headquarters but they were unable to penetrate the heavily guarded buildings). In Copenhagen Hoffmann moved quickly and ordered the immediate conversion of the Shell House attic space into a prison complex. In all, twenty-two cells for hostages and six holding cells together with cooking, storage and washing facilities were to be built. Most held two prisoners, although sometimes the ‘prisoners’ were Danish informers put there to try and pick up information from the hostages. The cells themselves measured 3 metres by 2 metres, with one small window measuring 20 by 10 centimetres. Each cell had a two-tiered bunk bed, a table with drawers and two wooden chairs. A single 15-watt bulb was provided.
²³⁴
Hoffmann thought that with this human shield, the Gestapo would be immune to air attack.

Normal procedure required that a special pinpoint attack, which was to take place in friendly occupied territory, had to be sanctioned by the Air Board. Studies revealed the great risks involved in hitting a single target in a city centre. Civilian casualties were estimated at 300 and the percentage of aircraft losses could be considerably high. The Air Board passed responsibility for the final decision to Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry
DSO
**
DFC
*
AFC
, CIC 2 Group, whose 140 Wing 2nd Tactical Air Force, sometimes known as the ‘Gestapo Hunters’ would be the ones to carry out such a daring pinpoint raid. Embry in turn insisted that the final decision should come from someone in the field. This person would have full possession of the facts from both sides and up-to-date knowledge on the requirements of the Resistance. Furthermore, realistic estimates of casualties and possible damage had to be determined.

Ole Lippmann, Chief of Operations in the field and Allied representative of the Freedom Council (Danish Resistance), was the only man qualified to assess the risks. Around 10 February 1945 he was sent back to Denmark to make an appraisal and consequently the final decision for the attack on
Shellhaus
. Lippmann discovered that the situation was critical. On 4 March Lippmann wrote that it had been a very black week in Denmark. The
Gestapo
’s efficiency had improved markedly over the last few months and great damage had been done to the network in Copenhagen. He also said that he had still not been able to get a clear picture of the current situation. A week later Lippmann signalled: ‘All military leaders have been captured. Also all the Resistance action plans have fallen into German hands and without doubt the
Gestapo
knows of the whole Resistance organisation’.
²³⁵
He urgently requested that ‘Carthage’ be destroyed. Carthage was the code he was briefed to use. On 15 March he repeated the request and sent the following message: ‘Military leaders arrested and plans in German hands. Situation never before so desperate. Remaining leaders known by Hun. We are regrouping but need help. Bombing of SD Copenhagen will give us breathing space. If any importance at all to Danish resistance you must help us irrespective cost. We will never forget RAF and you if you come.’

Despite the risk of civilian casualties and heavy defences, the raid was finally sanctioned, although Embry admitted that he was horrified by the thought. He wrote later:

The idea of killing our own friends weighed heavily on my mind; it was indeed a hateful responsibility I had to carry alone both then and on several further occasions before the war ended. Those who have not borne such responsibility can never fully appreciate the mental torment of the commander who says, ‘Yes, we will do it and this is how it will be done.’

Nevertheless, as the request had come from ‘The Field’, the raid would take place and the actual date and time were closely guarded secrets. In the months leading up to the raid, the SOE worked closely with the Danish Resistance and British Intelligence to gather an enormous amount of material. Most of this came from the staff under the command of Major Svend Truelsen the dynamic Chief of Danish Military Intelligence. From this they were able to construct a highly detailed relief scale model, depicting a square mile of Copenhagen City centre. Meanwhile, time was fast running out for the Danes imprisoned in
Shellhaus
.

Ove Kampmann was a young Danish engineer who had worked on the construction of the Shell House. Now he shared cell 13 in the attic with a Danish Nazi informer. Kampmann’s crime was hiding refugees and passing them through the escape routes to freedom in Sweden. Later he began to act as a liaison contact between the Copenhagen military groups and the communications systems. The SD
²³⁶
had come for him early in the morning of 24 February. He was dragged from bed and taken to
Shellhaus
. For 48 hours, almost without a break, he was whipped and beaten. The SD knew that he was due to attend an important meeting at 9 o’clock on the following Monday morning to exchange information with a number of resistance leaders. Again and again the same question was repeated: ‘Where is the meeting to be held?’ He had never considered himself a brave man but if he could hold out until after 9 o’clock, he could then tell them what they wanted to know. If he did not arrive within 5 minutes of the appointed time the other resistance members would realise that something was wrong and they would not wait. By 9.15 they would have scattered and the meeting place would not be used again. Kampmann’s iron will conquered. He painfully watched as the hands of the clock moved passed the time of the meeting. At last with triumphant relief he told them what they wanted. The beating stopped, he was untied and dragged to his cell. His interrogators had done a better job than he knew. During the night, while he was unconscious, they had altered the clock. Unwittingly he had given the
Gestapo
the location of the meeting with time enough for them to arrange an ambush. More arrests were made. Kampmann tried to warn his two comrades in the next cell by pushing a note through a crack in the partition. However, they had already guessed the worst and immediately pushed the message back to him.

The
Gestapo
also arrested Ove Gessø Pedersen in February, as a suspected member of the resistance group
Frit Danmark
. He was immediately imprisoned on the sixth floor of
Shellhaus
along with twenty-three other prominent members of the underground. At first he shared cell No.14 with Professor Brandt Rehberg, a Freedom Council member and scientist who had been arrested with Colonel

E.V.C. Tiemroth on 26 February. (The capture of Tiemroth had alarmed intelligence services in London because he had detailed knowledge of the Resistance throughout Denmark). Pedersen was later moved into Cell No.9, one of the so-called ‘arrest’ cells, together with Lars Hansen Christiansen, who was arrested early in February 1945 for his part in a sabotage group.

Ebbe Wolfhagen, a Commander in the Royal Danish Navy, had scuttled his ship in Copenhagen harbour and he had joined the resistance organisation,
Holger Dansker,
a sabotage group. On the afternoon of 21 February 1945 Wolfhagen and another resistance member were apprehended whilst walking down a street in Copenhagen. Imprisoned in
Shellhaus
Wolfhagen’s interrogations started with a broken nose and a black eye, then a beating and questioning for 16 hours without a break. He had a feeling that the situation was not very favourable and he waited each day in his cell to be told of the hour of his execution. On 19 March 1945 he had been taken down to the interrogation rooms again. The
Gestapo
placed some papers in front of him, covered except for one small space at the foot of the final page. They ordered him to sign. He refused, saying that he could not put his signature to any document that he had not read. After some argument he was allowed to read his ‘confession’. Throughout his interrogations he had refused an interpreter and had answered all questions himself in German. He had decided upon this as a precaution against being forced or tricked into revealing secret information, as he could always plead that he had not understood the question and had therefore answered it incorrectly not untruthfully. With this as his excuse, he insisted upon the deletion of all the most incriminating evidence. He was then sent back to his cell and on the following day a new typescript was presented for him to sign. Although not all the incriminating material had been removed, he signed. The
Gestapo
officers were friendly and congratulated him on his good sense. His interrogator then asked him one final question. ‘How many murders have you committed?’ Wolfhagen truthfully answered, ‘None’.

‘Not even one little one just before you were arrested?’ He was asked.

His reply, firmly and in all honesty was, ‘I am unable to distinguish between little murders and big murders. I have not committed murder of any kind.’ At 3 o’clock in the morning of 12 March Ebbe Wolfhagen was moved from
Shellhaus
to Vestre Prison, a move that may have saved his life.

A day earlier eighteen FB.VIs from 140 Wing (21 RAF, 464 RAAF and 487 RNZAF Squadrons) plus two FPU (Film Production Unit) specially modified Mosquito B.IVs, were detached from Rosiéres en Senterre in France to RAF Fersfield in Norfolk. The move was made so that the route over the North Sea to Denmark would avoid flying over enemy-held territory with all the attendant risk of flak and radar detection. However, this stretched the Mosquitoes’ range to the limit of endurance, a total flight time of over 8 hours. Group Captain R.N. ‘Bob’ Bateson
DSO DFC
**
AFC
and Squadron Leader Ted Sismore
DSO DFC
, the leading tactical navigator, would lead the operation. Air Vice Marshal Embry, alias ‘Wing Commander Smith’, would fly in a Mosquito loaned by 107 Squadron, in the first wave, with Squadron Leader Peter Clapham as his navigator. The crews were briefed intensely on 20 March and before take-off the next day and kept in a confined and closely guarded area away from the other personnel on the base. The twenty Mosquitoes would attack at minimum altitude, in three waves of 7, 6 and 6 aircraft respectively. Included in this total was one FPU Mosquito IV (DZ414/O) flown by Flight Lieutenant Ken Greenwood and Flying Officer E. Moore of 487 Squadron, which carried two 500lb HE and two 500lb M76 incendiaries and was to fly with and bomb with the first wave. The second FPU Mosquito IV, Q-Query, flown by Flying Officer R.E. ‘Bob’ Kirkpatrick of 21 Squadron and Sergeant R. Hearne of 4 FPU. Kirkpatrick was born in 1922 in Souris, Manitoba, Canada of American parents who moved back to Cleveland, Ohio, when he was one year old. On 8 December 1941 he tried to enlist in the US Marines but a medical revealed a heart murmur and he was turned down. Kirkpatrick travelled to Windsor, Ontario where, upon questioning his physical condition, he was told, “If you can see lightning and hear thunder you can be a pilot!” The RCAF accepted him for pilot training and after flying Beaufighters in a Coastal Command OTU in September 1944 he joined 21 Squadron at Thorney Island. He and Hearne had the unenviable task of flying behind the third and last wave to film the results. In total the twenty Mosquitoes carried a lethal load of forty-four 500lb bombs. Because of the very low levels flown and to prevent damage to following aircraft, the leading aircraft of each wave had 30-second delayed action bombs and the remainder, 11-second delayed action bombs. A proportion of the first and third waves carried M76 incendiaries.