Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II (53 page)

It was one of my most unforgettable operations. We were usually sent out to attack predetermined targets in support of the advancing XIV Army. Quite a lot of our intelligence for targets was obtained via Force 136. These were small groups of men, usually four in number, with a wireless operator in the team, working in the jungle behind Japanese lines, sending information back on targets to attack. On this occasion, the Japanese were trying to hoodwink us, as they were always vulnerable to air attack if keeping to jungle roads during daylight hours. Medical supplies were urgently required for the Japanese troops of 33rd Division. They utilised local bullock carts, disguised with a hay top covering. Force 136 discovered this ruse as they monitored a convoy of 8-10 carts making their way north towards the front line. The Japanese 33rd Division was retreating down the Chindwin valley to the south and west of Mandalay. Taking off from Thazi, a forward landing-strip to the east of the Chin Hills, as dawn was breaking, we set course in a south-easterly direction.

The target given to us was Ywadon, but the bullock cart convoy had moved on a little by the time we arrived there. After a few moments searching in the general direction they were heading we spotted them in line astern, about eight of them in total, edging along a narrow track banking, alongside rice paddy fields. Making a broadside approach we hit the first two, made a steep turn to port and made a similar attack on the rear three, finishing off the trapped middle three with a third strafing.

Our ammunition belts on both the .303 Browning machine guns and the 20mm Hispano cannon had been loaded with extra incendiary bullets and shells to cause the most effective damage. Flame and smoke damaged medical supplies would be of little use. The horrifying part was seeing the bullocks in the shafts falling to the ground, having been hit with either stray bullets or shells. It was also unfortunate for the Burmese Teamsters who were caught up in the attacks. They had probably been drafted into this job under duress by their Japanese conquerors.

My conscience didn’t play any part at this point. We were a highly trained crew. We had to do a job, which we did to the best of our ability. But we did come to realise that this was the horror of war at close hand! With our complete domination of the air, Japanese motor transport was usually kept well hidden in the jungle during daylight hours. Carts drawn by bullocks would generally be less vulnerable to attack. Hence our reliance on Force 136. On this occasion we were to continue our sortie [Rhubarb] to Ywathit where we strafed a lone truck heading north and then more ‘business’ as we spotted four more covered trucks also heading north, which we duly strafed and certainly caused considerable damage. We were by this time south and west of Mandalay near Monywa on the Chindwin. It was time for home.

On all these low level sorties the cockpit became extremely hot with sweat stinging the eyes and the body saturated in perspiration. The sickly acrid smell of burnt cordite fumes, all added up to make a sortie a very unpleasant and unforgettable experience.

On the return flight we were obliged to land at Thazi, a jungle refuelling strip in the Kabaw valley (Death Valley), north-west of Mandalay and one hour short of our home base at Kumbhirgram, due to a very dangerous build up of cumulus over the Manipur Mountain range. Our operational flight time for this operation was a gruelling 3 hours and 40 minutes, arriving knackered at Thazi to the point of collapse. Had the weather been clear I doubt if we could have made it to our home base. Perhaps God was on our side in clamping down the weather. As it was we were again diverted from Thazi to Imphal because of bad weather, taking off later for base at Kumbhirgram. All in all this one operation had taken nearly two days to complete. It was then debriefing and bed to recover. In many ways it was a sortie which left little sense of satisfaction, as it was difficult to see if the end, with native Burmese and bullocks killed, justified the means.

Max Howland an Australian Mosquito pilot on 684 Squadron at Alipore, Calcutta in 1945 states:

On my course at OTU at Dyce most English were posted to Benson. Us ‘colonials’ got India. “Tough luck old chap, glad we’re not going with you” they said and then they got a rugged time over Germany. I think the squadron was efficient. It was certainly informal. Briefing was individual, no crews together. The CO gave each new crew on arrival a 2-3 hour rundown on the strategic situation and on operating conditions. We were warned that we would fly through the monsoon and that unless we set aside our preconceived ideas of weather and developed new standards we wouldn’t be long for the squadron. The monsoon rain was heavy. We were told that we would not be able to tell the difference between blue sky and black cloud. I think most of us doubted it, until it happened to us. Later, I was at 33,000ft beside a Cu Nimb and I wasn’t even half way up. A black storm looks bad but we were warned of the daddy of them all: a brown storm. Of course we couldn’t photograph through cloud. On one trip I flew from right on the deck over Jap territory and up to 35,000ft to avoid the cloud and was supposed to photograph from high-level above 22,000ft from 8,000ft. Once to maintain 300° from my navigator’s plot I actually steered 270, 180, 330, 265, 360°. You’d have fabric coming off from the rain you couldn’t dodge. You’d try unsuccessfully to avoid flying in cloud because you could still see Cu-Nimb sticking up after clearing stratus at 25,000ft. Our liquid-cooled engines on the high altitude models didn’t like ground running in the midday tropics. After starting-up we taxied like hell to take-off doing the rest of our cockpit check on the run. If we got held up we had to shut down. Our job was to give notice of any Jap reinforcing. We did this by photographing every town, every tin-pot port, every ’drome, roads, and every inch of the railway system within a thousand miles (equivalent of London to right across Poland). We could keep track of every railway wagon they had. If the Japs had mislaid one we could have told them where it was. We had a line shoot: ‘Jap stationmasters can’t even go to the toilet without our knowing’ (or words to that effect). When covering a railway line we flew over the whole length taking sixty overlapping photos, any adjoining pair of which made a stereo or 3D pair. The camera took shots automatically about every 6 seconds: set to suit height, airspeed, wind. A red light gave warning of the next exposure. For gentle curves we skidded the aircraft round between shots. For a 90-degree bend, say, we would turn off the camera and turn through 270°. We could virtually guarantee to fly vertically over a target. In Burma wind at height was seldom a problem. However, we did have our problems: we flew alone, unarmed, in daylight, one thousand miles at heights from the deck up. The Japs were more thinly spread than the Germans and the targets were fewer but we visited them more often.

A typical good weather op to Akyab, Ramree Island and finally north of Rangoon consisted of a briefing for two days, completed about lunch time. Then we’d fly to the most forward strip at Cox’s Bazaar. At daybreak, fill the 100-gallon drops. Take off as soon as possible hoping to start photographing about 09.00 and be out over the Bay on the way back by early afternoon when the storm lines built up along the Malay coast. And we’d be hoping to arrive back in time for a swim in the coffee they called the Bay of Bengal. At height we ran the bomb-bay tank dry and calculated how long we could stay in the air. We would give ourselves 15 minutes safety though we would sometimes pinch five minutes to finish a job. While still 15 minutes out all tanks would read empty and you’d pray the navigator had learned his arithmetic right and that another Thunderbolt wouldn’t prang and drop a bomb on the only runway. My longest trip was 8 hours and I had 40 gallons left. I know others that have been much closer and completed an otherwise successful op but an op was a failure unless we got back. Land and refuel and then fly back to Alipore. First interpretation ready after dinner and a selection of photos back to the flight within 48 hours.

Word got round some time after the German surrender and before the atomic bombs, that all Australians were being sent home. Official word came from Delhi, it was true  when we could be spared. I had an interesting war and a lucky one. I like the philosophy of what an American wrote: ‘War is the ultimate adventure;  the ordinary man’s means of escaping from the ordinary.’

During February 1945 89 Squadron at Baigachi began converting from the Beaufighter to the Mosquito FB.VI but they were never used. In March 82 Squadron flew 269 sorties, while 47 and 84 Squadrons were used on bomber support operations for the Army. Two crews of 82 Squadron had a lucky escape on 8 March returning from a raid by six Mosquitoes of 82 Squadron on a bridge over the Sittand River at Pyinmana and a nearby airstrip. The Mosquitoes dropped their 11-second delayed action bombs close to the target without hitting the bridge. The lead aircraft flown by Squadron Leader F.W. ‘Freddy’ Snell
DFC
, who had flown Fairey Battles at the beginning of the war and had then gone to Canada as an instructor, and Flying Officer Arthur Maude was badly damaged by an explosion beneath the aircraft. Despite the aircraft being riddled with holes, Snell managed to get the Mosquito back to Kumbhirgram. It was thought that the explosion had been caused by the detonation of a land mine.

After attacking the bridge Flying Officer Ron ‘Babe’ Wambeek
DFC
and Warrant Officer Brian Mooney swept low over Lewe II airstrip in the hope of catching Japanese fighters on the ground but their Mosquito was hit by accurate bursts of machine-gun fire. The port engine streamed glycol and the hydraulic system was damaged. Wambeek feathered the port propeller and set course for Sadaung about 200 miles to the north, the most advanced airfield at which the aircraft could be repaired before crossing to their base in Assam. Without hydraulics they were committed to a crash landing but that would put the strip out of action for several hours so they carried on a to a small satellite strip about 5 miles to the south-east, although it was unlikely that it was in Allied hands at the time. Uneven ground, trees and large boulders precluded a crash landing elsewhere so the crew reasoned that it was better to take their chances evading the Japanese than risk almost certain death over the jungle terrain. Wambeek landed without flaps and with his undercarriage down at an alarming speed before the Mosquito ground to a halt. At the last moment the Mosquito slewed round to the right and the fuselage broke in half just behind the wing roots before ending up about 30 yards from the trees at the end of the strip. Both men scrambled out of the top hatch and disappeared into the scrub and undergrowth. A sticky stench of rotting flesh pervaded the whole area. An estimated 4,000 Japanese had been killed in the fighting. Two hours later an army patrol in two jeeps picked up the two downed fliers and ran the gauntlet of enemy snipers. As they passed along the shores of Meiktila Lake they could see numerous bodies floating high on the water in the shimmering haze and heat of the afternoon, all with huge, grotesque, gas-inflated bellies. While waiting their turn to be evacuated Wambeek and Mooney were given cups of hot, sweet tea. Wambeek wondered if the water had come from Meiktila Lake!
²⁵⁹

Meanwhile, on 10 February at China Bay the No.1 Detachment commander, Flight Lieutenant Henry C. Lowcock and his navigator Flight Sergeant D.W.R. Lewin photographed five Sumatran airfields. Four days later Wing Commander

W.E.M. Lowry
DFC
and Flight Lieutenant Gerald Stevens flew the first of a series of low-level reconnaissance flights over the notorious Burma-Siam railway. By the end of February 684 Squadron was back to full strength with twenty-two Mosquitoes, including three which were detached to China Bay. By March 1945 the Squadron was making record-breaking flights of around 9 hours to Phuket Island to reconnoitre possible landing beaches. The approaching monsoon and build up of tropical storms in the Bay of Bengal caused operational problems. On 10 March Flight Lieutenant Jack Irvine and Flight Sergeant Bob Bannister flew through one such storm to photograph possible landing beaches on Phuket Island during a flight that lasted almost 9 hours. Twelve days later, Irvine and Bannister carried out a sortie, which lasted 8 hours 45 minutes and covered 2,493 miles, to photograph the Bangkok-Singapore railway to a point just south of the Malayan border. (This was to be the longest sortie flown by a Mosquito PR.XVI in any theatre of the war.)

On 5 April Flight Lieutenant R. Stoneham and Flying Officer R. Burns had a lucky escape. At the beginning of their run along the Burma-Siam railway, their starboard engine speed began to increase from 2,000 to 3,000 rpm. Stoneham throttled back but this had no effect. Propeller pitch was altered with the same result and the Mosquito began vibrating as the engine speed reached 5,000 revs. Burns, who was in the nose, saw that the engine was on fire and the extinguisher was operated. The aircraft lost height rapidly and by the time it cleared the coast near Moolmein it was down to 1,000ft. A height of 600ft was maintained over the Gulf of Mattaban and when land was again sighted neat Basseit, Stoneham jettisoned the wing-tanks, enabling the aircraft to climb to 1,500ft and return to Cox’s Bazaar. On 18 April Stoneham and Burns had another lucky escape when they were caught in severe storms
en route
to Victoria Point. They returned to Cox’s Bazaar with only 10 minutes’ fuel remaining. The Mosquito’s leading wing edges and tailplane were damaged, requiring repairs before the crew could continue to Alipore. However, Flight Lieutenant Newman and Flight Sergeant Preston were killed on a sortie from Alipore to Cox’s Bazaar when the Mosquito crashed in bad weather
en route
. Four days later Flight Lieutenant T. Bell and Flying Officer J. Plater were lost in similar circumstances on a sortie to Nancowry Island. It was assumed that they had crashed into the sea that same day

Operation Dracula, the seaborne invasion of lower Burma via the port of Rangoon, took place on 1/2 May with support from 82 and 110 Squadrons but the PR.IXs of 684 Squadron were grounded by bad weather. For this operation 82 Squadron was detached from their home base at Kumbhirgram to a satellite strip at Joari, north of Akyab Island on the Arakan coast. This permitted crews to fly due south over the coast and on a due east course to the Irrawaddy estuary, then north-east to Rangoon, which allowed them to miss the highly dangerous monsoon clouds building up further inland in Burma. The task of 82 Squadron was to neutralise the ground artillery and anti-aircraft positions protecting an oil refinery at Syriam about 5 miles to the south of Rangoon. It was essential to put these guns out of commission. Royal Marine commandos were coming up the estuary in landing craft, which would have left them like sitting ducks. Each Mosquito was armed with two 500lb 11-second delay, fused bombs, with four cannon and four Browning machine-guns for strafing purposes. The whole trip took 5 hours and 15 minutes. Gradually, conditions improved proved and by the end of the month the Mosquitoes, using Kyaukpyo on Ramree Island, as an advanced landing strip were flying regularly as far as Bangkok, Phuket Island and the Siam railway. Most of the sorties were carried out by the China Bay detachment, which continued its coverage of the Indian Ocean islands.