Authors: Martin Bowman
Tags: #Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
174
In daylight on 6 March 48 Mosquitoes led by
Oboe
-equipped Mosquitoes of 109 Squadron to provide marking, bombed Wesel, which was believed to contain many German troops and vehicles. One Mosquito failed to return.
175
Edwards was flying B.XVI MM191. Twenty-eight of the 32 Lancasters dispatched carried
Tallboy
bombs and one from 617 Squadron dropped the first 22,000lb
Grand Slam
bomb.
176
Burke however, was picked to crew with William Worthington Topper to go out to Okinawa, in a Master Bomber role, for the attacks, which
Tiger Force
was to launch on the Japanese mainland and other Far East targets. Burke did not look forward to this, as he detested the thought of snakes, the jungle, the heat and the Japanese treatment of air crew prisoners but during a home visit to Preston the news broke of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
177
An unusually high loss percentage, as the average losses usually only amounted to 0.99% of the fast Berlin raiders.
178
At First Sight; A Factual and anecdotal account of No.627 Squadron RAF.
Researched and compiled by Alan B. Webb. 1991. Barnett, bloodied and covered in deep yellow from the fluorescene in the Mae West life jacket and with a four day old beard, made it to a farmhouse on his hands and knees, where he scared an elderly lady half to death. Barnett was eventually apprehended and sent to a PoW hospital at Schleswig. He finished the war in Stalag 20B. Johnny Day’s body was never found.
179
Hudson, born in Kaponga, New Zealand on 16 November 1915, suffered from polio in early childhood, which affected both his legs but he overcame this and in High School played 1st Class cricket and rugby and participated in cross-country runs to build up his stamina. (
571 Mosquito Squadron History
by Barry Blunt).
180
Becker’s victim was FB.VI MM131 XD-J of 139 Squadron, which had taken off from Upwood at 19.12 hours for Berlin. Squadron Leader H. A. Forbes DFC, the navigator/bomb aimer escaped and was taken prisoner but no trace has ever been found of his pilot, Flight Lieutenant André A. J. van Amsterdam, a Dutch escapee decorated with the DFC and the Dutch AFC.
181
Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Pudsey and Flying Officer John Reginald Dalton Morgan were on their 34th operation, to Magdeburg on 4/5 April when 31 Mosquitoes were despatched and they collided with a Mosquito of 571 Squadron over the Channel.
Chapter 6
182
Highball
weighed 9501bs with a charge weight of about 600lbs and a diameter of 35in. Based on the
Upkeep
‘bouncing bomb’, which 617’s Lancasters had dropped on the German dams,
Highball
was significantly smaller and lighter (about 10 per cent of the weight of the larger weapon). Each modified Mosquito B.IV could carry two
Highballs
, launching them at low level with a back spin of approximately 500rpm from about 34 miles. On 28 February 1943 an Air Staff paper called for two squadrons of Mosquitoes and 250
Highball
bombs and two squadrons of Lancasters and 100
Upkeep
bombs.
183
618 spent much of 1943 perfecting the weapon and flying assimilation sorties. However, by 14 May, the day before Operation
Servant
, the intended strike on the
Tirpitz
, only six suitably modified B.IVs were available at Skitten and the strike was called off. (Twelve other Mk.IVs were at Hatfield for long-range tanks to be installed.)
Highball
trials continued but by September the Squadron had been reduced to a cadre at Benson. 618 Squadron was re-tasked for re-assignment to the Pacific so, in July 1944, it was brought up to full strength. Its mission now was to attack, with
Highball
, the Japanese fleet at Truk, which, because of the distance involved, meant that the Mosquitoes would have to operate from a carrier! Ten crews arrived from 143, 144, 235, 236, 248 and 254 Squadrons; while from 540 and 544 PR Squadrons came ten pilots and navigators whose task it would be to find the Japanese ships. They were attached to the Naval Air Torpedo School for carrier training using Barracuda II aircraft. After a series of aerodrome dummy deck landings (ADDLs) crews made a real deck landing and take-off from HMS
Implacable
using Mosquito IVs modified with arrestor hooks and four paddle-bladed props. On 31 October 24 Mk IVs and three PR.XVIs were ferried out to the Pacific on two escort carriers, HMS
Fencer
and HMS
Striker.
They docked in Melbourne, Australia on 23 December. In the meantime the Americans had sunk the ships at Truk. In January the aircraft were unloaded and on 7 February the detachment proceeded to Narromine in NSW and on to Darwin where a PR unit was stationed. On ANZAC Day, 25 April, nine crews flew a formation flypast of Mosquito lVs over Narromine and surrounding towns. The crews finally left Australia on VE Day on board the
Nieuw Amsterdam
and returned to England.
184
On 22 October 1943 two Mosquito FB.XVIIIs, which had a 57mm Molins cannon in place of the conventional four 20mm cannon, arrived at Predannack and were issued to 248 Squadron engaged in anti-shipping operations in the Atlantic. The squadron was equipped mainly with the Beaufighter, but earlier that October five Mosquito crews and 34 ground crew from 618 Squadron had been transferred to fly and service the new aircraft. The 618 Squadron crews were an ideal choice for maritime operations, two having commenced operations on XVIIIs two days earlier when Squadron Leader Rose DFC DFM and Flying Officer Al Bonnett RCAF attempted to track a
U-boat
in the Bay of Biscay.
185
The Molins was installed in the nose in place of the four 20mm cannon. An arc-shaped magazine, holding 24 rounds of 57mm armour-piercing HE shells capped with tracer, was positioned vertically about mid-ships, feeding into the breech block. The breech block was behind the crew, and the barrel extended below the floor of the cockpit, the muzzle protruding below the fairing of the nose. Two, sometimes four .303 inch machine guns were retained, however, for strafing and air combat. All these guns were sighted through one reflector sight, the firing buttons being on the control column. The Molins gun had a muzzle velocity of 2,950ft per second and the ideal range to open fire was 1,800-1,500 yards. The gun and its feed system were sensitive to sideways movement and attacking in a XVIII required a dive from about 5,000ft (at a 30° angle with the turn-and-bank indicator dead central. The slightest drift would cause the gun to jam.
186
On 22 October 1943 the first two Mk.XVIIIs arrived at Predannack for anti-shipping operations in the Atlantic. 248 Squadron was equipped mainly with Beaufighters but earlier that month, five Mosquito crews and 34 ground crew from Skitten were transferred in as the 618 Squadron Special Detachment, to fly and service the new Tsetses. Amid great secrecy three XVIIIs - HX902, 903 and 904 -were prepared for action. Operations commenced on 24 October with two XVIIIs flown by Squadron Leader Charlie Rose DFC DFM, who had been ‘A’ Flight commander at Skitten and Flight Sergeant Cowley, and Flying Officer Al Bonnett RCAF and Pilot Officer McD ‘Pickles’ McNicol but they returned empty-handed.
187
Rose and his navigator, Flight Sergeant Cowley were killed by return fire from a trawler in the second of two attacks on the vessel. Three days later, on 7 November, Flying Officer Al Bonnett scored hits on U-123, a Type IXB of 1,051 tons, which was returning on the surface to Brest at the end of her thirteenth war cruise. (The mine-swept channels off the French Atlantic coast leading to the U-boat bases at Brest, Lorient, St Nazaire, La Rochelle and Bordeaux, were ideal killing grounds because the water depth was too shallow to permit the U-boats to crash-dive if attacked). After the first dive Bonnett’s cannon jammed and he was forced to strafe the U-boat with machine gun fire. As a result of this attack the
Kriegsmarine
was forced to provide escort vessels for its U-boats from now on.
188
Conversion from the Beaufighter moved on and by 1 January 1944 248 Squadron had XVIII Tsetse’s and four FB.VIs available for fighter reconnaissance and support for anti-shipping operations in 19 Group, Coastal Command. On 20 February 248 Squadron flew their first interception and anti-shipping patrols in the Bay of Biscay. On 10 March four FB.VIs escorting two FB.XVIIIs tangled with four Luftwaffe Ju 88s flying top cover for a German naval convoy. One of the Ju 88s was shot down on fire and two ‘probables’ were claimed. Meanwhile the FB.XVIIIs went after the German ships. They damaged a destroyer and shot down one of the Ju 88s. Coastal Command Liberators waded in and continued the attack on the convoy.
189
Who had enlisted in the
Kriegsmarine
in October 1938 and had taken charge of U-960 on 26 January.
190
Altogether, the four minesweepers fired 45 88mm shells and 1,550 20mm shells and claimed one Mosquito ‘definitely’ shot down. Flight Sergeant C. R. Tomalin managed to put his FB.VI down at Portreath despite a large hole in the starboard mainplane. Flight Sergeant L. A. Compton and Sergeant Peters managed crash-landed also, with the hydraulics shot out. Aboard U-960 the conning tower, periscope and control room were badly damaged by Hilliard’s 57mm shells. Ten men, including Heinrich, who was hit above the left knee by pieces of shrapnel, were wounded, some of them badly. U-960 managed to put into La Pallice for repairs. A year later she put to sea again and was sunk in the Mediterranean on 19 May by the combined efforts of four US destroyer and two squadrons of Venturas. In March 1996 surviving crewmembers of U-976 and U-960 and three French divers who had found the wreck of U-976 on the seabed where it had lain since the attack on 25 March 1944 when it was making its way to St. Nazaire, met at the Comet Hotel, Hatfield. Des Curtis, Hilly Hilliard, Jim Hoyle and two other members of the Mosquito Aircrew Association were there to greet them.
191
U-212 limped into St. Nazaire for repairs and when she put to sea again, was sunk by frigates in July.
192
U-155 was sufficiently damaged that it never saw action again.
193
Warrant Officer Lionel Douglas Stoddart and his navigator Warrant Officer Geoffrey Gordon Harker of 248 Squadron are buried in Le Verdon-sur-Mer communal cemetery.
194
Maurice Webb, returning after 50 years was shown the point where their Mosquito crashed and the spot where Harold Corbin landed. The high spot though was when he was taken to a farmhouse in Treguidel and re-united with the lady to whom he had given his parachute. At that time she was aged 20, as he had been and in 1945 she married and her mother made her wedding dress from the parachute silk. Remarkably she still retained the bodice of this dress, fifty years on and in a traumatic ceremony it was presented to Maurice Webb. He also met a member of the local unit of the Maquis who looked after him until he was reunited with Harold and then the Americans arrived.
195
235 and 248 Squadrons joined 333 Norwegian Squadron and 144 and 404 RCAF Beaufighter Squadrons to form the Banff Strike Wing under Wing Commander Max Aitken DSO DFC. 333 Squadron had formed at Leuchars on 10 May 1943 from 1477 (Norwegian) Flight, and commenced its first Mk VI operations on 27 May.
196
On 19 January 1945 notification was received of the bar to Wing Commander Richard Ashley Atkinson’s DFC. After continuous fighting for five years and two months (he had flown Catalinas in the South West Pacific and was awarded the DSO and DFC for his outstanding service in 1941-43) he was killed just six months before the end of hostilities. On 2 September 1944 his son William Ashley had been born in Redruth Hospital.
197
Both came from a farming background. Smith was just 18 years old in September 1939 and ‘Reserved Occupation’, working on his father’s fruit farm. He was finally accepted for pilot training in 1941 but sent home on deferred service again until 1942. Peter McIntyre was also ’Reserved Occupation’, coming from a farming background in Aberdeenshire and he had then done his flying training in Pensacola, Florida before injuring his back badly playing rugby.
198
U-804, U-843 and U-1065.
199
Squadron Leader Bert Gunnis DFC ordered the nine FB.VIs of 143 Squadron near the rear of the formation being led by Squadron Leader David Pritchard, to attack. The U-boats had not seen the Mosquitoes. Then they did, but it was too late. With the rest of the wing wheeling in behind, 143 Squadron attacked, their cannons blazing as they fired seventy RPs into the U-boats, now frantically trying to escape beneath the waves.
200
All three U-boats were sunk - one of them taking the photo-Mosquito with it in an explosion. In fact the Mosquitoes were so low, three suffered damaged engines when they were hit by flying debris and were forced to land in Sweden.
201
During McIntyre and Smith’s internment the Mosquitoes sank a fourth U-boat, on 19 April and they would sink six more, including four on one day, 4 May, before the war ended. McIntyre and Smith returned to Leuchars aboard a BOAC DC-3 after internment at Falun. John Smith recalls. ‘In Sweden I had changed about £25 into Swedish Krona and had bought silk stockings for our sisters and girlfriends. I also purchased an unabridged copy of
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
(which was banned in Britain at this time). The book, printed in English made me so very popular back at Banff, until I was foolish enough to lend it to a WAAF who didn’t return it! We were sent to the Air Ministry in London to be interrogated, then back to Banff to be re-kitted. On home leave we experienced VE-Day, 8 May 1945.’
202
Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris GCB OBE DSO MA died on 28 September 2003.
Chapter 7
203
A modified PR.XVI could carry 12 M-46 PFBs, six in the forward half of the bomb bay and six ion the rear half. Extremely thin metal was used in the bomb’s outer shell. The nose fuse had. Among its safety and firing features, a timing mechanism and three safety blocks that fell away when a small propeller had rotated a set number of revolutions. The nose fuse then detonated the flash bomb when the timer had counted down to zero.