When Sir Geoffrey de Havilland first pitched his idea for a two-seater bomber made of wood with no armament, few people were willing to accept his design. But the de Havilland Mosquito went on to become one of the most successful and popular aircraft of the Second World War. The defence of this bomber would be its speed. Mosquitoes were the among the first multi-role combat aircraft: they could be turned to anything and excelled at everything. They were popular with pilots and were adapted into numerous different roles to great success.
In this video, our Duxford expert Graham Rodgers tells us how this little wooden bomber came into action, and we hear from some of those who experienced its power first-hand.
The Magnificent Mosquito
Graham Rodgers: “At the early part of the Second World War, 1939, '40, '41, a lot of brilliant British engineers and manufacturers were coming up with their own ideas to win the war. One of the ideas that was put forward was from Sir Geoffrey de Havilland.
Now, a bomber stereotypically is a big aeroplane that carries bombs, obviously it needs a defence - machine guns in the front of the back - but we were losing young lads in Bomber Command very, very fast indeed. Sir Geoffrey de Havilland had a very big blue sky think. He decided he was going to make a bomber, but he was going to make it completely unarmed. The defence of this bomber was going to be its speed. Mr de Havilland made some ideas, put some drawings down, and sent them off to the government. The government had a look at him but like so many other designs at the time Mosquito - as was going to be the name - was chosen to be discontinued. Mr de Havilland was not happy. He had his manufacturers, had his own factory, had his own workers, and he wasn't short of a bob or two. So, he decided to go ahead with his own project, he believed in his idea. Now everybody was handing in metal - pots, pans, railings, and gate posts to get melted down to turn into airplanes like Spitfires. But Sir Geoffrey de Havilland had his idea that he would make his aeroplane out of wood.”
Video footage reporter: “Construction was of wood, and this was revolutionary for first-class British aircraft. But wood was chosen for three main reasons: for quick production, to use fresh material supplies, and to employ a new group of labour. Wood construction also gave this plane more buoyancy in the event of coming down on water. And in place of the clang of metal is the sound of carpentry, in place of sparks there's sawdust.”
Graham Rodgers: “Nothing strange about a wooden aeroplane a long time ago, but this is the Second World War, we're in modern times. If this airplane is going to go up against a German fighter like the Messerschmidt 109, a lethal aeroplane, the wood is going to have to be very streamlined and very strong. He started experimenting with very thin layers of veneer, some balsa wood, pressing them down with some fish-based glue over some upside-down jigs or books, looking like an upside-down boat. He pressed them over and moulded them down, popped them off, and he had two semi-circles, put the two semi-circles together you have one long tube or fuselage if you will. Just enough room for one pilot, his navigator and a lot of bombs. He'd got a fuselage. He decided to try the same with wings but of course if this airplane is going to be fast you need powerful engines, it's going to be manoeuvrable to get away from the German fighters. Sticking to the wings, not one but two 27 litre V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, and two as you can see of the biggest propellers he could possibly fit on the little wooden airplane. If you follow the trajectory of the propellers down, you can see only just misses the nose of the airplane. And the little wooden bomber ends up with 3,000 horsepower.”
Geoffrey Poole: “It rapidly went into production, and they rearranged the production shops to enable as many Mosquitoes to be built as possible, and that resulted in there being four production lines and the various parts, the shelves of the fuselage and the wing boxes were brought together from other sites, mostly from places where there had been furniture manufacturers. And at the peak, one aeroplane would emerge from each line each day - that was the scale of production that was achieved, because it was wartime and things were sort of desperate.”
Video footage reporter: “Thousands of men whose peacetime job was making beds and chairs are now workers in aircraft production. Thousands of women too are working all out on the world's fastest warplane.”
Graham Rodgers: “Now if you were learning to fly in the war time and you were moving on to Bomber Command, you would need a twin rating, obviously flying an aeroplane with two engines. To get the twin rating you might learn to fly in the Airspeed Oxford, which we also have here at Imperial War Museum Duxford, or the Avro Anson down on the floor, aeroplanes that are quite old-fashioned built, covered in Irish linen, room for two or three guys, perhaps a couple of machine guns, and with total power output of less than 600 horsepower. The mosquito had 3,000 horsepower, slick down the fuselage, no pop rivets, no screws, completely aerodynamic.
A prototype was made - W4050 - and one or two other prototypes were sent here to Duxford, to the air fighting development unit outside of the south side of Hangar Three. Nothing new about a new aeroplane showing up outside on the grass for Duxford for testing: a little twin-engine bomber. But this aeroplane - no armament? The test pilots were scratching their heads. Reading a few of the pilot's notes as best they could they took off to test the Mosquito as it became known. Not only did the test pilots come back with a wry smile because not only was it the fastest bomber they had ever flown, it was the fastest aeroplane they had ever known.”
John Cunningham: “And in fact, I had the privilege of being asked by the Chief of the Air Staff then to go and fly the prototype Mosquito in, I think it was February 1941, and I was in fact only the third pilot ever to fly a Mosquito. So, I was happy to fly the aircraft and overjoyed at its high performance.”
Interviewer: “Do you remember that occasion?”
John Cunningham: “Yes, very well indeed because it was so much higher performance than the Beaufighters, which was an outstanding war machine, and the Mosquito was a real joy to fly and of course subsequently proved so to so many pilots.”
Graham Rodgers: “So eventually they said let's test this thing against our best, let's test it against a Spitfire. The contemporary Spitfire in 1941 was a Mark V Spitfire. A Mark V Spitfire was tested against a Mosquito to see if the Mosquito could keep up. It was the other way around. At no altitude could a Mark V Spitfire stay with a Mosquito. The Mosquito was put into service with flying colours. The first Mosquitoes off the production line were going into Bomber Command and with a slightly extended bomb bay as you can see ours has a slightly extended bomb bay a little bit of a fat bit at the bottom of the fuselage, that Mosquito could carry the same average bomb load as a B-17 Flying Fortress. A B-17 obviously carrying 13 very heavily armed machine guns, 10 very braving American lads. A Mosquito, little aeroplane made out of wood was carrying its pilot, its navigator and could carry a 4,000 pound bomb load. Initially the Mosquito had the lowest loss rate of any aeroplane in bomber command such was its performance, even without armament.”
Interviewer: “What was it about the Mosquito that lent itself particularly?”
Kenneth Oatley: “Well, it could do anything - it could carry a four thousand pound bomb, we used to carry four or five hundred pounds. We had dropped tanks we could fly for six and a half nearly seven hours. So, we had quite a good range and speed, if we wanted to put it on we could go faster than most of their fighters anyway, they'd have to come down from a height and in the dark they couldn't see us to that extent. And being wood their radar detection didn't find us very easily because there was no reflection back from it. It was a sort of aircraft that you, you felt perfectly confident in and you thought if you were master of all and nothing could touch you, you know.”
Graham Rodgers: “So, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland and the design team decided to say “Well, if it's that fast, let's try it with some guns in the nose, let's see if it doesn't slow it down much”. So, in the nose they placed four 303 British machine guns, Browning machine guns, but a 303 round is not as powerful as the American 50 caliber a 303 bullet is about less than half the size of a 50 cal, about the size of the end of a little finger so as well as that to give the Mosquito a little bit more sting they also put four 20 millimeter Hispano cannons underneath its chin. A fair bit of firepower that Mosquito became the fighter bomber, the FB6, and was found that it only actually slowed the Mosquito down by about 15 knots, so in effect even the slowest Mosquito was still doing 380 miles an hour with that amount of sting at the front. Now obviously not painted like ours is, I’ll explain that in a minute, the Mosquitoes that went onto Fighter Command and Fighter Bombers and intruder units with the machine guns and the cannons in the nose were painted sort of blue grey underneath like a dolphin and with grey and green camouflage on the top. Painted and armed thus off to Fighter Bomber Command and also into intruder units, Mosquitoes waged war on the Gestapo, attacking Gestapo HQs everywhere, all over Europe. In Copenhagen, Mosquitoes attacked the Gestapo HQ, flying literally as our Mosquito is portrayed about 30 feet from the ground, below the rooftops, and down the streets, throwing bombs quite literally straight through the front door of the Gestapo HQs. Mosquito pilots loved their aeroplanes nothing really could catch them. Unfortunately, in late 1941 an aeroplane had come to the fore about called the Focke Wolf 190, invented by a gentleman called Kurt Tank, and at medium altitude a Focke Wolf could catch a Mosquito and became its nemesis.”
Charles Patterson: “But in fact, even fitted with the with the 21 Merlin engines, the Mosquito at high level was still very fast it was as fast as a Spitfire with comparable engines and, therefore 190 interceptions were by no means inevitable, but if they if they did take place you were pretty well for it.”
Graham Rodgers: “However, Mosquitoes still were very, very uncatchable aeroplanes until the advent of the Messerschmidt 262 Jet. Mosquitoes were the first MRCA, multi-role combat aircraft. They could be turned to anything and excelled at everything they did. Later on, armed with a huge cannon underneath its chin, a six-pound cannon firing a trajectory about that big, against anti-shipping, firing one round every other second. Also armed with rockets just underneath its wings also for anti-shipping. Mosquitoes without any armament at all and painted sky blue went into photo reconnaissance units, flying up to 35,000 feet and well over 400 miles an hour. Obviously very uninterceptable at that height and speed.
There were 7,781 Mosquitoes made between 1940 and 1950, but they ended their career painted like this. As a target tug from 1950 to 1962 dragging around along windsock so early Cold War jets like F-86 Sabres, Meteors, Vampires and Hunters could fire at it for target practice. But I prefer to remember the Mosquito painted like a dolphin, armed to the teeth, screaming down streets and scaring the life out of the Gestapo.
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