de Havilland Mosquito operational history
Mosquito-equipped squadrons performed medium bomber, reconnaissance, tactical strike, anti-submarine warfare and shipping attack and night fighter duties, both defensive and offensive.
In the first few years of Mosquito service, most of the dedicated Luftwaffe night fighter groups were equipped with aircraft such as the Bf 110 or Junkers Ju 88, both of lower performance.
With the introduction of the nitrous oxide-boosted Messerschmitt Bf 109 G series and, in the spring of 1944,[2] the jet-powered Me 262, the Luftwaffe had relatively low numbers of fighters with a speed and altitude capability [nb 1] effectively to intercept the pressurised variants of Mosquito.
But the German High Command would not give clear orders for their quantity production, which in any case would have been difficult because construction work had to be taken further east and carried out in concealed factories and tunnels.
[nb 2] The PR Mk 32 photo reconnaissance Mosquito design attempted to counter the threat of the German jets with extended, long-span wings, special high-altitude superchargers and the elimination of as much weight as possible, raising its cruising altitude to 42,000 ft (13,000 m), above the service ceiling of the Me 262.
These attacks were timed to disrupt speeches by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, head of the air force, and Joseph Goebbels, the Third Reich's Propaganda Minister.
IVs from 105 Squadron, which attacked the main Berlin broadcasting station,[10] at 11:00, when Göring was due to address a parade commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis' being voted into power.
They became the main element of the Light Night Striking Force (LNSF) and from early in 1943, they were used for target marking, particularly in the initial phases of the raid, when their pyrotechnics would be followed up by additions from the heavy Pathfinder bombers.
Their mission was twofold: they targeted small but vital installations; and acted as a diversion from the raids of the heavy bombers, simulating large formations through the use of Window.
[24] The expanding PFF Mosquito squadrons visited all of the well-known targets in Germany including Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Essen, Mannheim, Hanover, and Duisburg.
[nb 11] During the allied advance across France, the Pathfinder group, due to the persistence of Vice Marshall Bennett,[27] expanded its brief to perform short notice raids, such as the blind bombing, using Oboe, of the road from Falaise on 19 August 1944, as well as of St. Vith crossroads, during the Battle of the Bulge.
On the night of 16/17 December, during the Battle of Berlin, one of their aircraft scored Bomber Command's first intruder success using the Serrate radar detector in a Mosquito NF.II, when they damaged a Bf 110 with cannon fire.
[33] The top Mosquito ace of 100 Group was the distinguished Wing Commander Branse Burbridge, who made 13 claims during his time in this squadron, between 1944 and the end of the war in Europe.
The omnipresence of the potent night fighter threat led to what the Luftwaffe crews dubbed "Moskitoschreck" (Mosquito terror), since the German aircrews were never sure when or where they might come under attack.
Indirectly this led to a high proportion of enemy aircraft and crew losses from crashes as night fighters hurried in to land to avoid the Mosquito threat, whether real or imagined.
[40] By the end of the war, Mosquito night fighters had claimed approximately six hundred piloted enemy aircraft (Unconfirmed), along with about the same number of pilotless V-1 flying bombs.
2 Group, 2nd Tactical Air Force in Operation Jericho, a mission to destroy the walls and guards' quarters of Amiens prison to allow members of the French Resistance to escape.
613 (City of Manchester) Squadron made a pinpoint daylight attack at rooftop height on the Kunstzaal Kleykamp Art Gallery in The Hague, Netherlands, which was being used by the Gestapo to store the Dutch Central Population Registry.
Media related to De Havilland Mosquito PR at Wikimedia Commons Although the RAF had continued to use aerial photography since the end of World War I, by 1939 it had become a very under-developed and neglected branch of the service.
[48] On the eve of World War II, Sidney Cotton took aerial photos during flights over parts of the Middle East, North Africa and even over German military airfields.
Using a pair of Lockheed 12A's [nb 15] based at Heston, just north of London, Cotton undertook a further programme of photographic flights over Germany and Italy, with camera improvements such as a warm-air blown unit that overcame condensation problems.
[nb 16] Birtles [48] gives the following reasons for the suitability of the Mosquito for PR operations: could carry more cameras than the Spitfire; long range combined with high speed; security of two engines; navigator could locate and identify targets whilst pilot concentrated on flying (and evasion when necessary).
[57][48] In February 1943, 60 Squadron acquired their first Mosquito II's at the instigation of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery whilst they were serving in North Africa.
[58][nb 22] This move was to prepare for the southern European campaign; the squadron was equipped with Mosquito PR XVI's, with red and white rudder stripes.
They carried out large-scale photographic surveys of parts of Sicily and other Axis held areas, eventually ranging over the Alps and deep into Austria and Germany, where they met with dangerous interceptions by Me 262 jets.
With the cessation of hostilities, 60 Squadron assisted the RAF in a photo survey of Greece before being withdrawn from operations on 22 August 1945 after it had returned to AFS Zwartkop, South Africa.
In 1945, an RAF PR Mk XVI Mosquito of Eastern Air Command operating out of airfields in Burma set a twin-engine record on a single photo-reconnaissance mission covering 2,400 mi (3,900 km) in 8 hours and 50 minutes.
[62] In addition to photo-reconnaissance missions both for weather forecasting and for target identifications, they employed their PR Mk XVI Mosquitos as Chaff (countermeasure) dispensers and as scouts for the heavy bomber force.
He would have died had not the pilot, surmising from Bohr's lack of response to intercom communication that he had lost consciousness, descended to a lower altitude for the remainder of the flight.
Mosquitos acted in the USSR on reconnaissance duties operating from Soviet bases on the Kola peninsula to monitor Luftwaffe activities in Norway.
