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00:00During World War II, there is one aircraft that is equally at home at 30,000 feet on a reconnaissance mission.
00:30As it is skimming at treetop level, taking the fight to the enemy's door.
00:37Capable of a 4,000-pound bomb load, it can smash its target with pinpoint accuracy.
00:44Or deliver a 6-pound shell against a U-boat.
00:49No one is safe from its fury.
00:54With a speed of over 400 miles per hour...
00:57It is so fast and maneuverable that the Germans award their pilots with two kills if they manage to shoot one down.
01:08Yet this aircraft was ridiculed from the start.
01:11In a revolutionary leap of design, it has no armor.
01:19It has only a pilot and navigator.
01:22And even more bizarre, it is built entirely of wood.
01:25But by the end of the war, nearly 8,000 of these aircraft had been built.
01:35It had won the hearts of all who had flown it.
01:38And had become a legend in its own lifetime.
01:44It was called the Mosquito.
01:46It was a thrill, absolute thrill, to be with those purring engines going.
01:54And you touch the stick to the left, it went to the left.
01:57It was superb.
01:59It was just a sheer joy to fly around with these 1,200 horses neighing on each side.
02:06It was a thing of beauty and a joy forever.
02:09It really was.
02:10Using extraordinary archive film and color reenactments,
02:14Battle Stations goes into harm's way with the deadly Mosquito.
02:18The best aircraft have often also been the fastest.
02:36The pursuit of speed has been part of the appeal of aviation from its earliest days.
02:42And often, it is the most innovative and radical designs that break speed records.
02:48The Lockheed Blackbird uses new metals that came out of the space race
02:52and flies at over three times the speed of sound.
03:01Throughout the 1930s, one company in Britain was also obsessed with speed.
03:06And it was one man's dream to use a radical material to build the fastest aircraft in the world.
03:13The material was wood.
03:16And his name was Geoffrey de Havilland.
03:18He was so very determined, anything he wanted to do, he got on with it and did it.
03:24A real leader of people, not by driving them, but leading them from the front.
03:29As early as the 1930s, de Havilland knew that lightweight wooden aircraft were the key to greater speeds.
03:40In 1934, his twin-engine Comet won the London to Melbourne, Australia air race.
03:46With speeds of over 200 miles per hour, the aircraft flew halfway around the world in just 77 hours.
03:53A ship would take four weeks.
03:54From his experience of building the Comet, de Havilland began to have a vision of building a super-fast, high-precision bomber.
04:04And the terror they inflicted during the Spanish Civil War, Britain would need all the heavy-duty air power it could produce.
04:21It took the British quite a while to realise that the Germans had innovative designs, monoplane fighters, but more importantly, they had medium bombers that were being developed.
04:38And they had, in effect, tested them in the Spanish Civil War, in 1936 onwards.
04:44It's a huge wake-up call.
04:48At the time, the British Air Ministry believed that the future of bombing was in huge, heavily-armed conventional bombers, such as the Lancaster and Halifax.
04:59Radical new designs of lightweight aircraft were scoffed at.
05:02But Geoffrey de Havilland had other ideas, and continued working on designs for his new bomber.
05:11His dream was to construct a cheap, easy-to-build aircraft powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
05:19Amazingly, it would have no guns, no armour plating, could carry up to 4,000 pounds of explosive,
05:25and with a speed of nearly 400 miles per hour, would be faster than any other aircraft in the world.
05:32But the most amazing concept of his vision was to build a warplane made entirely of wood.
05:40The aerodynamicists and the military men at the time ridiculed the idea, saying,
05:46how can you build a modern bomber out of wood?
05:49How would it carry bombs? And how would it protect itself?
05:52But de Havilland had all the answers.
05:56It wouldn't need to protect itself.
05:58Its defence would be speed.
06:00And as far as strength was concerned, pound for pound, timber has similar structural properties as aluminium and steel.
06:09There's a shortage in Britain in the late 1930s of metal workers, of people skilled in the new technologies of fighter aeroplanes, of bomber aeroplanes.
06:20What you did have, though, was a nation of cabinet builders, of woodworkers, of individual small craftsmen.
06:28But more importantly, you can actually mobilise all of these people to build it.
06:33And you can make it, in effect, a cottage industry.
06:36September 1939.
06:40With war in Europe, de Havilland is at last given the green light to build a prototype aircraft.
06:48Immediately, the de Havilland design team went into overdrive.
06:52Led by Ronald Bishop, they moved into a 17th-century manor house called Salisbury Hall.
06:58This remote house was chosen to keep the new aircraft away from prying enemy eyes.
07:08By October 1939, work had begun on building a mock-up aircraft in the manor's enormous kitchen.
07:15And a hangar, disguised as a barn, was constructed at the western side of the moat.
07:19We were working, often periods of time, six and a half days a week.
07:25And at some periods, from seven o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night.
07:32But they were racing against the clock.
07:35In the spring of 1940, Germany conquered France.
07:39And the British army was swept off the beaches of Dunkirk.
07:45With the Germans poised for invasion, Britain was fighting for its survival.
07:50Every effort was focused on holding back the Germans.
07:53And de Havilland's wonder plane seemed destined never to leave the drawing board.
08:05By June 1940, the German army had advanced to the shores of the English Channel.
08:10And was preparing to invade Britain.
08:13In six months, the Nazis had conquered Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium and France.
08:25Britain was the only country left to face the onslaught of Nazi Germany.
08:30With Britain fighting for its life, priority was given to building only existing types of combat aircraft.
08:42Geoffrey de Havilland's radical new wooden bomber looked condemned to be scrapped.
08:46But de Havilland was not a man to take no for an answer.
08:54Sir Geoffrey's words are, well, they may not want it now, but they will want it.
08:59Sir Geoffrey de Havilland persuaded the air ministry to let him continue as long as he did not use any of the vital materials required for the war effort.
09:11Throughout the summer of 1940, as Britain fought for survival against the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain,
09:17de Havilland and his team worked on their wooden bomber.
09:20Finally, in December 1940, the aircraft was ready to be shown to the men from the ministry.
09:31It would be called the Mosquito.
09:36De Havilland had done the impossible.
09:37Using scraps from the British military machine, he had created the fastest aircraft in the world.
09:43We knew it would fly.
09:46We were absolutely confident it would.
09:47And the question is, how much better than the Spitfire would be?
09:52Because we said it would be.
09:53And it was.
09:5520 miles an hour faster.
09:59The air ministry was so impressed with its performance that they placed an order for 150 mosquitoes.
10:06It was an amazing contract for an untried and untested aircraft.
10:13It's almost an impossible task.
10:15It was a wonderful thing to change from, they don't want it, and so give us more and more.
10:23But it was de Havilland's vision of construction that answered this call, and enabled the Mosquito to be built in vast numbers.
10:34A plan that was as simple in practice as it was visionary in conception.
10:39The aircraft was to be built like a model aircraft, with wood, plywood, glue, and screws.
10:48Over 400 companies around Britain, with woodworking craftsmen, would make the various sections.
10:57The fuselage would be made in two halves before being bonded together.
11:01The wing would be assembled in one piece, and then transported to the main factory for the final assembly.
11:09In all, over 6 tons of wood and nearly 50,000 brass screws were used in each aircraft.
11:18At 40 feet long, and with a wingspan of 54 feet, a legend had been born.
11:27With a speed of 400 miles per hour, faster than any aircraft in the world, the Mosquito was ready to do battle.
11:34The RAF viewed these aircraft as too valuable to let just anybody fly them.
11:42Only the most experienced crews were selected.
11:45But for many of these men, powered by its two mighty Merlin engines, the Mosquito was unlike anything they had ever flown before.
11:54The purr of a Merlin is something to experience, it really is.
11:59And then we taxied out and took off.
12:08There you were, you suddenly look at the altimeter, the one minute you were down at 1,000 feet, the next minute you were up at 30,000.
12:17She would climb at 2,500 feet a minute, and that was really going some.
12:21You had to get into a jet to fly anything faster than that.
12:25If you started to mishandle her, pushing and pulling, in no time at all you would over-control, and she would be like a mosquito, she would sting you.
12:33In July 1941, the first Mosquitoes to go into service were delivered as photo-reconnaissance units.
12:43It had taken only 22 months from the first drawings to delivery.
12:51Unarmed, bristling with up to five cameras, these aircraft were soon sweeping all over Europe, evading anti-aircraft guns and fighters.
12:59The Germans had nowhere to hide.
13:05Nothing was safe from the Mosquitoes' prying eyes.
13:10Photo-reconnaissance was vital.
13:11We're talking of the days before satellites, the days when human intelligence on the ground was limited.
13:17It was difficult to get back good information.
13:19Before every single bomber command raid over enemy targets, they had to take pictures of the targets and, in fact, had to report the weather as well.
13:30So the Mosquito was an ideal aeroplane for that.
13:32In fact, you could say probably it was the best aircraft for this.
13:34But it was as a bomber that the Mosquito came into its own.
13:42During the early part of World War II, bombing was a case of hit or miss.
13:48Aircraft flying at 16,000 feet would drop their bombs in huge numbers, trusting on flying skill, weather and luck to hit their targets.
13:57But by mid-1942, the Mosquito bomber version was going to change all that.
14:08Relying solely on speed and height to outrun the enemy fighters, Mosquitoes could drop their bombs with pinpoint accuracy.
14:16Soon, Mosquitoes with payloads of up to 4,000 pounds, equivalent to a B-17 bomber, were an integral part of bombing missions.
14:25But to make the Mosquito even more deadly, they perfected the art of fast, low-level daylight raids.
14:33We had to be under 50 feet to be under the radar.
14:36That's the whole point of low-level operations, so the Germans don't know you're coming.
14:41And then, of course, you had to go low over the target as possible, so that you took them hopefully by surprise.
14:46Some daylight raids were flown at such low altitudes that Mosquitoes would often come back with strange souvenirs from their mission.
14:59Many a Mosquito pilots come back with telephone wires draped round his tail wheel.
15:05I know I've come back with branches of trees that weren't planted in England.
15:09Mosquito squadrons were now becoming more and more daring in their attacks, none more so than the daylight raid against the Dutch Philips radio factory in Eindhoven.
15:22Intelligence had discovered that the Germans were using the factory for research into radar countermeasures and had to be destroyed.
15:29The raid would bring yet another unusual role for the Mosquito and its pilot.
15:39They sent for me three days or four days before the raid and said,
15:45I've got a special job I want you to do.
15:48We've got a cameraman coming up and I want you to fly with him down the Schelt Estuary,
15:57right down as far as Holland itself, and then turn round Canberra,
16:02taking a film of the route, which we will all be taking to Eindhoven.
16:09On December the 6th, 1942, ten Mosquitoes went for their target.
16:19We went low level down the Schelt Estuary into Holland.
16:27And then just then we were approaching a place I think called Turnhout.
16:34And at that point we had to climb up to a thousand feet.
16:40And then we turned to port and up came in the factory and went down in a screaming dive and dropped our bomb straight into it.
16:49Racing for home, the Mosquitoes were caught in German anti-aircraft fire, or FLAC.
17:06Over the North Sea, disaster struck.
17:12The chap who decided to follow me, because he was on his first trip and he thought he'd follow an experienced pilot,
17:18and I'm afraid he caught a bit of FLAC because he, my cameraman,
17:23suddenly called out looking backwards,
17:25God, he's gone into the sea.
17:28But I turned round and went back to the sea.
17:32And there was no dinghy or anything, just a cauldron of boiling water.
17:38Just six weeks later, on January the 30th, 1943,
17:42the Mosquitoes went on another audacious raid,
17:45the tenth anniversary of Hitler's coming to power.
17:47Intelligence learned that there was to be a major Nazi rally in Berlin,
17:53led by Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels
17:56and Reich Marshal Hermann Goering,
17:59which was to be broadcast on German radio.
18:02This was too good an opportunity to miss.
18:05The aim was not to hit the site of the rally,
18:08but to create chaos and interrupt the broadcast.
18:11With their speed and range,
18:15three Mosquitoes hit Berlin at 11 a.m.,
18:18interrupting Goering's broadcast.
18:21At 4 p.m., a second group hit,
18:25interrupting Goebbels.
18:28For the Allies, it was a major propaganda success.
18:32The Mosquitoes delivered to the Allies,
18:34particularly to the British, propaganda coups,
18:36right the way through its service history,
18:39and all done by a small wooden aeroplane
18:42that the Germans had written off in their propaganda
18:45as being some sort of antique.
18:49Later, Goering was heard to say,
18:52It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito.
18:54I turn green and yellow with envy.
18:57The British knocked together a beautiful wooden aircraft
18:59that every piano factory over there is building.
19:02They give it a speed which they have increased again.
19:05But if the Mosquitoes were spoiling Goering's day,
19:10the Allies knew that to spoil the Nazis' day,
19:13the Mosquitoes were going to have to bomb Berlin again and again,
19:17until they smashed it into submission.
19:25Ever since it went into service,
19:27the 400-mile-per-hour wooden Mosquito
19:29had been thrown into battle with devastating results.
19:32Whatever role it was asked to do,
19:36the Mosquito answered the challenge,
19:38always ready to take the fight to Hitler's doorstep.
19:43By mid-1943,
19:45the Mosquito was bombing Berlin on such a regular basis
19:48that the missions were known as the Berlin Express.
19:53But for the Mosquito crews,
19:55nothing was ever just a routine mission.
19:57We would take off after the Lancasters,
20:03perhaps two hours after the Lancasters had gone.
20:07And it was at that time
20:10that I really felt lonely.
20:13It was a very lonely feeling.
20:17It was at that point that you could start thinking about what you were doing.
20:24You had to rely entirely on the navigator who had radar aids and things like that.
20:30But then, with the night closing in on you,
20:36suddenly you came to realise that you'd left your homeland behind
20:42and you were heading for, you knew not what.
20:47After two hours,
20:50the much faster Mosquito's caught up
20:52with the slow, lumbering Lancasters heading for Germany.
20:58Flying at 25,000 feet,
21:00the Mosquito crews looked down
21:02on the procession of bombers 7,000 feet below them.
21:06And then you would probably be treated to a site you would rather not see,
21:10which was the German night fighter force
21:12intercepting the Lancasters.
21:14I mean, it's true to say
21:16that once the German night fighters found the bomber stream,
21:20they didn't let go.
21:22And they'd be there,
21:24hammering away at the flanks of the heavies,
21:27and you'd see a sheet of flame as a Lanc caught fire and then blew up.
21:33And this would be the melancholy procession to the target
21:38and out of it, too.
21:40It was just awful.
21:42But it was not only the night fighters
21:44that they had to get past.
21:45Like icy fingers of death,
21:47the German searchlights hunted for any allied aircraft in the sky.
21:52The favourite thing for them to do
21:54was to pick up somebody with a searchlight
21:57and then fasten all other searchlights onto it.
22:00So it was like a moth in a candle flame,
22:02and it wasn't very long before you saw
22:04brr, brr, brr, brr,
22:05brr, brr, one-way tracer going,
22:07and then an explosion as a Lanc or a Halifax went down.
22:16Suddenly, the most frightful glare suddenly hit the cockpit,
22:20and this blinding light, and I realised what it was,
22:25but at the same time,
22:27this bloody tracer came shooting past.
22:30So I just dived and twisted and I got out of it.
22:34You could twist and turn if you wanted to,
22:37but generally speaking,
22:38they would hold you as you twist it and turn, follow you.
22:42The way to get out was doing a dive,
22:44so you could do a screaming dive and quickly fly away.
22:49Eventually, the mosquitoes and Lancasters made it to their target.
22:53Having dropped their bombs and taken photographs,
22:55they then had to fly back through the searchlights
22:57before they reached Britain.
22:59For those crews who made it back,
23:03the RAF found a way of protecting them
23:05from the horrors of war.
23:07People came back shot up,
23:12and one thing I did notice about the bomber airfields, of course,
23:17no-one was ever sick.
23:19You never saw an injured man around the place.
23:22If people arrived wounded,
23:24he'd be quickly spirited away.
23:26Everybody next day was there, booted and spurred.
23:29Smiling.
23:30Nobody was dead,
23:31or if they were dead, they weren't there anyway.
23:35One squadron did nearly 200 missions within a year,
23:39and mosquitoes bombed Berlin 220 nights in a row.
23:45By early 1943,
23:47a bigger, badder version of the Mosquito came into service,
23:51the fighter and night fighter Mosquito.
23:54Now armed with 4.303 machine guns,
23:57it could lay down a devastating storm of fire.
24:00During early trials,
24:02it was found that the flash of the guns was so intense
24:04that it momentarily blinded the crews.
24:10Modifications overcame this,
24:11and because of the grouping of the guns in the nose,
24:14Mosquito pilots now had a terrific concentration of firepower.
24:18Soon, these first night fighters were in action,
24:23and with their new radar guidance systems,
24:25were wreaking havoc on German bombers.
24:28The timing couldn't have been better.
24:30In June 1944,
24:32a new, devastating weapon hit Britain.
24:39After D-Day,
24:41as the Allies were fighting to gain a foothold in Europe,
24:43Hitler unleashed his new terror weapon,
24:46the V-1 Flying Bomb.
24:47Flying at nearly 400 miles per hour,
24:55equal to the Mosquito's speed,
24:57and packed with high explosive,
24:59the V-1s were aimed at London.
25:01Once they exhausted their fuel,
25:03they crashed down on an unsuspecting target.
25:11Destroying these fast-flying bombs was a dangerous task.
25:14Quickly, Mosquito pilots devised ways
25:17to take these terror weapons out of the sky.
25:21They would try and get some height,
25:24and then swoop down on it,
25:27and shoot it with cannon.
25:30But obliterating a terror weapon
25:32could be life-threatening in more ways than one,
25:34as one pilot was to find out.
25:39And he squirted at it with his cannon,
25:41but he was a bit too close,
25:43and it flew to bits.
25:44And a bit of it came in through the front,
25:49and pierced the dinghy
25:53that the heat was sitting on.
25:55It inflated in the cockpit,
25:56so up he came off his seat,
25:58and up towards the roof.
26:01But he was very fortunate.
26:02He always carried a dagger down his boot.
26:05I don't know if he wanted to fight his way
26:07out of Germany, perhaps.
26:08He produced the dagger,
26:10stabbed the dinghy,
26:11and down it went,
26:12and he got home.
26:13When I heard the story,
26:14I was absolutely terrified,
26:16and I always carried a knife down my own boot after that,
26:19just in case.
26:21Whilst the fighters were attacking the V-1s in the air,
26:24their photo recon brothers were scouring France and Belgium,
26:28hunting down their launch sites.
26:29As we got near the target,
26:32the navigator would alert you to your position,
26:37put your nose down towards the ramp of the pillbox,
26:43and the pilot would release the bombs.
26:45We did, I think,
26:48over 3,000 sorters against them,
26:52and in the end,
26:53Hitler only launched 5,000 of them.
26:57And it was an ideal target for the Mosquito.
27:01The Mosquito was made for V-1 sites.
27:06After just nine weeks,
27:08the Mosquitoes had destroyed over 650 of these terror weapons.
27:12But the Germans were not beaten,
27:18and were fighting as ferociously as ever.
27:20Once again,
27:21as the fighting intensified,
27:23the Mosquito would take its crews into harm's way,
27:26and go down in history
27:27in one of the most daring and ingenious raids of World War II.
27:30From its early days,
27:36Coastal Command had used Mosquitoes
27:38as a vital weapon against harbours,
27:40shipping,
27:41and vicious German U-boat packs.
27:43But by 1944,
27:45it had a bigger sting in its tail.
27:48Called the Tetsi Mosquito,
27:50this aircraft carried a Moland 6-pound cannon
27:53with a kick like a mule.
27:55Rate of fire was about one every two seconds.
27:59You could fire it separately,
28:01and that's an automated one,
28:03one every two.
28:04Or you fired it yourself,
28:06carrying 24 rounds.
28:12Very formidable weapon.
28:14It was armor-piercing.
28:16You should have allowed yourself
28:19a range of 1,000, 1,500 yards for the target.
28:25But not to go closer than 600 yards.
28:29The reason why you shouldn't go in less than 600 yards
28:32is because you might get a bit of shrapnel
28:35for your own gun coming off the U-boat.
28:38Another weapon the aircraft carried
28:40were eight 60-pound rockets.
28:44When they unleashed these terrifying weapons,
28:47it was equivalent to a broadside
28:48from a light naval cruiser.
28:50Once on target,
28:52nothing was safe from these fearsome mosquitoes.
28:58It seemed that there was nothing
29:00that the mosquitoes were not called on to try.
29:03Always ingenious,
29:04the military were constantly planning
29:06different ways to use
29:07this unique wooden aircraft
29:09against the enemy.
29:09But the deeds that made the Mosquito a legend
29:15were the daring low-level precision raids
29:17against the German Gestapo.
29:21It was as if the Mosquito crews
29:23had declared a personal war
29:25against the hated Nazi secret police.
29:35From as early as 1940,
29:38the French resistance network
29:39had been a major thorn
29:41in the side of the German occupation.
29:43Its aim was to sabotage
29:45the Nazi war effort.
29:48By 1944,
29:50hundreds of these resistance fighters
29:51had been imprisoned
29:52at the notorious Amiens prison
29:54in northern France,
29:55and word had reached the Allies
29:57that on February the 19th,
29:59200 French men and women
30:01would be executed.
30:05An ingenious plan was hatched.
30:08Mosquitoes would be used
30:09to bomb the walls surrounding the prison
30:11so that the resistance fighters could escape.
30:14It was called Operation Jericho.
30:21The main prison layout
30:22was in the shape of a crucifix
30:24surrounded by a 20-foot high wall,
30:26three feet thick,
30:27and topped with broken glass.
30:30Located at the end of a long road,
30:32the prison was surrounded
30:33by open, flat countryside.
30:36The timing of the raid was vital.
30:39It had to be at midday
30:40when the prisoners were exercising
30:42in the yard
30:42and the guards were having lunch.
30:46Equally important
30:47was the placing of the bombs.
30:49Great care had to be taken
30:50so that enough explosive
30:51was used to smash a hole
30:52in the outside wall,
30:54but not so much
30:55as to kill all the inmates.
30:58When told of the danger,
30:59the resistance fighters replied
31:01they would rather die
31:02from RAF bombs
31:03than by a German firing squad.
31:05On the morning of the 18th of February,
31:09the Mosquito crews were told
31:11for the first time
31:11what their target was.
31:13We went into the briefing room
31:15around about half past nine,
31:17ten o'clock in the morning,
31:19and on the table
31:21was a mock-up model
31:23of the army on prison,
31:24and we were told
31:26we were going to try
31:27and breach the walls
31:29and give the prisoners
31:32a chance to escape.
31:34The attack,
31:36timed for exactly
31:37twelve o'clock midday,
31:38consisted of three stages.
31:41One squadron
31:42was briefed
31:45to breach the walls,
31:46in other words,
31:46to toss the bombs
31:47or fly very low level
31:49and put the bombs
31:51at the base of the walls
31:53if possible.
31:55The second squadron
31:56were to come in
31:57at two minutes past twelve
32:00when the guards
32:01had gone to lunch
32:02and bombed
32:03the dining hall,
32:05mess hall,
32:06anything they could
32:06lay their hands on
32:07to keep the guards
32:09under control.
32:11In case of
32:12the first squadron
32:13not breaching the walls
32:14completely
32:15or the second squadron
32:17not doing
32:18the guards' quarters,
32:20et cetera,
32:22then the third squadron
32:24would bomb
32:24the whole prison.
32:28As the crews
32:29waited for take-off,
32:30it appeared
32:31that the raid
32:31might be cancelled.
32:33The weather
32:33had closed in
32:34and all aircraft
32:35were grounded.
32:38It was very,
32:39very bad weather,
32:40low cloud
32:41and sort of
32:44spitting snow,
32:46you know what I mean?
32:47Very low cloud.
32:48And we didn't think
32:50it would go on.
32:52What the Mosquito crews
32:54did not know
32:54was that the French
32:55resistance had sent
32:56a coded message,
32:58strike now or never,
33:00executions imminent.
33:01at the last possible moment
33:09and with only two hours
33:10before the deadline,
33:1118 Mosquitoes
33:13armed with a 500-pound bomb load
33:15took off
33:16in conditions worse
33:17than most of the crews
33:18had ever encountered.
33:20We climbed through the cloud
33:21and above the cloud
33:23we just joined up
33:24and went back down
33:26onto the sea level
33:28across to France.
33:30Flying in two groups
33:32and at almost zero feet
33:33they swept across
33:34the English Channel.
33:38Amazingly,
33:38as they approached
33:39the French coast
33:40the weather improved.
33:42It seemed that luck
33:43was on their side.
33:43when we got to France
33:47it was covered in snow
33:48of course
33:49but it was clear
33:50and we flew around
33:52and we picked up the road
33:53from Amiens to Elbeir.
33:56Long straight road
33:57and we settled down
34:00for the run-in.
34:01In the fields
34:02around the prison
34:03French resistance fighters
34:05anxiously searched the sky
34:07waiting for the Mosquitoes
34:08to help their comrades escape.
34:11We could see the prison ahead
34:13and we got down
34:15very, very low indeed
34:16and we were coming down
34:17around about 190-180 knots.
34:22With only minutes to go
34:24and with the Germans
34:25completely unaware
34:26the Mosquitoes neared the prison.
34:29We opened our bomb doors
34:30about a mile from the prison
34:32flying at about 10 to 15 feet
34:36and we had to pull up
34:38to go over the walls
34:39we let our bombs go
34:41and they went through
34:43the base of the wall.
34:44I turned to starboard
34:48and as I looked down
34:49I saw the startled face
34:52of the machine gunner
34:54in the little cupola
34:55on top of the prison.
34:57We looked at each other
34:58I suppose
34:59and then I was down
35:00onto the deck
35:01in loose formation
35:02following the wing commander.
35:03The raid was a success
35:06and the Mosquitoes
35:07had pulled off
35:08an amazing feat of courage.
35:10255 prisoners escaped
35:12but 37 were killed
35:14along with 50 German guards.
35:16The Gestapo
35:17were vicious
35:18in their revenge
35:19and 260 prisoners
35:21were killed
35:21in reprising.
35:23The raid
35:24was a wake-up call
35:25to the Germans.
35:26As far as I can see
35:27this was a brilliant
35:29piece of precision bombing.
35:31The first flight
35:31took out the walls
35:33blew in the doors
35:35allowed people to escape.
35:36The second flight
35:37took the walls down.
35:38In fact they didn't need
35:39the third flight.
35:41I think it was
35:42a startling success
35:43because it would have
35:44demonstrated to the Germans
35:45that the Royal Air Force
35:47could place bombs
35:48wherever they wanted to
35:49across occupied Europe.
35:51The Mosquitoes
35:52continued to carry out
35:54their unique style of war
35:55against the Germans.
35:57It was a period
35:57that would see them
35:58operating deep inside
35:59occupied Europe.
36:01Using technology
36:02that was years ahead
36:03of its time
36:04they hunted down
36:05the Nazis.
36:06No one
36:07was beyond the reach
36:08of the Mosquito.
36:14Throughout the long
36:15and bloody conflict
36:16of World War II
36:17the 400 mile per hour
36:19wooden Mosquito
36:20was always at the front
36:21of battle
36:22always taking the fight
36:23to the enemy.
36:25But it was the Americans
36:27that came up
36:27with yet another novel use
36:29for this versatile aircraft.
36:32Late in 1944
36:34the OSS
36:35the Office of Strategic Services
36:37a forerunner of the CIA
36:38took over five Mosquitoes
36:41to work with their agents
36:42in occupied countries.
36:45Because the war
36:46was moving so rapidly
36:47intelligence
36:48was having a hard time
36:50knowing exactly
36:51what the enemy was doing.
36:52only agents
36:53behind enemy lines
36:54could supply
36:55this information.
36:58It was vital
36:59that these agents
37:00got this information back.
37:02Using Morse code
37:03was no good
37:04as the Germans
37:04could easily detect it.
37:06Something else
37:07had to be found.
37:09Two American scientists
37:11had developed
37:11a transmitter
37:12that enabled an agent
37:13to talk to an aircraft.
37:16Called the
37:17Joan Eleanor system
37:18after one of the scientists' wives
37:20it was an early version
37:21of the mobile phone.
37:24By transmitting
37:25on a wave band
37:26so narrow
37:27the Germans
37:28could only detect
37:28the agent
37:29if they were within
37:3050 feet of him.
37:33But the ingenious part
37:35of this plan
37:35was the Mosquito.
37:37With its speed
37:38and height
37:38it could fly undetected
37:40along a predetermined
37:41150 mile line
37:43listening for the agent's message.
37:45Deep inside the Mosquito
37:48was no SS operative.
37:52Within the fuselage
37:54it was hardly enough room
37:56to move
37:57and I was sitting
38:01almost on top
38:04of a big fuel tank.
38:07The petrol in there
38:08would expand
38:09and would come out
38:11on a special valve
38:13and I could see it
38:14down there
38:15bubbling
38:16and that was petrol.
38:19When you switched
38:20on your suit
38:21you always expected
38:22a spark.
38:23Boom.
38:24But we were so high
38:26that there was
38:28very little oxygen
38:29in the air.
38:31When the Mosquito
38:33got to the area
38:33the OSS operative
38:35would begin
38:35calling the agent.
38:36This is 5278
38:395278
38:40calling
38:41Z313131
38:44and then
38:45wait for him
38:46to say
38:47yes
38:48I'm here
38:49and give me
38:50the answering code.
38:52Sometimes
38:53the Mosquito
38:53would fly along
38:54the designated route
38:55for hours on end
38:56before the agent answered.
38:59When you heard
39:00them,
39:01it was
39:02exciting.
39:04It was
39:05look I've got them
39:06finally.
39:06confirmed
39:08who he was
39:10and
39:11his
39:12short messages
39:13would be
39:14such and such
39:14a unit is there
39:16and they're
39:16going west
39:17on highway number
39:18so and so
39:19and it's
39:20two battalions
39:21or whatever it is
39:22and
39:22that was
39:24and we could
39:25get it back
39:26in 3-4 hours.
39:29But many times
39:30the agent
39:31never answered.
39:32Sometimes
39:33they could not
39:33find a safe place
39:34in which to send
39:35their message.
39:35sometimes
39:36no one ever knew.
39:40Well,
39:41when
39:42time was up
39:43and the pilot
39:44knew just how much
39:45petrol we had
39:46would turn around
39:47and go back.
39:51The Mosquito
39:52had for a long time
39:53been the weapon of choice
39:54as a pathfinder
39:55for the bombers
39:55but as a low-level marker
39:57it was second to none
39:59in helping annihilate
40:00the German war machine
40:01in France.
40:06To enable precision bombing
40:08and to reduce civilian casualties
40:10the Mosquito
40:11would fly with the squadrons
40:12of heavy bombers.
40:13as they neared their drop zone
40:17the bombers dropped flares
40:19which illuminated the sky
40:20and the Mosquitoes
40:22dived down
40:22to identify
40:23their individual targets.
40:24so four of you
40:27were coming in
40:28and the rule was
40:29that the first one
40:30who saw it
40:30called
40:31Tally Ho
40:32just that.
40:34You then positioned yourself
40:36and dived
40:37on one end
40:38of the target
40:39and when you
40:40judged that you were
40:41at the right position
40:42above the ground
40:43which was properly
40:44at about a thousand feet
40:45you were coming down
40:47at quite a speed
40:47after all
40:48you pressed the button
40:49and away went
40:50four
40:51five hundred pound markers
40:53and down they went
40:54and made a great blob
40:56of red on the ground
40:57you got the hell out of it.
40:59Only when the target
41:00was ringed in red marker bombs
41:02would the Mosquito leader
41:03call up the oncoming bombers.
41:09But one of the Mosquitoes
41:11most demanding roles
41:12was that of interdiction
41:13the cutting off
41:14of enemy supplies.
41:16Nowhere was this
41:17more graphically demonstrated
41:18than in the days
41:20leading up to
41:20and after
41:21June the 6th
41:221944
41:23D-Day.
41:26As Allied troops
41:28fought a bloody battle
41:28to gain a foothold
41:29in France
41:30the Mosquitoes
41:31hunted independently
41:32seeking out
41:33enemy supply lines.
41:39Trains
41:39we
41:40preferred to attack
41:42because
41:43they were always
41:44carrying
41:45war material
41:46or
41:47reinforcements
41:49for the front.
41:50sometimes you
41:51could attack a train
41:53going into a tunnel
41:54and you'd get the other
41:55end of the tunnel
41:56and wait for it
41:57and shoot it up
41:58as it came out.
42:01It was fun really
42:03shooting up trains.
42:08During the month of June
42:10Bomber Command
42:11flew over 15,000 raids
42:13in support of the
42:14Allied invasion forces
42:15and by the end of 1944
42:17and by the end of 1944
42:17had helped drive the Germans
42:19back into their own country.
42:22Finally on May 2nd 1945
42:24two days after Hitler's suicide
42:27in Berlin
42:27126 Mosquitoes took part
42:30in the last raid of the war
42:32in Europe.
42:33Their target
42:34the German port of Kiel.
42:39Within two hours
42:40the city was reduced
42:41to rubble
42:42a grim legacy
42:43to the destructive power
42:45of the wooden wonder.
42:49The aircraft
42:50that had been seen
42:50as some sort of joke
42:51when first designed
42:53had grown of age.
42:56It had become
42:58one of the most feared
42:59and lethal killers
43:00of World War II.
43:03Over 7,700
43:05had been built
43:06and over 40 different variations
43:08had served
43:09in all theatres of the war.
43:11To the men
43:12who had flown it
43:13the Mosquito
43:14was second to none.
43:16It was a love affair
43:17and I thought
43:17well when I finished flying
43:19that was it.
43:19I never flew another aircraft
43:21again after the Mosquito.
43:23Never.
43:25It's wrong really
43:26to say it was a legend
43:27because the legend
43:27suggested it wasn't real
43:29and the Mosquito
43:31was certainly a reality.
43:33but it was
43:36a lovely aircraft
43:37beautiful aircraft
43:38to look at
43:39marvellous aircraft
43:41to fly.
43:42Well
43:42in many cases
43:44it saved my life
43:44but I mean
43:45I think
43:47the wooden wonder
43:48it's been used before
43:51but I think
43:51the wooden wonder
43:52really sums it up
43:54it was.
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