de Havilland Mosquito - Was It The Most Versatile Aircraft of WW2?

it was both feared and admired by its enemies but when the design for a fast unarmed bomber was proposed to the british air ministry it was met with skepticism and the project was very nearly scrapped before it had even started in favor of existing aircraft at the time and yet it became one of the most versatile aircraft of the war doing everything from photo reconnaissance to u-boat hunting night fighter pathfinder secret male courier to name just a few it became famous for its extremely daring low-level precision bombing raids against individual buildings even in the middle of cities and was the scourge of german forces for its low-level high-speed attacks against anything deemed worthy of hitting this is the story of the de havilland mosquito and its effect on the fight against nazi [Music] [Applause] germany now this video is sponsored by magellan tv michelin is a new documentary streaming service run by filmmakers that have a passion for their work they believe that science defines the cutting edge of society and their mission is to tell great stories that define the human experience michelin now has over 3 000 documentaries available with more being added each week and with a wide selection of those in 4k for no extra cost and you can stream them directly to your smartphone or tablet wherever you are as the subject of this video is about the mosquito fighter bomber you may well also enjoy many of the military technology documentaries magellan has i for one particularly like the titans of war evolution of the battle tank and how it stands in the modern world where air power and cyber warfare are far more likely you can watch this and many more by getting your one-month free trial by using the link for this special offer right at the top of the description below and i know you'll find magellan tv as worthwhile as i have the mosquito was an unusual aircraft for world war ii because its airframe was built almost entirely out of wood unlike most of the other fighters and bombers which were made from mostly aluminium but the main feature of a mosquito was that it was highly streamlined and had a minimal crew of just two and with little in the way of defensive armament apart from the machine guns and cannons in the nose this was opposite to the philosophy of the bigger bombers like the b-17s and lancasters which had up to 10 crew tail guns turrets and side guns on the b-17 all of which made them heavy and slow and easy targets for fighters and anti-aircraft guns this was something that would be borne out after the war as heavily armored bombers were phased out and high-speed unarmed bombers became a norm the mosquitoes could carry a similar payload to a b-17 but it was as fast or faster than the fighter sent up to attack them though it was limited to a couple of bomb types so the b-17 was much more flexible in what it could carry but the mosquito went on to have the lowest losses of any aircraft in bomber command the reason why it was made of wood was down to its creator jeffrey d havilland who had a history of using wood and making high-speed streamlined planes his dh-88 comet a twin-engine two-seater was built for the england to australia air race of 1934 and used newly developed synthetic bonding resins to create a lightweight almost entirely wooden aircraft but not only took the air industry by surprise it also went on to win the race and over the next few years set many long distance speed records by 1936 the british air ministry was looking for a twin-engine medium bomber de havilland had already designed a four-engined male plane called the albatross which was constructed using wood with the techniques learned from the comet de havilland proposed a twin-engine bomber powered by rolls-royce merlin engines as they promised greater future development but without armaments and again made from wood he said that the reduced weight and highly streamlined fuselage without guns and turrets to create drag would make for a very fast bomber with good handling that could use its speed and maneuverability for surprise attacks and quick getaways he reasoned that in a war footing there will be likely shortages of key metals like aluminium and the skilled metal workers to use it but there was an adequate supply of wood and an abundance of skilled woodworkers carpenters and cabinet makers although the air ministry was skeptical of a wooden construction at first seeing it as a step backwards they were more worried about the lack of armaments than anything else de havilland is said to have told them it's the fastest bomber in the world it must have some use only after a prototype had been built and tested for reconnaissance and light bombing and shown to be faster than the current spitfire with a top speed of over 400 miles an hour or 643 kilometers per hour where some of the doubts quelled soon after a fast long-range fighter prototype version added four browning 303 machine guns and four 20 millimeter cannons in the nose along with airborne interception radar this would keep the drag down and would make it into a day or night fighter and it was this fighter version that kept the project alive later in the war they will be equipped with eight wing-mounted 60-pound rockets combined with the four 20 millimeter cannons and two 500 pound bombs giving them the equivalent firepower to that of a broadside from a light naval cruiser the largest bomb they could carry was the 4 000 pound or 1800 kilogram blockbuster also known as a cookie just one was carried by each aircraft but it was capable of leveling an entire street or a medium-sized factory and was very effective at blowing roof tiles off which allowed smaller incendiary bombs to enter the buildings by june 1941 the mosquito had become one of the fastest operational planes in the world when it was demonstrated to several u.s air force top brass who were very impressed by its performance plans were made to license production between the uk australia and canada but when the manufacturer's drawings were shown to the u.s aircraft companies including beech curtis wright fairchild fleet wings and hughes the consensus among them was at the wooden construction was a drawback and that it was not suitable for manufacture of efficient aeroplanes they also believe that the twin engine lockheed p38 lightning could do the same duties with a trusted aluminium frame so no u.s licenses were pursued the raf were much quicker to realize that even with a wooden airframe the mosquito could be a very valuable weapon in their armory initially they were used for secret reconnaissance missions which they continued throughout the war making them the most productive photo reconnaissance aircraft of the war soon they started doing high speed medium and low level attacks against pinpoint targets like factories infrastructure and individual buildings a role which they became famous for flying in below enemy radar under 50 feet that's 15 meters or less there were numerous reports of branches and telephone cables wrapped around the tail wheel when they got back to base these raids allowed the raf to do things they couldn't do with the big high altitude raids with the lancaster bombers and alike that is precision raids in the days long before gps or laser-guided bombs to attack an individual building or in some cases just part of a building one of the first precision raids was on the philips works in einhoven in the netherlands in december 1942. the factory produced radios and vacuum tubes used in radar and was a leading research center for radar which had been taken over by the germans and was believed to be developing electronic countermeasures the factory was surrounded by housing so to protect the dutch citizens but cause as much damage as possible to the factory the raid had to be done in daylight and at low level 10 mosquitoes along with 47 venturas and 36 boston bombers were used but the mosquitoes had to be careful because they were much faster than the others and risked running into them on the approach the raid was a success but nine venturas four bostons and one mosquito were lost later 10 mosquitoes returned in march 1943 to slover repair process but it proved the value of low-level precision bombing with aircraft being difficult targets to hit at very low levels with anti-aircraft guns and fighters the mosquito in particular showed that the surprise high-speed attacks at very low levels at almost rooftop heights was very effective this technique would be used many more times including the 1944 operation jericho on the amion prison holding french resistance fighters here 18 mosquitoes took part and attacked in waves to destroy the 11 foot or 3.4 metre exterior prison wall and then the guards room to allow the prisoners to escape they flew in at down to ten feet or three meters above the open fields dropping 500 pound or 230 kilogram bombs fitted with 11 second timers to allow the planes to escape before the bombs exploded these slid along the ground until they hit the walls and then exploded after the time delay the following planes would then bomb the guard's room at the side of a prison to allow the prisoners to escape the mission was a success with over 200 prisoners escaping but two fighter escorts and two mosquitoes including that of the leader group captain piccard were lost other mosquito raids included the bombing of a radio station in berlin on january the 30th 1943 just as reich's marshal hermann goering was about to address the german people during the celebrations of hitler's 10th anniversary of his rise to power and then a couple of hours later when propaganda minister goebbels was about to do the same the damage wasn't great but it not going off the air for over an hour and goebbels had a backing track of merlin engine zooming overhead with bombs exploding in the background ice marshall hellmann [Applause] [Music] this was a huge propaganda coup for the allies and sent the message to everyone listening that virtually nowhere was safe from the raf the level of precision increased even more with a bombing of gestapo headquarters in built up areas of copenhagen in our house in denmark and oslo in norway to destroy valuable records held on the resistance movements in those countries but with minimal damage to the surrounding buildings the gestapo held prisoners in the buildings as human shields but the mosquitoes managed to destroy just the gestapo areas of the building but mostly avoid the prisoners though some were killed in the attacks guring later said to a group of german aircraft makers that he was green and yellow with envy and how the british who could more easily afford the aluminium and the germans could build a beautiful aircraft out of wood and make it faster and faster and that after the war he was going to buy a british-made radio because he knew he would have something that always worked in response to the political humiliation caused by the mosquitoes going ordered special luftwaffe units of the jagdeshwader 50 to be created to combat them but this proved ineffective as it only had 19 aircraft and gave rise to the belief by some in the luftwaffe that the wooden frame of the mosquitoes gave off weak radar signal returns though this was never actually proved after many of the low level raids against their allotted targets and if they had any ammo left the mosquito crews were given free reign to go after any target they deemed worthy on the flight back to base a favorite was to shoot up any trains they saw as they were virtually all carrying military supplies or troops but it wasn't just low-level bombing the mosquito also carried the 4 000 pound blockbuster or cookie but had to be dropped from above 6 000 feet to avoid the shock wave it created it was also a pathfinder using its speed to go in and ring the target area with flares so the big bomber formations could aim more accurately the light knight striking force was an offshoot of the pathfinder role and went on to perform mosquito-only nuisance raids which not only caused a lot of damage with the blockbuster bombs they were also used to divert german fighters away from the main big bomber raids later in the war there was an increasing number of all mosquito raids of over a hundred aircraft on larger german cities and starting on the 20th february 1945 mosquito-only groups attacked berlin for 36 consecutive nights sometimes they will be caught in the searchlights something that for the big slower bombers was usually fatal but for the mosquito they could dive and turn quickly to shake off the lights the mosquitoes were among the first to use blind bombing aids like ghee and oboe which used radio transponders to accurately measure distances at night and the h2s radar which was the first airborne ground scanning radar system to identify targets in all weathers and at night time it also reprised the earlier role of the de havilland albatross male plane becoming a high-speed courier for secret male and vip passengers one of which could travel in the converted bombay one notable passenger was niels bohr the physicist who was evacuated from stockholm in 1943 to england to join the british mission to work on the manhattan project in the u.s however a problem with boar's oxygen supply meant that he nearly died during the flight the pilot realizing that he was no longer responding to the intercom dropped down to a lower altitude where he recovered afterwards when asked how he felt he said he slept like a baby through the whole flight in 1944 a photo reconnaissance mosquito was stripped of its cameras and flew from raf benson in south oxfordshire to moscow in four hours as a courier plane for the moscow conference between churchill and stalin at sea the mosquito was also proving itself to be a deadly opponent for the u-boats and smaller surface ships a modified version called mark 17 will be tetsy after the vicious biting insect for tetsy fly replaced the four 20 millimeter cannons with a mollin's six pounder 57 millimeter anti-tank gun with an auto loader mechanism along with extra armor to protect the crew from the heavily armed u-boats the shells were armor-piercing but non-explosive and aim to hit the water just at the side of the u-boat this would make them level out and then go clean through the hull under the water line then ricochet around inside before bursting out the other side most of these attacks were in the coastal waters of the ships were heading into and out of port and were responsible for the sinking of eight u-boats and numerous other small naval vessels as the v1 flying bomb offensive started against london in june 1944 mosquitoes were sent to identify and destroy the launch sites in northern france they were also one of the few propeller driven planes were fast enough to catch up and shoot down the v1s in flight as a knight fighter it was especially good with some mosquitoes of the 100 group raf using radio countermeasures to track down low uhf and vhs signals broadcast by german knight fighters as they tried to merge with the allied bomber streams nighttime raids were also done against german airfields but the germans soon learned to switch off the landing lights until the returning aircraft were just about to land so the mosquitoes would loiter around near the airfields and then when the landing lights were turned on and the aircraft was just touching down they would swoop in an attack 257 german knight fighters were shot down by mosquitoes from december 43 to april 45 and a total of 487 german aircraft were destroyed by mosquitoes during the war the last raid of the war by the raf was conducted by 126 mosquitoes against the german port of kiel and the kiel canal on the 2nd of may 1945 to stop german forces making their way to norway and carrying on the war from there here they dropped the last 4 000 blockbusters of the war devastating the port in the process over 40 versions of a mosquito were built with a total of over 7 700 aircraft which fought in all areas of the war from western europe to the eastern front and in the pacific although there were some problems with the wooden frames and the resins holding them together in the hot humid tropical far east but in the west they were to the pilots who flew them among the very best of any combat aircraft of world war ii so i hope you enjoyed the video and don't forget to subscribe thumbs up and share and i'd just like to say a big thank you to all of our patrons out there for their ongoing support

Channel: Curious Droid

Views: 357,192

Rating: 4.966135 out of 5

Keywords: de havilland mosquito, de havilland albatross, de havilland comet, fighter bomber, ww2, paul shillito, curious droid, boeing, lockheed p-38 lightning, low level bomber, precision bombing ww2, raf, operation carthage, operation jericho, mosquito

Id: Cg_Q_YxB9ww

Length: 18min 27sec (1107 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021