The Luftwaffe’s Nightmare: De Havilland Mosquito | Battlefield Mysteries | Timeline

hi everybody and welcome to this documentary on timeline my name is dan snow and i want to tell you about history hit tv it's like the netflix for history hundreds of exclusive documentaries and interviews with the world's best historians we've got an exclusive offer available to fans of timeline if you go to history hit tv you can either follow the information below this video or just google history hit tv and use the code timeline you get a special introductory offer go and check it out in the meantime enjoy this video [Music] [Music] we're on an airfield in northern france during the second world war this airfield was used by the german luftwaffe you can actually see the old tarmac in hundreds of aerodromes like this one the german luftwaffe would take off to attack the allied bomber formations and for the first years of the war they had a field day [Music] in 1941 the allies developed a versatile plywood aircraft known as the mosquito then this mosquito could fly undetected into german-occupied europe and attack these fighter bases [Music] from 1941 to 1945 a mosquito would serve as the allies most successful fighter bomber carrying out some of the riskiest missions of the second world war [Music] we've come back to tell the story of the mosquito the men who flew them those men the germans called the bandits of the air [Music] so september 1939 the nazi war machine invades poland igniting the second world war the following may sees his attention turn west with the invasion of belgium and france the german blitzkrieg quickly overwhelms the allied forces and by the beginning of june the survivors are forced to retreat to england hitler's domination of europe is complete for the allies the situation is desperate with no continental foothold for staging a counter-attack and no foreseeable hope of invasion their only means of striking back is from the air at the raf of 1940 is no match for the mighty luftwaffe and through the remainder of the year the germans exact a terrible toll on allied bombers and crewmen although with the bedroom when it was first introduced was considered to be an advanced airplane which it probably was in about 1936. but by the time the war came it was getting a bit too slow and a bit too heavy and less maneuverable than it should have been [Music] they got shot down rather easily [Music] i mean the low level operations in blenheim's were dangerous there was no doubt about that so losses were quite high it is clear to the raf that the allies need a new kind of aircraft one capable of penetrating deep into enemy territory with the speed and maneuverability to avoid german fighters with a capacity to deliver the destructive payload of a conventional bomber in 1941 they find their savior in the form of an unorthodox wooden aircraft the de havilland mosquito based on the design of the javelin civilian aircraft the mozzie as she becomes known is a radically stripped down version of a conventional raf bomber made almost entirely of wood and manned by only two crewmen the mosquito sacrifices defensive capability in exchange for increased speed and maneuverability constructed of a modest 40-foot wooden frame and with a wingspan of only 54 feet the mozzie is remarkably light at just over 14 000 pounds powered by two 1400 horsepower merlin engines the streamlined aircraft can fly at speeds in excess of 400 miles per hour to a range of 1700 miles armed with four 303 machine guns and four 20 millimeter cannons mosquito packs a powerful punch add in a potential payload of four 500-pound bombs and the aircraft becomes the allies ultimate fighter bomber the mosquito greatly impresses the raf and is immediately put into service in september 1941 the aircraft flies the first of many dangerous intruder missions striking deep inside nazi-occupied europe taking the war back to the germans at [Music] last so we're just crossing the english channel right now we're at about a thousand feet and about 150 miles an hour so we're actually 950 feet at least higher than what the mosquitoes would cross at being a little cockpit that's like this which is very much like a mosquitoes this really gives you a very cool feeling you can just imagine what this would have been like for these guys and the incision of the flying to be able to go at about 200 250 miles an hour 30 feet over the channel and then you got to find out where you're going i remember one pilot describing hitting the french coast it's going over the top now you're in enemy territory and that's where the real brooding would take place because the navigator had to determine where the anti-aircraft guns were ultimately the germans in 43 weren't ready to deal with low-level intruder operations [Music] we crossed the narrow lake until we hit a railway line we turned north and in less than a minute we were at the airfield the first thing i saw was a church parade after all it was sunday morning at least a hundred guys were drawn up in perfect lines in the middle of the field the moment they heard our cannon they broke and ran stumbling falling over each other there were about a dozen me109s parked at the far side of the field we closed to 50 yards with a two second burst one me109 exploded immediately we hit two others i can see the shells hitting home and yellow flames coming out of the wing grooves followed by a huge puff of black smoke although the pilots were obviously very good in the mosquito the navigator had to be just as good and they had to work together as a team and to me one of the hardest things to understand about these operations is how the hell they found their targets you're not using radar you have to pick up these landmarks whether during the day or at night and to be able to follow these canals look for a hill look for a tower i honestly don't know how you could do that especially when you're going 200 plus miles an hour at 50 feet but the mosquitoes used their versatility and their speed to get through the german defenses which made every pilot love them it was a different airplane altogether although it was made of good canadian wood um it was very chilled durable aircraft there was nothing like it even at low level at full power it could do almost 400 miles an hour which was faster than anything else but it it's very exciting because here we had this for those days very high speed airplane very maneuverable it's a mighty firepower when you let go the aircraft almost went backwards [Music] if you hit an aircraft with that kind of firepower you get literally blow it apart i love the airplane i thought it was a beautiful airplane i felt very safe in it and it got itself got its back [Music] one of the beauties of the mosquito was its versatility it was used in photo reconnaissance operations which are terribly important for intelligence they were used as pathfinders flare droppers for the heavy bomber missions they were used as a fighter bombers and these aircraft took missions deep into germany and they were striking at the heart of the third reich [Music] we were told the evening before there would be an operation in the morning and what time we'd be called and so on but reggie said that he'd be briefed already and i've never forgotten it this one is different [Music] the raf is putting the mosquito to its greatest test yet the mission a long-range bombing raid into the heart of germany the target a radio station in berlin where the head of the luftwaffe field marshal hermann goering is to deliver an address to the german people we walked into the office room and there's this piece of string that starts from marrowing off it went to berlin and everybody asked the same question do we have enough fuel to do that [Music] we flew in got up 25 000 feet and we were above solid cloud all the way there we just got to the stage where i was saying i can't see any breaks in the cloud we're going to have to bomb on time when a very small break in the cloud appeared and i said hang on there is a break and i could see the lakes of berlin [Music] and of course we knew where the radio station was which was the aiming point then we dropped the bombs until the bombs hit the ground there was no gunfire at all i don't think they knew we were there later after we bombed we we were able to hear a recording of the radio station was announced by the announcer never appeared and there was a short silence and then you could hear an explosion ice marshall hellman gurink then you can hear some shouting in the distance then they played martial music you know they do go [Music] it was an indication of some of the things that were possible 1941 and 42 the speedy mosquito proves itself an exceptionally effective weapon in just 18 months the aircraft flies over 1 000 sorties with remarkably few losses in 1943 the raf confirms its confidence in the mosquito ordering thousands of more aircraft with mass production beginning in the uk canada and australia but by mid-1943 the air war over europe is escalating the mosquito crews will find themselves in even greater peril as they are assigned the most dangerous missions of the second world war [Music] we're on our way to hunsden airfield just north of london it's probably the most famous mosquito airfield and by 1943 as more mosquitoes were being produced and more squadrons equipped with the mosquito three squadrons were operating out of huntston and they were the most successful intruder operators in early parts of the [Music] war we're going out to hudson to see what is left of this legendary airfield [Music] i'm with dennis sharp who's an expert on the huntsman airfield and of course this is where the mosquitoes operated in 1943-1944 do people around here know the history of this place not a lot of them do as you see it doesn't bear any relation today is what it was then this whole place was a sea of 442 buildings on hanson airfield now today uh we're looking at about half a dozen at the most this is one of the defense posts but that's right this is a a type 21 pillbox it was uh one of a ring of many around the actual perimeter of the airfield you'll notice that these actual gun ports all point in towards the actual flying field of the airfield because with an airfield the threat of invasion would have been carried out by the glider or paratroops and they would have landed actually on the airfield to capture key facilities we're out on the airfield now so when 43 what were they using them for well the airfield more or less uh the whole whole of its life is dedicated to night fighters and intruders the original air runway ended here this was the threshold to the main runway so this was the nice smooth concrete that's right this had a a dome high density light in it these large marker lights in the ground denoted the the actual course if you see there's like an arrow which actually is built into the heading of the uh of the runway that is you took a compass bearing off of air and that will give you exact uh runway heading [Music] when the airfield was originally built you see those villas there's also a pub the turkey [ __ ] but it was right in the line of the runway and apparently uh people used to duck their heads while drinking a pint because the mosquitoes was almost hitting the pub on takeoff and landings mosquito was really what made the intruders more successful right best for the aircraft that with the boston's were just weren't so good no no i mean the mosquito i was born for it wasn't his face is uh you know he had reliability you had the punch the firepower and the legs to actually fly from here at low level all the way across the continent to a designated german night fighter base and in orbit from a few miles out wait for a german nightfall and then sneaking up behind him is a mosquito so that's why they call them the bandits of the air that's right yeah it's a way of keeping a german knight fighter false on the ground in early 1941 allied bomber command begins a campaign of massive night raids on enemy targets by 1943 raf bombers have dropped over 20 000 tons of high explosive on germany's industrial heartland fearing the crippling effect of continued raids on their war industry the germans strike back this time with a secret weapon of their own the radar-equipped night fighter [Music] the results are devastating in just under 15 months palmer command loses 5881 bombers the allies best hope of countering these attacks is to penetrate deep into enemy territory and destroy german fighters on their airfields where they are most vulnerable and in 1943 there's only one allied aircraft capable of carrying out such a hazardous mission the de havilland mosquito [Music] it's something completely different for us to go in at night and attacking her foot at naught feet and we just didn't know what was going to happen i think when it did happen it it was quite frightening yeah it was scary no doubt about it if we were going on an intruder mission as we were taking off i would often think well i hope i'm going to see this air drone a little later on tonight i used to duck right down to a couple hundred feet across the coast because then you go across their defended area fast and they wouldn't get around to their anti-aircraft guns fast enough [Music] we were always low level intruders so i mean with a good moonlit night they could see you from the ground [Music] when we got to our target area first thing we looked for to see whether the air drove lights were on if they were on we knew that there were there was operations taking place they were pretty smart they knew that uh there were intruders around they took off and they stayed right down at 50 feet until they were at least 20 miles out and then they'd start their climb to get up into the balmer street so we seldom had any success except when they were coming into land you'd head for the downwind side of the airdrome in the hope that they turn some lights on when they're on their approach and if they did you try to take a crack at shooting them down the problem was that they knew we were there and they'd flashed this searchlight on the approach once their aircraft got past it [Music] and so all they did was covered the whole airfield in a blanket around the aircraft fire so you had to fly through it and that i'd tell you straight was [Music] the frightening hope we had then is certain around we'd whip in and try to get behind them [Applause] getting them as they were touching down on the runway after that if you had any ammunition left you were allowed to go anywhere you like and heat up transport on the ground trains canals and then when you well more or less looked at the petrol cage and said i gotta go home you turn around and maybe back this air base went from knight fighters into intruders now in beginning of 44 they bring a new group here and that's under picard that's right 140 wing and picard was sort of a legend already wasn't he pickard was he he made his debut in a in a in a film actually uh in 1941 by the crown film unit uh they actually made a film called target for tonight yeah and he portrayed the pilot of effort freddie all from it for freddie here i'm here anyway here sir i'm housekeeper okay so okay sir well that's a change anyway they arrived in january of 44 and of course in february of 44 the raid on amions or operation jericho was actually flying from this airfield and if anyone could do the job it was him [Applause] [Music] in january 1944 allied intelligence learns that over 100 french resistance members are being held in a jail at ambient friends awaiting execution the french underground requests an urgent airstrike to break open the prison walls and liberate their comrades the task of planning the mission codenamed operation jericho is given to the raf's most experienced mosquito navigator ted sismore well we knew we had a problem because uh we were told that the objective was to break the prison wars to get some of the french prisoners out who were i think key members of the french underground and they needed them out uh the problem was what how do you break down walls and how do you break down the inner walls without killing everybody inside first of all on all targets at low level you need if you can find one a very good lead-in and of course that prison we had a very good lead-in with the road perfect that meant that we should attack the outside wall parallel to that road we could then have a choice on how we attacked the inside wall because we we knew which parts of the prison were critical so the outside wall would be attacked with people at low level just just dropping one straight into it the inner wall was being attacked by people pulling up and doing shallow dive the trouble with that sort of operation you could never do it twice you get one chance [Music] but it was an urgent operation and it had to go ahead at 10 am on february 18 1944 a day before the executions are scheduled to begin nineteen mosquito fighter bombers take off from huntston airfield and set out across the english channel headed for amiens operation jericho was a gamble for the allies and the stakes could not be higher at risk are the lives of 38 elite raf airmen along with hundreds of french prisoners [Music] february 18th 1944 19 raf mosquito bombers crossed the french coast and into the hostile skies of our nazi-occupied france their mission codenamed operation jericho is to free over 100 french resistance fighters scheduled for execution the target the heavily guarded prison at amiens the mosquitoes came from doulons to albert and then turned sharply southwest and they followed this old roman road right down here to the prison halfway down the typhoon split off to engage german fighters and at 1201 the first mosquito wave hit the prison whilst the raid was in operation we could see the fighter defense beginning to operate which is rather worrying the fighter airfield at ameon was very close to the target so it was almost inevitable that some fighters would get airborne from there and we would have problems the first wave were the new zealanders and their job was to break the northeastern wall of the prison they came in 1201 zero feet dropped their bombs the bombs skidded on the snow they had an 11 second fuse for the mosquitoes to get out of there before the bombs went up the second wave was so tight on coming in behind them so the first bombs hadn't exploded yet so they actually had to divert and go around the prison 360 degrees before they came in and their objective was to hit the buildings themselves [Music] once we started getting the actual reports of course we were hearing very good news that the walls had been broken and even one or two reports that they'd seen people running up and the underground was around the prison waiting for them in in quite we gathered in quite some numbers so that they were what should i say hustled away quickly before the germans could organize a recapture of course the lot of pick-out was very sad and rather disturbing really but he was a character a rather special character after the raid the card waited around for a while and you could see through the smoke that the prisoners were getting out in fact more than 250 of them did escape and the raid was a great success but that delay allowed the german fighters to close in on him [Music] and he crashed just northeast of amiens the french locals took his body out of the wreckage but before they could bury them the germans took them and they buried them here in the old world war one cemetery at st pierre charles picard dso and two bars dfc pilot royal air force 18 february 1944 age 28. at the rising and going down of the sun we will always remember him picard was a legend in the raf and his action here at amiens only added to it picard lost his life in the most amazing air raid of the entire second world war [Music] following the success of amiens mosquito crews are called upon time and again to perform similar surgical strikes late in the war denmark's resistance movement sends a telegram pleading for an attack on shellhouse a former shell oil building now occupied by the gestapo the target a collection of damning evidentiary files and resistance activities but the gestapo anticipates an attack and places 26 danish prisoners as a human shield in the upper floors of the building we were called up again to baker street and asked if we could attack this one well because the first reaction was how on earth are we going to find a building in the middle of a city and if we do this job we're going to kill all those people and they said well you may have to do that [Applause] [Music] it was difficult but it was possible and it was successful except of course that one aircraft hit a pilot on the railway line and crashed into the school just short of the target this confused the people behind because of the smoke and some of the later people dropped bombs on onto the school which was sad [Music] but you have to look on both sides [Music] one or two of the people in the attic were killed one or two were badly injured because they had to jump from about the fourth floor but some got out alive well if we hadn't had the accident and the disaster of killing some school children then they wouldn't have had those stains probably would never have got out so it was a very mixed feeling about the raid really but it was successful in the sense that it was the documentation that was wanted and of course it caught fire and and the building burnt the raids on ambient shell house are just two of hundreds of during low-level mosquito attacks which would leave the enemy reeling the luftwaffe is simply unable to counter the range speed and firepower of what has become the deadliest weapon in the allied airborne arsenal but in june 1944 germany would unleash its own super weapon the v1 flying bomb beginning a new reign of terror over england's civilian population [Music] we're in a wood outside the village of morbeck in french flanders and it's approximately 120 miles as the crow flies from here to london and this is really a great remnant of the second world war this is a v1 launching site but of course in 1943 the allies didn't know that they got reports from the french resistance about the germans building bunkers in these odd positions down the pot of calais and in the nor region and you can actually see one of the smaller bunkers over here but it wasn't the smaller bunkers that concern them it's this one right here this long skinny one curved at the end which they dubbed the ski site they thought that this would be related to the german rocket program in penal monday [Music] pina monday in northeastern germany is home to a massive factory complex where the nazis are engaged in the development and construction of a new terror weapon the v1 flying bomb [Music] the ski bunkers were actually the storage buildings for the v1 rockets and the v1 rockets were a nifty piece of engineering it was a torpedo about 25 feet long with the stove pipe on top which was the pulse jet engine they would store them in here for quick delivery to launching pad so you can actually see the trolley marks where they'd carry the v1s in it was like a cradle but this was not the final preparation for the launching the setting of the altimeter or the compass or even the warhead detonators would be done at other bunkers closer to the launching pad just over here at the far end of the forest [Music] this is the rick house or the non-magnetic building and you can see there's not much left of it it must have had a bad encounter with an ally bomb what would happen here is the final stage of preparation before launching they would bring the v1 in you can see what's left of the doorway here this was a non-magnetic building and it had to be that because this is where they set the compass and they put two detonators in one on the belly and one on the nose so if it landed flat it would go off or if it came down nose first it would also go off once this was done the wings are attached it's still on its trolley and it's taken over to the launching pad [Music] this is the launching ramp and it's really all that's left of the entire launching facility it's built of cinder blocks and the idea was it would protect the crew from any explosion that might go on during the rocket launching and within it they put a catapult 150 feet long and of course the reason they needed a catapult is that the v1 was only air worthy at 150 miles an hour so the catapult had to fire it out of here like a slingshot when everything is going they'd run back to a little control bunker over there and from there they pressed the button which would ignite the jet engine so when everything was set the engine is firing the germans would press the button and the rocket would go [Music] one thing totally unique about the v1 was the sound it made it was really infamous because it was a pulse engine it would start off with fuel coming in it would be ignited by the oxygen and then it would explode combust and once it combusted a new amount of fuel would go in and then it would combust so you had a set in these positions the germans planned to reign terror on london it was going to be a new blitz with new vengeance weapons the allied reaction to the german rocket program was swift and they initiated operation crossbow to destroy all german rocket installations the heavy bombers went across to germany and destroyed pina monday and they launched attacks on every one of the ski sites and there were more than 100 of them at first it was heavy bombers bombing from about ten thousand feet [Music] and you can see evidence of their bombing all the way through this park this is a crater maybe made by a 500 pounder bomb from a lancaster some of the fighter bombers they used here were the mosquitoes they also had no ball raids or what the pilots started to call no balls raids because when they came in low level to attack these sites they were hit by rifle fire machine gun fire and light anti-aircraft fire v1 sites you couldn't attack at low level they were sighted in awkward places anyway and of course the building was just a single story so the only sensible way of the mosquito was to do shallow dive bombing you'd go in low level to avoid interception and then just before the target pull up to about two and a half thousand feet come in in a shallow dive bombing the dive [Applause] and go back down to the deck to to escape [Music] by may 1944 all 100 of the ski sites were destroyed but the germans reacted very quickly and they built modified v1 sites and they got rid of the ski buildings and these were very difficult to detect because they were built around farms and in little woodlands there was no clear bunkers to attack and on june 13th 1944 the first v-1s fell in london and a new blitz had begun the v-1 attacks on england are devastating [Music] the civilian population is thrown into alarm and with little defense against the high-speed bombs the allies look once again to the mosquito hoping their tried and tested super weapon can turn back this new threat june 6 1944 the allied invasion of normandy after five long years of occupation the liberation of western europe is underway but the nazi threat is far from over in truth the germans with their advanced rocket technology are about to unleash a wave of terror attacks on england's civilian population with their new secret weapon the v1 flying bomb on june 13 1944 only one week after d-day the first v-ones rain down [Music] there were so many v1s coming across through the circuit of the airfield that it was untenable [Music] [Music] i was underneath a couple when i was near london and of course when you saw it and that motor cut everybody hit the ditch because you know it it was going to crash we heard this one come over and then the engine stopped so everybody fell on the floor the dust came out from the walls and the ceiling about six inches and i got up from the floor to my drink which was on the bar and as soon as i touched the glass it disintegrated just fell apart and i always remember the barman he also appeared from the other side of the bar he said i saw that so i better have one on the house ground crews fight desperately to repel the v1 attacks anti-aircraft fire and barrage balloons prove marginally effective nonetheless the majority of flying bombs slip through the allies quickly realize the most effective way to stop the v1 is to intercept them in the air once again they turn to the unparalleled speed and firepower of the de havilland mosquito when the v1 started to come around we were taken right off of intruding in the hopes of shooting down these v1s [Music] there was a vivid flash on the french coast all you'd see is a big flame because it trailed the flame about 20 feet long we could see it coming out across the channel so we would do an interception these things were going pretty close to 400 miles an hour and sometimes a little more and even diving on them we had trouble catching them [Applause] he immediately decided on a tactic of patrolling at ten thousand feet we peel over and try and get the mosquito up to 440 miles an hour we were gaining some because the fire coming out of the ass end of the v1 was getting bigger the mosquito was screaming in every joint i thought the wings would never stand it we began to level out and the clock said 400 miles per hour we're too close i shut my eyes as the cannons began banging away [Music] the real danger was if you picked up a piece of debris in the radiator [Music] the other problem was that it produced a very vivid white flash that would blind you when the explosion came i thought i was going to be dead the goddamn thing went off right in our faces i bet we're all blistered my pilot said he was talking about the mosquito there wasn't an inch of paint anywhere the mosquito was black no numbers no letters nothing once we got the hang of the tactic we were fairly successful and i think 418 squadron shot down about 80 of these b1s [Music] raspanic goes on to destroy a total of 19 v1 rockets and 11 german night fighters earning him the distinction as canada's second highest scoring fighter ace of the second world war the mosquito proves a highly effective weapon against the last of the v1 attacks but the war in the air is changing 1944 also sees the introduction of germany's powerful v2 rocket and the misheshmit 262 jet fighter heralding a new era of air warfare by the time war against germany ends in may 1945 mosquito's reign is all but over [Music] this is the church in the small village of puerto piquiti in northwest france it's about 100 miles from england and during the second world war there are many air bases in this area and many transport centers that were targets of the allied air attacks there's a cemetery just up here that contains 149 commonwealth airmen most of the men buried here were killed on bombing operations here's the grave of flying officer harry jones of montreal he was a pilot of a halifax bomber when he was shot down on june 8 1944 but there's another crew in here that's quite different they were the men known as intruders this is the grave of r.j tomlinson of sherbert quebec he was the pilot of a mosquito and here's his navigator charles essen who was shot down on intruder operations on june 3rd 1944 intruders were so effective that the germans referred to them as the bandits of the air though it has never enjoyed the historic fanfare of the spitfire of the lancaster bomber the fact remains that for four crucial years the mosquito with its matchless combination of speed maneuverability and firepower was the allies most versatile aircraft piloted by fearless crews its hundreds of high-risk missions hastened the end of the second world war undoubtedly saving countless lives that might yet have been lost

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 1,302,680

Rating: 4.805974 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, 2017 documentary, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, plywod planes, intruders, mosquitoes

Id: NQSPXTNR2OA

Length: 47min 31sec (2851 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020