'Mosquito,' by Rowland White

 

The joy of books means I can sit here, or in my usual reading place, and go around the world. This is especially true when the book is fast paced, holds attention, and leaves me desperate to know what is over the page. 

From my tea mug I have braved the Antarctic winds, and that not long after seeking the north West passage in the Arctic.  I have walked across burning deserts, accompanied by camels, I have been in the deepest Congo jungle seeking strange phenomena, which turned out to be a hoax.  I have travelled by train across China, South America, climbing Indian mountains, and the Australian outback.  The best of all this is however, fighting the enemy in damp, deep Great War trenches or flying Lancaster bombers across Berlin under fire, and at no time suffering from anti-aircraft fire.  

Now, I have just returned from several low flights across enemy held territory, bombing prisons to aid resistance fighters escape, help the advance of Montgomery's forces after D-Day, and at the end a long, dangerous flight to Copenhagen to bomb the Shellhus,' which was being used by the Gestapo as a kind of hotel for resistance workers.  

I returned safely once again.

'Mosquito,' is an excellent book concerning the creation of Geoffrey de Havilland.  An aircraft designer of special talent.  The book describes the design, the creation, the manufacture, often by small groups of people in small rooms gluing things together, and the opposition from the high level air force types that knew it would not work.  Even the best require some push to get going.  

'Mosquito' then covers the effect this speedy aircraft had on the enemy below.  Fast, well armed, used for a variety of purposes by the RAF and USAAF, flown by men from all Empire nations as well as Yanks, and feared by the Germans until the arrival of the 262 Fighter Jet in 1944, the only plane to catch up with it.  

Concentrating on the low level attacks, the book places us in the cockpit on the long flight over the North Sea towards Jutland as they prepare carefully to attack Copenhagen's Shellhus in the midst of the city, and that at lunchtime.  This is the best chapter as the writer takes you into the cab as the low flight causes hindrances from the sea and birdlife.  

After the war the leading crews meet the survivors in the city, including parents who lost their children when the school is hit.  These parents calmed the flyers, not the other way round!  

I was irked by one or two things.  The over dramatic way we are led into the next chapter, I just kept shouting 'Get on with it!'  And the constant reference to Ted Sismore as the 'young navigator.'  The condescending note here concerning a man who received the highest number of awards for any navigator during the war was unacceptable.  Men of a certain age have a habit, a needless habit, of referring to young talented men in this manner.  

Ted Sismore went on 130 operations in various bombers, leading the squadrons as they headed into unknown waters, against heavily defended areas, and survived and completed many years in the RAF after the war.  Not all survived however.  In spite of the speed of the aircraft accidents and enemy fire took their toll and not all returned after a raid.

This book helps us to remember them and what these airmen accomplished during the war.

This book is well worth a read.