Lancaster

[Noir]

Rotten business, this war.

All wars are rotten business.

[Angus]

There was a good one I remember, - They COD WAR
From the BBC:
"Cod Wars

The first 'Cod war' took place in 1958, when Iceland, extended its coastal fishing limit, from 4 miles, to 12 miles.

The Second Cod War started in 1972 when Iceland extended its coastal non-fishing limit to 50 miles.

It ended with an agreement between the two countries that limited British fishing to restricted areas, within the 50-mile limit.

This agreement was valid for two years and expired on November 13 1975, when the third "Cod War" started.

Between November 1975, and June 1976, the cod brought two NATO allies to the brink of war.

Great Britain and Iceland confronted each other as Iceland proclaimed its authority to 200 miles from its coastline.

British trawlers had their nets cut by Icelandic Coast Guard vessels and there were numerous rammings between Icelandic ships and British trawlers and frigates.

Iceland claimed that it was merely enforcing what would soon be international law.

Disastrous agreement

The USA offered to mediate, but it was NATO intercession that helped to end the conflict.

Iceland and Great Britain came to agreement on June 2 1976. A maximum of 24 British trawlers were allowed inside the 200-mile limit.

The annual cod catch was limited to 50,000 tons.

The agreement led to unemployment for 1,500 fishermen together with 7,500 onshore workers.

Common Fisheries Policy marks the End

By the 1930s, British fishermen bought home 300,000 tonnes of cod annually. EU officials say today there are only 70,000 tonnes of adult cod left in the North Sea."

look here: http://www.britains-smallwars.com/RRGP/CodWar.htm

[KD303]

Originally posted by MiloMorai
Yup, most of the heavies, British and American, should have been replaced by the Mossie.

I don't agree.
Harris summed it up:

"We had in England those who took the same view as the leaders of the German Air Force, that bombers should be light and rely on their speed and manoeuveratability to evade the enemy's air defence. The Mosquito was, in fact, the direct outcome of this controversy between supporters of the light and supporters ofd the heavy bomber; when rearmament was being planned there seemed to be no reason why we should not have the best of both worlds aand add something like a thousand or so light bombers to the four thousand heavies. Unlike the Germans we grasped the point that any ordinary bomber is cold meat to any ordinary fighter, and so a light bomber, the Mosquito, was designed which should be at least as fast, and probably faster, than the average fighter. But in the end the wisdom of concentrating on the heavy bomber was conclusively proved. The decisive factor was the supply of pilots; the heavy bomber carries about three times the load of the medium type, but both aircraft only need one pilot. It is certain that even with the whole resources of the Empire Training Scheme we should never have got enough pilots to fly enough medium and light bombers to drop the load of the heavies. And of course, the problem of concentrating the bombload, if it had been carried out by many light bombers instead of by a comparatively few heavies, would have been insoluble." (From Bomber Offensive, Sir Arthur Harris. pp100-101)
It would also be wrong to suggest that a few Mossies could do the job of many heavies because of better accuracy. A high flying Mossie was just as accurate or inaccurate as a High flying Lanc. Also, if The Mossie had a single 4000lb Cookie, the chances of it hitting where it was aimed were minimal. It was like a giant dustbin and had similar ballistic qualities.
With our luxury of 20/20 hindsight, we can sit and judge the actions of those who made the decisions in the Bomber Offensive, but they were living in that moment under extreme stress. "What ifs" are always interesting though.
As far as who won the Battle of Berlin goes, I would hate to get involved in that one. Suffice to say that many German commanders claimed that Britain didn't win the Battle Of Britain.

[Scherf]

N'yuh-huh, Harris' hubris knew no bounds.

Far better to feed aircrew into the heavies, where life-expectancy was less than a third of that on Mossies. After all, there's a limited supply of  pilots.  

Oh, and I love the "we" in the question of designing the mossie - talk about 20/20...

[Angus]

De Havilland was turned down with his proposal of the Mossie, and didn't get anywhere untill he launched the prototype from his own finance,- the stunned audience learning that they were looking at a twin engined attacker made mostly out of wood that was faster than the standard fighters in cervice.
I'd rather have 15.000 mossies than 5000 lancs,- you need 15000 pilots instead of 5000-10.000, but each will survive 3x as many missions as a minimum remember, there are no gunners and such, and the aircraft is multi purpose.
Well, I must still say that the Lancaster was quite good.

[Kev367th]

Strangely Guy Gibson who led the Dambuster died in a Mosquito.
If you really want to know which he preferred try reading "Enemy Coast Ahead"

Mosquitos were involved in some of the more outrageous missions of WW2 -
Amiens prison raid
Bombing the Reichstag twice in one day interrupting speeches.
Raid on Gestapo HQ in Oslo

But saying that, only the Lancaster could carry the two biggies - Tallboy and Grandslam. Without them the submarine pens at Brest, and various bridges and tunnels would have been left intact.

As I've said try reading "Enemy Coast Ahead".

[Angus]

Bear in mind:
1: Your Oslo quote is probably the raid on the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen when a Schoolhouse was hit. Why? Read up, you'd be surprized
2. There was a parallel raid on Aalborg I belive. Hospital 200 metres or so away from target. Read up.
3. The Night bombing accuracy of the Lancasters is largely credited to the pathfinders. Which were mostly and most successfully Mossies

[Angus]

An addition. I expect you to get some stuff about the Copenhagen raid. It's hereby been partially countered inforehand

[Kev367th]

No there was also a riad on the Oslo Gestapo HQ.-
 Vidkun Quisling, the Nazi puppet ruler of occupied Norway, was to give a rally at the Gestapo headquarters in Oslo that day. Four B.IVs of Number 105 Squadron were assigned to break up the party. The building was hit by four bombs, three of which detonated.

Another weird one -
During the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, Bomber Command B.XVIs performed an interesting variation on the low-level attack, attempting to toss Cookies into railroad tunnels. This was tricky and not completely successful, though at least one tunnel was caved in using the trick.

Now the Mosquitos turned their attention back to the Gestapo, engaging in what almost became a private war. On 11 April 1944, six FB.VIs of Number 613 Squadron struck Gestapo headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, destroying German records on the Dutch Resistance. Two bombs were tossed into the front door of the building.

On 31 October 1944, 18 FB.VIs hit a Gestapo office building at Aarhus University in Denmark. They came in so low that one Mosquito went back home with a piece of masonry in the fuselage. On 21 March 1945, Mosquitos hit Gestapo headquarters in the middle of Copenhagen. The mission was successful except that the strike leader's Mosquito hit a bridge and slammed into an elementary school, with many civilian casualties.

How about Highest Night Photo=
The highest night photograph of the war was taken on April 18, 1944, over Osnabruck. The RAF Mosquito crew used a target indicator flash and took the picture from 36, 000 feet.

Copenhagen?
OPERATION CARTHAGE  (March 21, 1945)

At the request of the Danish resistance movement, a force of RAF Mosquitos from 487, 464 and 21 Squadrons of 140 Wing, escorted by Mustangs of Fighter Command, attacked the Gestapo Headquarters in Copenhagen. The Gestapo had taken over the five storey Shell House, the pre-war H/Q of the Shell Petroleum Company. On the day of the raid it housed a large number of Danish resistance fighters who had been arrested and were being interrogated as the first bombs fell. Some prisoners were killed but 30 escaped during the bombing. Some 151 Gestapo agents and their Danish collaborators were also killed.

Although the raid was a success, a horrific tragedy occured nearby. One of the Mosquitos, on its bombing run, struck a light mast in the railway goods yard, veered to the left and crashed in a ball of fire near the Jeanne d'Arc Catholic School. The fire and smoke from the crash was mistakenly targeted by the next wave of Mosquitos which dropped their bombs on and around the crash site. The resulting fires soon spread to other buildings and eventually engulfed the school which burned to the ground in less than two hours. Eighty-six children and ten teachers lost their lives in this tragedy and sixty-seven were injured. When rescures reached the school cellers they found the bodies of forty-two children huddled together. They had all drowned in water from the firemen's hoses.



And yup, they EXCELLED as pathfinders.

[Karnak]

I have several good books on the Mossie, particularly the one by Martin Sharp and Michael Bowyer.  The above quote from Arthur Harris in no way resembles the development of the Mossie.  It was fought at every step and taken off the list more than once.  Only Geoffrey de Haviland and Wilfrid Freeman's efforts did the Mosquito make it into production.  Harris didn't want it at all.


Kurfurst is right that the high level, Mosquito only raids were little more than high profile nuisance raids.  It was much more effective in other roles given the production decisions made higher up.  If the Mossie had been the focus with the Lancaster as a secondary bomber for special tasks like sub pen breaking the all Mossie raids might have been vastly more than a high profile nuisance.  If the Mossie had been the focus, a larger percentage of them would have been lost than historically because the Germans would have had to focus of Mossie killers rather than the easier to make Lanc killers.  The Mossie's higher cruising speed would make interceptions harder to do and multiple interceptions by a single nightfighter as happened to Lancs and Halibags much harder.

The particular area of Mossie combat that interests me are the intruders and Gestapo raiders.  Big bombs are nice and all, but I prefer guns and smaller bombs.

[Kev367th]

If I recall correctly theres a photograph in "Enemy Coast Ahead" that shows the Bielefeld viaduct.
It is surrounded by hundreds of craters from previous attacks that failed to bring it down.
About 30m from it is a very very large crater, the single "Tallboy" that did bring it down.

Yeah I think the Mossie crews and the Gestapo had their own little private war going on.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Kev367th
Yeah I think the Mossie crews and the Gestapo had their own little private war going on.

I don't know.  A war implies the ability of both sides to fight and the Gestapo seemed all built up to bully the helpless whereas they were just targets for Mossies.

[Kev367th]

True.

What is interesting is the numerous reports of aircraft returning with masonry, chimney pots and foliage imbedded in them because they flew that low.

Thats the one problem with our Mossie (AH2), in real life it VERY RARELY caught fire, AH2 you only have to light a match within 6 miles of it.

Trivia - Fastest Mosquito was the prototype, achieved 703kh/h. Initially it achieved 624km/h (or 632km/h depending on source), but speed was increased with new engines.

Amiens prison wall after Mossie raid



Aarhus Gestapo HQ



"So close to their objectives did the machines fly that one machine left a tailwheel on the roof, and another buckled the engine nacelle, while the pilot of the third saw a bomb from a Mosquito in front of him strike the side of the building, come out through the roof and pass over his own plane before it went down again. "

[Angus]

The AArhus raid was one masterpiece.
The Copenhagen raid was unlucky. My next door neighbour has a friend who was on the fire brigade that nigh
I have some details on the raids, but my book is in another house.
BTW, after the war, Johnny Johnsson's squadron, finding out what happened, put up an airshow in Copenhagen, funds being raised for the wounded children and the families of the deceased.
The Gestapo were some Ba$tards, and to think of how gritty things went in small and peaceful countries like Norway and Denmark, I am even more happy that it was the Brits who got to Iceland first

[Tilt]

Harris's point re pilots was valid for 1940 to mid 43 but not valid there after.

By mid 43 prospective RAF heavy bomber pilots were being diverted and trained as flight engineers and radar operators rather than being sent to Canada for training.

In fact by 44  flight engineers for Lancs and Halifaxes were in shorter supply than pilots.

for Harris the Lancaster was the only aircraft that counted.