Some of My Banff Strike Wing Mosquito Photos

[KD303]

I thought I'd post a photo or two from my collection. I've been promising to do this for a while. A relative of mine was a nav on Mosquitos at Banff and I inherited a load of pictures from him. This one is from a 248 Squadron Mosquito MK XVIII Tsetse. The shell from the Molins gun can clearly be seen at centre of pic, near bottom. I have very little information about this particular attack. Just click the link and if you left click on the photo it will become magically larger!


This next is from a 235 Squadron Mosquito (J/LA) attacking a ship just a few days before the end of the war.


Now one from a RCAF 404 Squadron Mossie attacking shipping in Haugesund, Norway October 21 1944. This was an early Banff Strike Wing Attack. The flak gun crews were below decks having beakfast when the attack occured.


Hope these are of interest. I shall post some Beaufighter pictures later.

KD

[bagrat]

a while back was talkin to a squady of mine and was saying that second seat in mossie was for a navigator, he didn't believe me. This clears it up,

and interesting pics.

[Karnak]

Thanks for the photos.  Gotta love Mossies.  Even the Luftwaffe fans can't hate them.

[Fencer51]

Wow lets see more.

[mussie]

Mighty cool pics there KD303

[38ruk]

thx for sharing , great pics. 38

[Scherf]

Great pics KD303!

There are at least two authors who'd be interested in your collection: Andrew D. Bird, who is doing a second edition of his marvellous "A Separate Little War", and Alex Crawford, who's doing a new book on Tsetse ops.

Have you considered looking either of them up to get your pics published?

[KD303]

OK, glad you liked them. I know they're from Mossies rather than of Mossies but, well that's the way it goes... I have 1 or 2 with Mosquitos in them but only one scanned so far. This shows a Mosquito MK VI of 235 Squadron during an attack on a surfaced U-boat in the North Sea. Picture is dated May 3 1945, just a few days before the surrender of Germany and was taken by Mossie LA/A.


I will hunt out another pic from the above raid which shows an excellent view of a Mosquito attacking a U-boat. Not as rare as these but worth posting anyway. In the next day or two I'll post some photographs from Banff's Neighbouring wing, the Dallachy Strike Wing, which operated Beaufighters. I have a sequence from 4 or 5 planes all taken within 2 or 3 seconds of eachother, showing different angles on the same attack on ships in a Norwegian fjord.
KD

[KD303]

Originally posted by Scherf
Great pics KD303!

There are at least two authors who'd be interested in your collection: Andrew D. Bird, who is doing a second edition of his marvellous "A Separate Little War", and Alex Crawford, who's doing a new book on Tsetse ops.

Have you considered looking either of them up to get your pics published?

I've read Andrew Birds book, A Seperate Little War, he infact describes the attack of the Harbour in Haugesund. To be honest I haven't thought about contacting him, but he may well be interested. The thing with having photos like these, is you (or at least, I) assume lots of people inherited photos from grandfathers and uncles and that they've already been aquired by those who have a specific interest (authors and historians etc.) . However, it's quite possible that very few copies of some of these pictures survive today.
KD

[Scherf]

Hi Again:

I'd agree with you that there are lots of images for which very few copies survive. In many cases, the images are no doubt unique.

There's a thriving market for these things over on ebay, but I've always felt there is a certain responsibility to get the pics published wherever possible or appropriate. The pic you've posted of the Mossie above the sub is I think one of the unique ones, and is quite startling.

Really, thanks for letting us see these incredible shots.

[Klum25th]

Great pics and thank you for sharing.

You now it would suck to get killed a few days before the war was over. I fill kinda sorry for those German submariners, and boat guys that probabley got killed, and never got to go home before the wars end.

Is there any info out there that might have the casualty list of Allies and axis killed like a week before the wars end.

[KD303]

Originally posted by Klum25th
Great pics and thank you for sharing.

You now it would suck to get killed a few days before the war was over. I fill kinda sorry for those German submariners, and boat guys that probabley got killed, and never got to go home before the wars end.

Is there any info out there that might have the casualty list of Allies and axis killed like a week before the wars end.

The information and statistics exist ( for certain groups anyway) but it's more a case of having to check each group individually. There are some very good U-boat sites on the web, for instance.

http://uboat.net/boats/index01.html

This site has information about the fate of almost every German submarine in WWII. Of course, like all web sites, I'm not sure how accurate it is...

[straffo]

KD have you any goog pict of Max Guedj plane ?

I'm still gathering data to make texture when a real mossie will be introduced in AH.

[KD303]

Originally posted by straffo
KD have you any goog pict of Max Guedj plane ?

I'm still gathering data to make texture when a real mossie will be introduced in AH.

Sorry, no. All my Banff photographs are combat pictures, so I don't have any plane to plane shots other than those which happen to have other aircraft in the frame during an attack.

The RAF web site does have a picture showing 248's markings


I also came across this picture of a model of a 248 squadron Mossie.

Although they purport to be of the same aircraft, different underside colour schemes are shown.
Then there are these pics by Bob Pearson showing  different schemes again.


By the way, the above photo of the Mosquito over the U-boat was most likely an attack against  U-boat U2359 (type XXIII)which was sunk with all hands by Mosquitos of the Strike Wing in the Kattegat on May 2 1945. It may be another U-boat of the same type which was damaged in the attack.

KD
Stay tuned for the Dallachy Strike wing Beaufighter Pictures! They'll be up today.

[Alex Crawford]

Hi KD303,

Excellent strike photos, thanks for posting.

I have one or two comments about these and other posts in this thread.

The first is definately a frame from a Tse-tse. The tracer on the 6pdr is clearly visible. Shots like this are extremely hard to find.

The 404 Squadron RCAF attack on 21 October 1944 also involved Tse-tse's. Three ships were attacked during this raid. They were Eckenheim 1,932t, Vestra 1,432t and Taube. The escort vessels VP5310 and S11 were also damaged. The ship in the photo is high out of the water suggesting it has no cargo. The Vestra was carrying a load of limestone so we can rule her out. I don't have cargo details for the other two. The Vestra was sunk and the other two damaged.

During this raid a Tse-tse PZ251/I was shot down by flak with the loss of Fly Off Driscol and Fly Off Hannant.

The colour side views are interesting although HR138/Y was not a Tse-tse. I have a full list of all 17 Tse-tse plus the prototype. The Tse-tse serials are:
HJ732 (Prototype), HX902, HX903, HX904, MM424, MM425, NT224, NT225, PZ251, PZ252, PZ300, PZ301, PZ346, PZ467, PZ468PZ469 and PZ470.

Regards,

Alex