The exploits of the Mosquito crews in Burma, skimming at low-level and at speed along rivers and over treetops to their targets, are the stuff of legend. Surprisingly, however, only five RAF squadrons ever flew these operations. Mosquito Intruders – Target Burma explores the achievements of these intruder squadrons, as well as the costs to the men who flew and supported them.
Their story starts in mid-1943, almost as soon as the fighter-bomber variant of the ‘Mossie’, the iconic de Havilland Mosquito FB VI, had been introduced to squadron service in the UK. The first challenge was to deliver the new aircraft, with its radical wooden construction, to India and build a supply chain to support it.
Then, with few dual-control aircraft, they needed to train the crews to operate the Mosquito to the limits of its performance in often hostile weather over inhospitable territory against an aggressive enemy. Some crews converted from a similar low-level role to extend the reach of the impressive but already obsolescent Beaufighter. Other squadrons, converting from the single-engine Vultee Vengeance dive bomber, needed to learn how to handle a faster twin-engine intruder and to fly at low level. Against the odds, both the aircraft and their crews delivered!
Mosquito Intruders – Target Burma uses diaries, first-hand accounts, and official records to take the reader through the Mosquito intruders’ three-year campaign to help force the Japanese out of Burma, living and dying with the brave warriors in the five squadrons which flew the FB VI.
The first operations were flown by 27 Squadron, led by the renowned Wing Commander James Nicolson VC, the only person in RAF Fighter Command to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War. Many of the airmen, like the author’s father who flew Mossie intruder ops with both 27 and 45 Squadrons, felt that they were ‘forgotten’ by the public back home and often by their own high command. But importantly, they knew that their actions were shortening the war in the Far East.