de Havilland Mosquito
The de Havilland Mosquito was a British twin-engined combat aircraft of the Second World War, built largely of wood and powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines. Designed as an unarmed bomber that would rely on speed for protection, it proved adaptable to bombing, night fighting, reconnaissance and strike work, and more than seven thousand were built in Britain, Canada and Australia.
Why It Mattered
The Mosquito mattered because it traded armour and defensive guns for speed, and showed that a bomber could survive simply by being hard to catch. De Havilland built it largely of wood when front-line aircraft were made of metal, and it was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder". The Air Ministry resisted the idea at first, yet from the day production began in 1941 the Royal Air Force never had enough of them. One basic airframe went on to work as a bomber, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft and strike aircraft. It is still the outstanding example of wooden construction succeeding in front-line combat service.
Design Notes
The design drew on de Havilland's pre-war wooden aircraft, the DH.88 Comet racer and the DH.91 Albatross airliner, whose plywood construction the company carried forward. The fuselage was made in two halves, balsa wood sandwiched between birch plywood skins and formed in moulds, so wiring and equipment could be fitted before the halves were joined. The wing was finished as a single piece, wingtip to wingtip, its smooth skin unbroken by rivet heads. The engine radiators sat inside the wings instead of hanging below them, which reduced drag. Two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines gave the power, and the crew of two, pilot and navigator, sat side by side. Wood also suited a country at war: the people who could work it were plentiful, while aluminium was in dangerously short supply.
Operational History
Design work began in December 1939, and the prototype flew less than eleven months later. No. 105 Squadron introduced the Mosquito into service in May 1942, as a daylight bomber. Bomber Command also used it at night, including target marking for the Pathfinder Force. No. 2 Group's low-level daylight attacks became some of the type's best-known operations. As a night fighter and intruder it defended the United Kingdom and supported Bomber Command by attacking German night fighters. Coastal Command's strike wings used its firepower in rocket attacks on enemy shipping. High-flying Mosquitoes of the RAF and USAAF undertook photographic reconnaissance, and a small number carried urgently needed supplies between Britain and Sweden for BOAC. In total, over seven thousand Mosquitoes were built in Britain, Australia and Canada, in forty-two distinct versions.
Afterlife
Military use continued well past 1945: the RAF kept Mosquito fighters until 1952 and its last bombers until the beginning of 1954, and converted target tugs stayed in service until 1963. Other air forces flew the type after the war, among them Belgium, France and Israel, and Canada sold 200 Mosquitoes to Nationalist China in 1947. The prototype, W4050, has pride of place at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire, while the Smithsonian's Mosquito is held in storage in Maryland. The type returned to the air in 2012, when the Canadian-built KA114 flew in New Zealand after a rebuild, the first Mosquito flight anywhere in the world since 1996. Further restorations followed, and a small number fly today.