Mosquito: Menacing the Reich: Combat Action in the Twin-engine Wooden Wonder of World War II by Martin Bowman

bursting all around them, at least 2,000ft above and below. I was about 2 miles north of this aircraft and he flew straight through it all. It was an unforgettable sight. Otherwise we had a comfortable run to the Big City. Over Berlin all was quiet as the target indicators, reds and green, went down. A warning was issued that fighters were in the area but none were seen. Bill reported contrails 2-3,000ft above. We put our ‘Cookie’ down on schedule, took the photo and had a relatively quiet flight back to England. We were coned by many searchlights over the Woodbridge area (must have been an army exercise), landing at Wyton from an operation of 5 hours airborne.
    One of the 692 Squadron crews who were laid on, unexpectedly, for the operation to the ‘Big City’was Pilot Officer Ron H.M ‘Percy’Vere and his navigator, Flight Lieutenant (later Squadron Leader) John F.P. Archbold, who remembers that:
    The crew conference was at midday and navigation briefing at 13.15 so there was just time for a meal before getting ready. Our aircraft was K-King (MM224), Burbidge and Ramage’s kite. Rumour had it that everyone who flew K-King except those two had something happen to them. We hoped that we were the exception! After the meal I went down to the billet to put on my old blue sweater, cheque scarf and flying boots and then biked to the crew room for briefing. Phil Earnshaw was doing the nav. briefing and a hell of a route it was too! Tonight’s op was a maximum effort with twelve kites on the Battle Order. There was something else in the air too. Wadsworth, Burbidge, Crow, Nairn and two others hung about as if waiting for a briefing after we came out. Ron had been out to the kite to ground run it and put in the kit. I didn’t have the time.
    The route out was via Cromer, over the North Sea, with a turn towards Heligoland, then north of Lübeck before turning SE to Berlin. The return route was south of Magdeburg, through the gap between Osnabrück and Münster before turning west for the English Coast. This was a route I did not like. We were going in north of Hamburg and the gunners there were pretty hot. They got bags of practice anyway so I hoped it was 10/10ths there. We plotted tracks, working out courses and times and recording them in the log, sorting out maps and charts. Then, after about three quarters of an hour we checked our work against the Master Log for any errors (on either side) and then sat back and waited for the main briefing to begin.
    In came the Met man. He started drawing in his cloudscapes on his briefing board. It didn’t look too good to me: 8/10ths Stratocumulus over the sea, clearing over the Third Reich. It looked as if we could be shot at! The drivers airframe [pilots] drifted in and sat down with their navs and the CO, Wing Commander ‘Joe’ Northrop DSO DFC AFC followed them. We got on with the main briefing. It was 14.15. First, Flying Control, Squadron Leader ‘Lemnos’ Hemming, a pioneer in photographic reconnaissance in 1940 with Sidney Cotton. We knew him as ‘Popeye’ because he wore an eyepatch. He told us the runway would be the long one; no obstructions. There were no other comments. Then Met gave his story. “Target will be clear; no cloud from the time you cross the coast in till you come out again. Base would be clear for the return. Forecast winds are up in the seventies and eighties.” My guess was that they may well be a little stronger than he told us. Now Intelligence: “Usual place chaps; you’ve all been there before, so I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. Target height, 17,000ft.” The CO, in his slow methodical way told us the tactics and the type of the TIs to be dropped. We were to bomb the highest concentration of Red TIs, or failing that, the highest concentration of Greens, or on good DR. Finally the CO detailed take-off times for each aircraft. Ours was
    16.08 and the full number of aircraft would set course at 16.17.
    Well, it all