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

lose some time. We decided to orbit to lose 4 minutes. We got back on course and 10 minutes later started to climb again to 27,000ft. During this time we transferred fuel from 100 gallon drop tanks to the outer tanks. This was done automatically and a red light came on when the drop tanks were empty and you switched off the transfer switch. Slap bang over Heligoland six rocket shells rose up on the starboard beam about 2 miles away and we altered course slightly to the north and pressed on. At 18.05 the Yellow route marker went down dead ahead and fairly close. Good, that meant that we were pretty well leading the stream behind the markers. Gee was no longer available now and I worked feverishly to average a wind velocity to apply to courses ahead. We crossed the German coast 25 miles NW of Brunsbüttel. All cockpit lights were out now; both of us keeping our eyes skinned for flak and searchlights. It was very dark now and the low cloud had completely dispersed. The kite was going like a bomb. Wizard! Aha, there were the first searchlights, ahead and to starboard and there was flak too, 88mm stuff and rockets. You could see the rockets coming up as little red points of light moving very slowly at first. Then they suddenly sped up to your level and burst with an angry red flame. Not near us though. The searchlights were coning over to starboard. They were too far off to see if they’d got someone but it looked like it.
    At 18.14 we crossed the Kiel Canal and we were right in the searchlight belt. A master searchlight picked us up and three or four others swung over on to us immediately. The bright red lamp of the ‘Boozer’ came on, indicating that we were being tracked by radar-controlled flak. Ron stuck his head well down in the cockpit and did a corkscrew while I kept watch aft. Wow! Just as well we did, a burst of rockets came up just where we were a few seconds before. No sign of any fighters, touch wood. Hello, someone else was coned to starboard. It looked like a Mossie too. I’ll bet they were twitching like we were a moment ago. We’ve lost the searchlights now, or they lost us. We seemed to be getting past the worst of it and the time was 18.20. Ahead and a little to port went the green route-markers. We seemed to have lost a bit of ground doing avoiding action. We still had to get past Lübeck. At 18.25 the marker leader broadcast a ‘Zephyr’ message: “Wind 345°/90 knots”.
    Lübeck was comparatively quiet, thank the Lord. Just past there, on course, someone yelled, “Snappers” (enemy fighters spotted). Another colossal corkscrew and bags of rubbernecking, but we saw nothing. We resumed course and tried to get some LORAN to check position but there were no signals visible, only grass. We expected the red route marker any minute now. When it came I’d switch on the bombsight which must be done at least 15 minutes from the target so that it could warm up. The reds went. It was 18.40 and we’d just crossed over 10/10ths cloud below, which looked like going all the way to the ‘Big Town’. So much for the Met briefing but a bit of luck for us. I switched on the bombsight and got the Window ready to push out through the wooden Window chute down through the small hatch in the floor.
    Our ground speed on this leg was about 338 knots (about 390 mph). We began Windowing with 8 minutes to go. The chute was on the floor between your feet and you had to bend almost double to drop the bundles. You could hear a crackle on the R/T as they opened up in the slipstream. Back breaking job, this and it made you sweat like blazes. Just 5 minutes to go. We should see the first TI in a minute. Out went the last Window bundle. I stretched up and had a look out. We were still over 10/10ths cloud. Good. The first TI was slightly over to port. I dived into the bombing position. ‘Dive’ is a misnomer. With all the kit I had on it was more like a wrestling match! I switched on the sighting head and put the final wind