Book Review: Mosquito by Rowland White
Having enjoyed several of White’s previous aviation stories, I was keen to read his latest, which centres on the De Havilland Mosquito – the precursor to today’s multi-role combat aircraft. But this book is about much more than simply the Mosquito’s genesis or combat history, telling instead the story of a daring, low-level raid on the Gestapo HQ in Copenhagen in the final months of World War II.
If you’re a fan of aviation history then you’ll be familiar with the Mosquito, but it’s worth briefly summarizing here. Built as a private venture by De Havilland, it relied on speed rather than armament for defence, helped by its all-wooden construction (a boon during wartime metal shortages) and two Merlin engines. It served as a bomber, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, VIP transport and more. One of its secret missions is referenced in the movie Oppenheimer, when Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, played by Kenneth Branagh, is smuggled out of Sweden in the bomb bay of a BOAC Mosquito.
Some of its most memorable actions involved early instances of what is now known as precision bombing – attacking with speed, at low level, against targets as small as a single building. Such missions are routine now but were a radical development in an era of high-level raids over wide areas by massed formations of UK and US bombers that sometimes missed their targets completely.
After a brief account of the plane’s development, Mosquito follows the parallel stories of the Special Operations Executive-supported underground resistance in Denmark – neutral during WWII but occupied by German forces from 1940 – and 2 Group’s Mosquito squadrons under the command of the charismatic Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry. The narrative jumps around as we repeatedly switch between the different threads. Mostly it hangs together, but there are times when it feels notably disjointed.
Mosquito began as a Covid project, relying more extensively on previously published accounts than on first-hand interviews than other White books such as the fantastic Vulcan 607 and Phoenix Squadron. It also tells a much wider story. While the author uses first-person quotes from those other accounts to lend immediacy to events in Mosquito, I still felt that the narrative was less coherent and compelling than I expected from a White book.
There’s no doubt, however, that it’s an astonishing story: navigating across the North Sea at wavetop height to avoid radar detection before locating and destroying a building in the centre of Copenhagen, then returning to the squadrons’ British bases, was a remarkable feat of planning, concentration and skill.
Mosquito
by Rowland White
Bantam, first edition 2023. ISBN 978 1 787634 53 4
Find it on eBay
If you’re a fan of aviation history then you’ll be familiar with the Mosquito, but it’s worth briefly summarizing here. Built as a private venture by De Havilland, it relied on speed rather than armament for defence, helped by its all-wooden construction (a boon during wartime metal shortages) and two Merlin engines. It served as a bomber, night fighter, reconnaissance aircraft, VIP transport and more. One of its secret missions is referenced in the movie Oppenheimer, when Danish physicist, Niels Bohr, played by Kenneth Branagh, is smuggled out of Sweden in the bomb bay of a BOAC Mosquito.
Some of its most memorable actions involved early instances of what is now known as precision bombing – attacking with speed, at low level, against targets as small as a single building. Such missions are routine now but were a radical development in an era of high-level raids over wide areas by massed formations of UK and US bombers that sometimes missed their targets completely.
After a brief account of the plane’s development, Mosquito follows the parallel stories of the Special Operations Executive-supported underground resistance in Denmark – neutral during WWII but occupied by German forces from 1940 – and 2 Group’s Mosquito squadrons under the command of the charismatic Air Vice Marshal Basil Embry. The narrative jumps around as we repeatedly switch between the different threads. Mostly it hangs together, but there are times when it feels notably disjointed.
Mosquito began as a Covid project, relying more extensively on previously published accounts than on first-hand interviews than other White books such as the fantastic Vulcan 607 and Phoenix Squadron. It also tells a much wider story. While the author uses first-person quotes from those other accounts to lend immediacy to events in Mosquito, I still felt that the narrative was less coherent and compelling than I expected from a White book.
There’s no doubt, however, that it’s an astonishing story: navigating across the North Sea at wavetop height to avoid radar detection before locating and destroying a building in the centre of Copenhagen, then returning to the squadrons’ British bases, was a remarkable feat of planning, concentration and skill.
Mosquito
by Rowland White
Bantam, first edition 2023. ISBN 978 1 787634 53 4
Find it on eBay