Intermission #7
Before World War 2, there was no concept of an Infiltrator as an independent weapons system, in fact what would eventually become the Infiltrator Class of Bombers started out as the main offensive weapon of Bomber Command for lack of any of the later heavy four-engined bombers.
Unlike most of the other branches of the British armed forces this at least made sure that Bomber Command had reasonably modern equipment, especially when compared to Fighter Command and the Army. The Backbone of the bomber force at the time was the Vickers Wellington Medium Bomber.
The Wellington had originated from an Operational Requirement that sprang up in the early 1930s for a twin-engined monoplane medium bomber supposed to be able to carry a bombload of 5000 pounds to a target 2500 miles away.
Designed at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R.K. Pierson, the Wellington utilized the geodesic structure that Barnes Wallis had developed for the abortive Wellesley Light Bomber. Powered by two Bristol Pegasus X radial engines, the first prototype was designated Type 271 and flew on 17th June 1935. Bomber Command was extatic, even when the bomb load turned out to be lower than specified, and ordered seven pre-series Wellington Mk.Is to be built as trial Aircraft and to possibly equip an OCU. By then the role of the twin-engined medium Strategic Bomber was already on the way out as the Short Stirling entered service in 1936 only to be quickly superseded by the Manchester and ultimately the Halifax and the Lancaster. Still, Bomber Command lacked planes and the developing global situation in America and later in Europe called for a Command that could deploy at least some aircraft almost everywhere at once, and so the Wellington was put into service to serve with the so-called 'Medium' Squadrons as they were known then. By the outbreak of war, 60 % of the RAF's land-attack bombing Squadrons were equipped with the Wellington, the rest was shared between the Manchester, the Halifax and a few lingering Stirlings that would eventually end up with the Army Air Corps and transport parachute troops, the Squadron including a recently stood up unit that was to be known as 'The Dambusters' in later years. In the opening weeks and months of the war the Wellington was never used for the Strategic Role for which it had been designed and instead embarked on what was going to become it's main occupation and that of an entire class of Aircraft during the war. During the initial stages of the Western Front, the Wellington Force was forced to operate behind enemy lines without enjoying the benefit of fighter cover and suffered accordingly. When however RAF France was diverting most of it's squadrons to supporting the Northern Pocket and later the siege of Brussels, the Westland Whirlwind had at last arrived at the front (after much delay and a switch of engines). The partnership between the Wellington and the Whirlwind was to be a fruitful one, even though the Whirlwind was never really able to compete with the German and Soviet Fighters that were used for the defence of enemy airspace in those early years.
It was during the dark years of 1940 and 1941 when units like No.617 Squadron and other first gained fame as they flew their Wellingtons against sometimes overwhelming odds and suffered the losses to show for it. However these missions proved to be having an influence, because they disrupted the enemy transportation systems and this helped the Army on the ground. It both the finest hour of the Wellington and also it's swansong in RAF service, because about that time the Bristol Buckingham, the designated successor entered service.
Having started development alongside of what would later become the Beaufighter that was to gain as much fame with Coastal Command as other models would with Bomber and later Strike Command. The Buckingham however was not a success. Even though it had initially won out against the Mosquito in the competition for the Wellington replacement. The Buckingham equipped only four Squadrons before production was stopped, because at that time the mission for the medium bombers had changed and as it turned out the shorter ranged but faster and much more combat capable de Havilland Mosquito. The reason for this switch was that the Buckingham was designed as a Bomber and a Bomber only, whereas the Mosquito was developed as a multi-role aircraft and even the night-fighter variant turned out to be very adept at doing the sort of things that Bomber Command demanded of it's medium squadrons.
After the fall of France Bomber Command began to send the medium Squadrons doing interdiction sweeps over the occupied low countries and France, and there the slower dedicated bomber versions suffered considerable losses, while the three Squadrons that had experimentally been equipped with retrofitted Night Fighter Mosquitoes took far less losses than was expected thanks to their speed and their endurance. The version then flown was a field retrofitted one, with the Night Fighting equipment removed and the fuel tank in the bomb bay switched for racks that could hold ordinance. After three months the success was such that Air Vice Marshal Harris requested that all production of the Buckingham be cancelled and the proposed bombing version of the Mosquito be built instead. When the Ministry of Defence refused on the grounds that this would divert materials and workforce from other planes, Harris and then-Squadron Leader Gibson pointed out that building the Mosquito would actually require less metal, and due to the wooden construction many of the components could actually be made in furniture and piano shops. While this wasn't actually done in practice, one Piano factory that still operates near the de Havilland Factory Complex outside Hatfield where the Super-VC10 is assembled has the Mosquito in it's emblem.[1]
The Mosquito flew in literally dozens of variants, and it was this aircraft that coined the term infiltrator.
When the bomber sweeps resumed in earnest in spring of 1941, all of the Medium Squadrons in the RAF and all Commonweath and Allied Air Forces in Europe were equipped with the Mosquito in one variant or another. To meet the demand, de Havilland sold a production licence to Avro Canada for the symbolic price of one Canadian Dollar and also began to create shadow factories in India and later Africa. While the Canadian produced Mosquitoes equipped the Canadian and some Expat American Squadrons in Europe, they mostly went to the Far East for the RAAF and RNZAF, later joined by the 1st Canadian Army and it's Air Component. This did however free up scarce and valuable production capability in the United Kingdom for use in Europe and increased the overall availability of the Aircraft. For the next several years the Mosquitoes flew with most of the Medium Squadrons, and the exploits of the aircraft are too many in number to list here, but two missions stand out.
First in December 1941 No.617 Squadron flew one last mission as a pure Mosquito unit with Operation Jericho, and bombed the Gestapo Headquarters in Amiens without little loss of civilian life and at the same time prevented the Germans from smashing several resistance cells.
Photograph taken from Wing Commander Gibson's Aircraft
Of the twelve planes taking part only two were lost.
A second major mission was carried out in 1943 some months after the Infiltrator Squadrons had been split off from Bomber Command and formed into RAF Strike Command[2] with it's Headquarters in Ellesmere Port[3] in Cheshire. It was a deliberately chosen attack and again it was Guy Gibson who who conceived the mission in his duty as Group Captain of the Special Duties Wing of the Royal Air Force. As part of the general day offensive against German industry launched from bases in southern Italy, several Squadrons would raid Nuremberg. That in itself was nothing special, Bomber and Strike Commands had visited the various airfields and military installations around the city before, the important bit was the date. On 30th January 1943, during the parade celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Hitler being made Chancellor, the Air-raid sirens began to sound. Hitler and Stalin were standing on a platform near the Brandenburg gate and had to watch as 96 Mosquitoes bombed, rocketed and strafed the parade on the Nuremberg Party Rally Grounds, twice buzzed past the platform, wiggled the wings and then proceeded to attack the almost finished Congress hall.
Nazi Germany did not appreciate the gift sent to it by the Royal Air Force, but there was little that could be done. Strike Command was not the only force that flew the aircraft. It also served with Coastal Command, supplementing the torpedo armed Beaufighters on all fronts, Mosquitoes of No. 255 Squadron RAAF were also the first units to operationally deploy the 'Bouncing Annie' glide bomb in operational use against Japanese shipping in the gulf of Tonkin.
The Mosquito was also very successful as an escort Fighter, but the most important use remained as an Infiltrator. With the constant increase in engine power it became ever faster, and served in various marques throughout the war. Another major variant was the Close Air Support role.
As the war dragged on, it became increasingly clear that the Spitfire alone would never make a proper CAS aircraft. It was too limited by range, and the fact that most of it's coolant systems were located on the lower wing made it more vulnerable in this role than other aircraft. To facilitate this new role, the Mosquito was adapted by decreasing the bomb bay in order to allow the armour to be fitted to better protect the crew from ground fire and to allow an increase in fuel capacity, the nose was redesigned to eight 20mm cannons, deleting the .303 machine guns; experiments with fitting a full-size 6pdr and later even a 32pdr[4] gun were scrapped after it turned out that the guns were very susceptible to jamming and that especially with the 32pdr the amount of ammunition to be carried and the restrictions on the number of runs an aircraft could do during one sortie simply did not warrant the additional destructive power. Instead it was decided to focus on the development of Rocket projectiles, and by mid 1943 the Mosquitoes fired the PR.43/2.36 Rocket projectile that had been developed from the one fired by the PIAT, with increased speed and a different shaped charge warhead to increase penetration.
These aircraft would prove to be decisive in and around the battles that would be fought in Eastern Europe in 1945 and would claim many German and Soviet Tanks, and by the time the time it was being replaced, most of the British Mosquito Squadrons that served in Europe were equipped with this variant.
Canadian-made Mosquito Mk.XXb
Development for a replacement of the Mosquito began in 1942, tentatively dubbed the Hornet, taking advantage of all the advances in aerodynamics and other aviation technologies since the Mosquito had been designed. Again powered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin Engines, the aircraft used laminar flow wings similar to that the Hawker Tempest would use, but an arrangement where the control surfaces would use the same principles.
It soon became clear that the new aircraft would never have the same internal space for bombs as even the latest mossie variants, and so it was developed as a fighter and the Mosquito soldiered on for the remainder 1945. De Havilland meanwhile began to work on what would become the Vampire, which was submitted to the Ministry of Defence only hours after they issued a specification for a Meteor replacement in 1945.
After being reworked to suit E.16/45, the Vampire was submitted again, reworked as the super-Vampire, with a widened fuselage to accommodate a second crewmember and a more powerful version of the RR Nene engine. While it could carry less of a bombload than the Mosquito (lacking an internal bomb bay) CAS and Infiltration doctrine of the day was 'crack and burn' anyway, meaning that first bomb-armed aircraft would 'crack open' a target while then Napalm armed ones would rain fire on whatever remained.[5]
It entered service in 1946, but wouldn't serve in this roll for very long. By 1948 already a replacement programme was underway which is hardly surprising given how fast aviation technology advanced in those years.
De Havilland was not ready to submit a proposal even though a swept-wing variant of the Vampire was being worked on which would regrettably never be built. In a last attempt to get a foot back into the market, it submitted a hasty proposal which was however dropped early on in favour of the only other submitted aircraft: The English Electric Canberra. First flying in October 1948, the plane was developed with all the lessons of the war in mind and in accordance with the direction into which it was thought the class of Infiltrator Aircraft would develop.
Taking a leaf from the first Mosquito proposal the aircraft relied on speed for it's defence, being unarmed beyond the ordinance it carried, and it did have the speed. What it also had in spite of it's designated role was the ability to fly high, though that ability would initially go to waste. First flying in 1949 and entering service in September 1950, almost a year after it's first flight. This was due to several modifications that had needed to be made to the first prototype. For one wing-tip fuel tanks were added, and the aircraft adapted to the training and reconnaissance variants. The Bomber variant initially was also fitted with a glazed nose cockpit for the bomb aimer in lieu of the sophisticated aiming RDF set (a variant of the H2S System from the war) that was not yet ready for production. Thus known as the Canberry Mk.IIb/Mk.IIr/Mk.IIt the aircraft entered mass production in plants in the United Kingdom, India, Australia and Canada, later joined by several plants in Kenya. When the RDF system
did arrive in 1951, production was immediately switched over and the existing 'planes retrofitted to the new Mk.III standard, with variants of the set also equipping the V-Bomber Force up until the late 1970s.[6]
When production of the Canberra ceased in 1959, 2104 were built for users in nine different countries, if which three still have variants in service. The RAF and RAAF are flying the Mk.IXr reconnaissance variant with three Squadrons between them and the Peruvian Air Force still has six Mk.VIIIb on it's lists. The reconnaissance variant of the Mk.IX makes it the longest-serving military aircraft in the world, and only the American U-2 comes close in service ceiling and quality of pictures taken. It is expected that the Canberra will serve until 2015 when the replacement de Havilland Auckland next generation reconnaissance aircraft with similar performance statistics enters service.[7]
Royal Air Force Canberra Mk.VIIb in 1971
RAF Mk.IXr/7 of No.39 (1PRU) in 2007
The Canberra served well, but was by the mid 1960s seen as increasingly vulnerable low down to light anti-aircraft fire and anti-aircraft missiles.
Again English Elesctric came to the rescue. What was unveiled in 1967 was not a particularly revolutionary aircraft as far as the basic design was concerned, but it was described as 'an extraordinary thing of beauty' by former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Strangely painted in anti-flash white in lieu of acceptance by the RAF, the Mosquito II was initially known by the name of the Operational Requirement that had spawned it: 'Tactical Strike Reconnaissance 2'.[8]
The first TSR2 prototype at Duxford Aviation Museum. Note the Tornado Mk.II on the left and the Comet 3 in the background.
However fincancial woes had long since troubled the company. At first it had not received many large-scale contracts since the Canberra and had then financially overburdened itself with the development of the admittedly awesome Lightning Interceptor, which had led to the company being bought out by Supermarine in 1962, which was nothing special in those days and English Electric continued to operate normally. However the TSR2 project ran into cost overruns as bad as those on the Lightning, and by 1967 Supermarine stepped in and was about to withdraw from the competition which would have left the RAF without a second generation Infiltrator.
That many in the establishment and most importantly Lord Mountbatten favoured the Blackburn Buccaneer over TSR2 anyway was not helping matters. Opponents of TSR2 argued that since the Buccaneer was already in service with the Fleet Air Arm since 1959 and had proven itself to be a versatile and capable aircraft, why shouldn't the RAF use the same, never mind that it would also ensure commonality between the services in terms of spare parts and doctrine. So by 1966 the fate of TSR2 still hang in the air and an increasingly desperate company tried to find the money to keep the project alive, and shortly after Christmas 1967 several Gentlmen from Woolston knocked at the doors of English Electric's London Corporate headquarters and said that Supermarine was unwilling to keep the project afloat any longer since at the time Supermarine itself was in trouble, and for similar reasons, the Swift alone proved to be too little to really pay for it all. This was later remedied by various export deals for the Swift and the Lightning, but at the time there was a genuine fear that Supermarine might go under if costs were not reduced, and TSR2 was the most obvious candidate, even more so when the Buccaneer replaced the Canberra in the Close Air Support role earlier that same year.
English Electric was unwilling to give up on the project and was desperately looking for a way to keep the aircraft alive.
As it turned out de Havilland was at the time trying to reestablish itself on the market with which the company had had so much success during the war and in a secret backroom deal TSR2 was transferred to them. The resulting scandal would have almost killed the project on its own with allegations of bribery and various insider deals, but in the end nothing came of these as the few arrests that were made completely drowned in the much larger BOAC scandal that would rag on for five more years and eventually lead to the merger with BEA anyway.
The political side of the TSR2 affair would eventually resolve itself when Lord Mountbatten narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by the German Red Army Faction in 1970 and retired from public life afterwards. As it turned out the RAF itself preferred the supersonic TSR2 over the subsonic Buccaneer for the infiltrator role, and in a typical tactic of budget preservation and one upmanship with the Ministry of Defence and the Admiralty it was decided to buy TSR2 in the Infiltrator/Tactical Recce role, the service using the fact that an RAF Officer was CIGS for the first time during this period, where it entered service as the Mosquito II in 1971.
It may seem strange to think of why the RAF was allowed to purchase two different and highly expensive aircraft for a number of roles that each of them could have carried out on it's own, but it must be remembered that at the time all the military services and branches were recovering from the so-called Bomber Age, where it had been thought that Nuclear Armed bombers were the way forward and would be the only really decisive weapon in a future war, leaving everyone outside Fighter and Bomber Commands scrambling for the remaining crumbs of a drastically reduced budget. When this ended in the late 1960s and early 70sand the budget was increased together with the growing economy, everyone bought whatever systems they could, for the politicians were sure to slash the budget again as soon as there was a hiccup in The City, something evidenced by the Vanguard Attack Submarine and Chieftain Tank programmes for the Royal Navy and the British Army.
TSR2 entered service in 1971 with a resurrected No.619 Squadron and has since been developed into eight Marques, sold to five non-British Air Forces and can still be found in service all over the world.
British Mosquito II during filming for Series 4 the BBC Show 'The Last War' in 2009, portraying itself during a conventional World War Three.[9]
“From the Wellington to the Mosquito II – The Infiltrator in the Royal Air Force” - Jane's Information Group, 2010
[1] As stated a few times, Vickers eventually gave up on Aircraft and sold it's aviation Division, with the bomber/passenger/transport production going to de Havilland and Fighter Production to Supermarine.
[2] They will never get their grubby hands on Fighter Command!
[3] Chosen because it's the twin city of my hometown.
[4] True!
[5] Trust me, when we get to the to the end of the war you'll understand why.
[6] This of course deprives us of the excellent optical system that the Aussies used to such good effect in Vietnam, but you can't have everything. Besides, the variants fitted and retrofitted into the aircraft over the years got more and more accurate anyway.
[7] The RAF is keeping two Squadrons of nine apiece in service, using several more as an addition for a still formidable stockpile of spare parts. ITTL the RAF can't rely on the Cavalry riding from the west over the ocean and since it's a global force at least as much as the OTL USAF, it's a matter of policy to have stockpiles of spare parts for aircraft that are out of production. To imagine the Auckland, think of a cross between the U-2 and an oversized, manned predator drone.
[8] I absolutely adore this plane. Its IMO the best looking post-war aircraft this side of the Vulcan.
[9] Given how incredibly detailed, indepth and awesome TLW is you'd need a multi-series TV show to really do it justice.