Mosquito with Roland White

On Wednesday 21st March 1945, the RAF’s 140 Wing of De Havilland Mosquito FB.VI fighter bombers, with an escort of Mustangs, attacked the Shellhus in Copenhagen, Denmark. The Shellhus was the HQ for the Gestapo in Denmark, and most of the Danish Resistance’s top men were within its walls. The low-level attack would be the last in a series flown by the men of 140 Wing that feature in Rowland White’s latest book, Mosquito. There is more to the tale than the aircraft and the men and women of the Danish Resistance are as remarkable as the aircraft that flew down Copenhagen’s streets that chilly March morning.

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but once in the air uh it could do things that no other airplane could do and I think the point I make in the book and interesting comparison with Spitfire is that I don’t think that there’s any other airplane in history that has managed to fulfill successfully uh all four roles that uh air power Doctrine suggests an Air Force needs to carry out welcome to the damaster brought to you in association with the Puma air and space museum I’m your host Matt B in March 1945 the RFS 140 wing of two group of the second Tactical Air Force flew an audacious raid into the horest of Copenhagen they flew at wave toop level all the way across the North Sea and then down into Copenhagen itself where they attacked the Shell House which was the headquarters of the Gestapo now 40 wi had form they’ done this thing before but this particular raid is one of interest for today as we are joined by Roland white who’s the author of mosquito the arf’s legendary Wen wonder and its most extraordinary Mission and it really is an extraordinary story throughout the book we look at what’s going on in Denmark along with the incredible men of 140 Wing led by the Mercurial basil Embry who we will talk about probably not as much as we should but he’s a massive Rabbit Hole Roland very generously gave me some of his time so if you’re watching this on day of release the book is out today especially here in the UK links in the description below to grab it do all the likes and subscribes all that good stuff but we have to start with the elephant in the room because if I go over here to the Bookshelf and I grab his last book which is Harrier 809 right at the back there’s a teaser in it for what should have been the next book so we have to start by asking Roland why didn’t we get the tornado book Let’s Get starting because the the opening question is the one I asked you when we were at Paul’s thing because I have of course perer 89 which is fantastic and at the end of it you have a fantastic tease for 6 617 Squadron in the Gulf that didn’t happen so what was the story behind that I think I know the answer it’s the but why didn’t why didn’t we get the 617 book uh a book I was really excited about writing I I talked to my publisher uh about writing a Trilogy of books that took us from uh I suppose the late late 70s through to um around 2000 and the idea was that uh Harrier 809 would be the first and would start with Simon Harries intercepting the first uh Argentinian aircraft that that that encountered the the task force 1982 uh uh would skip through um tornado um in the mid 80s seen a l largely through the prism of 617 squadrons involvement in the 1984 giant voice Strategic Air Command bombing competition which uh they were not expected to do well in at least by the Pentagon but ended up winning and in doing so established some of the uh expertise in medium level bombing that would then be required um in Gulf War I uh when uh decision bombing capability was introduced interestingly by um uh Bob Iverson as boss of 617 Squadron who had been shot down flying a Harrier in the forlands and then the the the trilogy was going to finish with a book that looked at Britain’s relationship with stealth um ending with the selection of the x35 over the X32 in the um famous Joint Strike Fighter xplain competition through the prism of of the RAF pilots who flew the F-117 Stealth fighter on Exchange but ending with a an epilogue uh that featured Simon Harries who you’ll remember was going to feature in the prologue of the first book or did feature in the prologue of the first book flying the first uh X mission in which uh he took off normally uh or short takeoff uh refueling supersonic flight and then landed vertically in the same sorty thus proving the capability of the the um x35 and I’d got about twoth thirds of the way through all the interviews for the second book The 617 Squadron book um and then coid hit and suddenly all of those uh road trips that I was planned planning over the summer to go and do the last few interviews with the people uh involved in that that 1984 bombing competition kind of went up in smoke and you know all of us were uh wondering uh you know how we would fill the time that uh we we had been given through no no longer commuting um uh how we were going to reorganize Our Lives as a result of the restrictions that were imposed on us and and I thought well I I need to try and find a subject to replace the 617 Squadron book which I can’t pursue in the way that I’d wanted to um with something I can and it struck me that doing a second world war story uh where I would be relying on um archives and uh um previously written accounts that all of the participants were were already deceased um was the way forward and I’d always loved the um mosquito and I’d always been aware of those uh 140 Wing raids um am on prison um orus in uh in Jutland and then obviously perhaps the most substantial one of them the raid on the Gustavo HQ in in Copenhagen and um thought right uh let’s take a dive into second world war which I’d never done before I’d always sort of almost deliberately sted clear of it because I felt there were people like James Holland and Ben McIntyre and and and John nickel doing it really really well um whereas I sort of found my own Cold War Niche so that’s that’s how it came about yeah still want that tornado books it sound yeah yeah yeah I mean I do I do too it’s it’s trying to establish lost momentum is tough but the that tornado book and just to tempt you further because I mean I really am interested in it the it in in that story you also have the Australian f-111s uh who competed in the same competition you’ve also got f-111s from lak Heath um in norfor suffk rather um competing um in the same competition um and you know I mean I spoke to some of the Australian Crews involved the um one of The Navigators um had been uh was the Navigator aboard the camra that dropped the last Australian bomb um in Vietnam so you’ve got all sorts of threads that that can come into that story and um yeah I mean it’s got a lot going for it with you know without a doubt and you know that so anyway I’ve got to I’ve got to make a decision about what’s next that is in the frame but um I may have caught the second world war bug as well it it it bites hard that one doesn’t it yeah yeah well let let’s get into it really because I thoroughly enjoyed it and thank you so much for sending over a copy nice and early because I I devoured it it was I have to admit didn’t devour it as quickly as harer 809 I I I think that’s because it’s um about 40% longer har9 I think um Harry Harry 809 is in lots of ways a more uh obviously I mean this is the beauty of the Faulkland War it it was six weeks long you know any story about the Faulkland War uh is it’s by definition self-contained and you can feed different threads into it whereas um you know the story in um uh in Copenhagen in in mosquito uh depends on you understanding the things that came first and unless you have uh unless you have become engaged with uh involved with and invested in the things that led to that raid and that is the career of the mosquito um the the people who led uh the the the wing that um carried out the raid but also uh of the lives and the efforts of the people on the ground in Denmark who um begged for it um it doesn’t carry the the the sort of substance and resonance that you know any God story needs you need to care about um everybody involved and for that you have to go back two years so I’m not talking about six weeks I’m talking about two years and so really the beginning of 19 1943 is where where the Story begins the thing that I really enjoyed about mosquito is actually less the mosquito bits it was that whole the whole section the research you did into the Danish resistance because Denmark has in the sort of popular readings of things you know we we hear about what’s going on in Holland and and um uh France mainly because of you know Market gard and Overlord but Denmark was that sort of strange place cuz the the when the Nazis invaded Annex in April 1940 they called it a model protectorate cuz they were trying to do something different with Denmark what what was that because that really creates a lot of tension within the various groups within Denmark yeah I mean um you know Hitler the Nazis really had no designs on Denmark at all they were probably happy enough for would have been happy enough for it to remain neutral except that in order to seize Norway which was a country that they uh really did want to to take control of because of um you know Iron oil supplies and the rest of it um they needed Denmark as a stepping stone so Denmark was really just a casualty of geography uh it was on the way to to Norway and Denmark uh um had no the armed forces were utterly incapable of resisting any kind of um Nazi attack and unlike Norway there wasn’t the space or the geography to uh to to to get the government and the and the King uh uh away from the country um before the Germans were there they came into Copenhagen they came up north uh through sches Holstein exactly the same time and the decision was taken that uh in order to save lives um uh they they had to go along with the German demand that they that they would uh remain you know independent under German control and Germany would protect their neutrality so uh they remained for the for for certainly um three years uh Denmark was in this sort of weird super position between occupation and Independence neutrality and and being part of the axis in which they had an elected government and the King remained uh in Copenhagen and so uh they were from a legal point of view um an access power um so unlike you mentioned the Netherlands and France and others unlike the Netherlands Belgium France uh Poland there was no possibility of uh of um free Dan simply joining and setting up uh units of their own under the the the Allied command you know Denmark had the it had a unique position and and the Germans hoped that through uh a light touch they would be able to sort of demonstrate the world that to the world that actually you know being uh under the protectorate of the right was not necessarily the worst thing in the world so they had an interest in Denmark being happy stable wellfed comfortable and all all the rest of it you start introducing the most fabulous cast of characters in in demo we’re going to get to the RF guys and I’m purposely putting basil emry as far back as we could CU that’s a we can disappear down for a while but the the thing that I found really interesting is is you’ve got the tensions within Denmark from those who were trying not to cause trouble and those who wanted to resist you have that tension then in London as well you’ve got a bit of a turf war between MI6 and S soe as well over Denmark for you writing it and you you you explain it beautifully how do you sort of unpick all those tensions so that you can you can you can make it make sense because I I can see when you were probably reading the files you were just sort of pulling your hair out at times I mean it was um it was the thing I think which concerned me most I mean there is more undoubtedly there’s more uh that happens on the ground in this story than in in in the other books and I in the end was there was a gift in the for me in the shape of um a gathering of two families um in Denmark in the summer of 1939 um that seemed to me to off offer a a through line um which at the same time as introducing them at the beginning um carried me through to the end through which I could explore all sorts of other directions and keep connecting it to the center um and I you know it it was one of those sort of Eureka moments and occasionally as you’re doing your your research you you come across them and so it was two families the lassens and the witch felds got together in the summer of uh of 1939 before uh War had broken out but undoubtedly you know storm Crow clouds were um forming over Europe there were Ang or or the um the lassens were a Danish um German family and the witch felds were um an Anglo Danish family um and um on the the witch Feld side uh Monica um there sort of matriarch uh was a an Irish Aristocrat who in search you know thought Ireland was boring as a teenager growing up despite having helped work as a Gunrunner for her father it was sort of you know the the Rural Life in Ireland was too small for her um married a a a Danish Aristocrat who live who worked at the embassy um uh and moved to Denmark where she became the sort of U the head of of his estate there her great friend was Suzanne Lassen um and she was a children’s book illustrator um their kids are interesting too Monica witch Feld had three um uh daughter Inky and two boys uh Suzanne Lassen um had a couple of boys and uh also there that summer was their cousin um so uh Inky witfi uh went on she was 19 years old she went on to marry the head of the soe um in uh in Denmark um after becoming his secretary Monica ran the resistance on an island called laand and went on to become the first Danish woman sentenced to death by the Nazis um and a sort of rallying point for the resistance as a result um Anders lasson suzan’s oldest son became the only member of the SAS during the second world war to win the VC and he’s an extraordinary character his story alone is a podcast uh ander’s brother France uh also managed to escape from Denmark uh and he joined soe as an agent and was parachuted back into um to Copenhagen as an explosives instructor um and then their cousin Axel vanen um was a member of an elite Prussian unit who uh disgusted appalled by uh witnessing the uh the the killing of Jews by the SS in Ukraine um realized he could no longer serve the regime that uh he he he he he was um he should have been loyal to um and made his way to the German resistance and to Claus Von staffenberg um and he became the first person uh tasked with uh assassinating Hitler and um we can talk about that later obviously it it didn’t happen but it was it was a whisker it was a well planned very very elegantly thought out um operation which uh faltered right at I mean within days of taking place uh at the hand of mosquitoes um ironically enough but through those um through Monica and her daughters San and her sons uh as able to to to find a way of linking a lot of that stuff that happened on the ground in Denmark in a way that that that felt as if it was a a a really compelling story that that belonged together I think he succeeded I thank you thank you it was fun I mean it’s a lot of lot of fun I mean you can imagine as a you know righty you kind of get that you think this is just gold what you know this is just fantastic because it that you we we won’t we won’t spoil it too much dear listener but you know flam is most the um Ralph Hollingsworth is well running running the show back in London as well that they’re just wonderful characters and you know you get into things about expenses and stuff which normally would be a bit dry but you think they yeah they could expenses this we don’t want to sell this book on the strength of expenses M but mentioned that no but I I thought it was great you know here here here we are we’re all probably about to get shot tomorrow so yeah let’s let’s use the K to the best you’re you’re talking about um Fleming moose who uh as I mentioned iny Inky W witfi married and and Fleming moose uh was uh I mean he he was quite a character he was exiled to West Africa uh for he was part of a you know very wealthy family in Denmark exiled to West Africa for forging a a check uh on the company account um and then he became a sort of um got a sort of Kurt type character in West Africa where he essentially had um you in in complete autonomy uh over a region uh trading region uh but when war broke out um as many of the expats did he kind of felt more strongly about uh the idea that that that Germany should the Germany’s occupation of Denmark should not stand than many of the people who are in Denmark and he made his way by Dugout canoe by torpedoed freighter um and ultimately uh British Destroyer all the way back to Liverpool um where he joined s soe was trained as a parachute agent um and then parachuted back into um into Denmark uh to take control of s soe in in in January n in January 1943 and and up and then up until then between 1940 and 1943 the uh Special Operations executive effort in Denmark um led by Ralph hollingworth who is a royal Navy Reserve officer who uh had been in Denmark on the day of the invasion had had it been bedeviled by bad luck um but with moose it suddenly kind of caught a wave he was incred for for all uh his flaws he was incredibly energetic he was a doer um and he made all the sort of necessary connections to um accelerate the work of s soe in Denmark and and really make sure that that those who were inclined to uh fight the Germans had the equipment and the organization and support from Britain that they needed to do that it it’s a fantastic cast of individualists isn’t it who who sort of band together because because when we start looking at the other side as we said we’re going to get on to bad Andre as well but we’ve got the mosquito itself which is the most amazing individualist aircraft you could you could think of and and despite my love for a certain Hawker aircraft which I’m sure we get mentioned in a minute I I think and I said this on the the old history rage thing I think it’s the mosquito that should get the Adoration of Spitfire does because yeah people people think the Spitfire did everything the mosquito literally did I I I I guess because it’s this sort of central character as much as the people that fly them and and the Danes as well to you what makes the Mozzy so special I mean it’s a sort of well-worn cliche isn’t it that if it looks right it flies right um and uh you know you can think of lots of examples of where that’s not the case but if if there were an example of an airplane that absolutely uh embodies that notion it’s it’s the mosquito I mean when Jeffrey davand uh the uh the the The Man Behind the de havland um Aircraft Company first sort he said it seems to be made mostly of engines and propellers and it does have that sort of incredibly sort of aggressive powerful uh front footed feel to it even on the ground it’s all kind of uh Power and potential and in in the air it um it that was no less true uh you know when when it was first demonstrated to Hap Arnold the uh US Army General who ran the Army airt um in Spring of 1941 he saw he saw a number of planes that year um but that was the the mosquito was the airplane that he uh reckoned was outand standing and insisted on taking a full set of plans back with him but it because Jeffrey davin’s son also confusingly called Jeffrey uh had performed a display for him which ended in a sort of spiraling vertical climb above the Airfield um which I’m sure was impressive enough uh and uh and then repeated the whole display with one engine feathered um so it’s the first time uh didn’t impress you the second time really was going to impress you um but you know every pilot who flew the mosquito had sort of similarly uh um similar fondness for it it it absolutely tugged to the left on um on takeoff because it had two propellers that were powerfully spinning in the same direction um but once in the air uh it could do things that no other airplane could do and I think the point I make in the book and interesting comparison with Spitfire is that I don’t think that there’s any other airplane in history that has managed to fulfill success F uh all four roles that uh air power Doctrine suggests an Air Force needs to carry out so obviously fighter air defense is kind of straightforward enough so so the mosquito was uh the most effective night fighter of the second world war and and um uh racked up a huge tally of kills uh in that capacity it was designed as a fast bomber and it excelled in that that role could carry um to Berlin in a bomb load um that was as substantial as the early models of the um the B17 Flying Fortress but it did it with a crew of two instead of 10 and it could do it twice in a night because it was so fast uh rather than once um the third role uh is um intelligence reconnaissance surveillance uh and and the mosquito was the preeminent um reconnaissance airplane Second World War uh responsible for crisscrossing Europe and bringing back vitally important fot GRS like those that told us where the Germans were developing the V1 and V2 missiles and then lastly this is perhaps most surprisingly of all um uh is mobility and Air transport and here the mosquito was s of pressed into service for British aircraft British overseas Airways Corporation um the precursor to British Airways to fly the bull bearing route what was known as The Bull bearing route between RF Lucas and Stockholm in Sweden Stockholm supplied the best bull bearings in the world they were required for well every single Arrow Engine that we made so every Merlin that went into a Lancaster Spitfire hurricane uh mosquito Halifax you know the rest of it required bull bearings um so the the you had to run the gaunlet of the German air defenses in Northern Denmark and Southern Norway between Scotland and and and Stockholm to do that um the dc-3s were h LLY vulnerable as a a couple that was shot down by the couple of Swedish um uh dc-3s that were shot down by the Germans demonstrated um but um the mosquito had a chance of getting through and so 12 mosquitoes that were on that were on the Civil register for boac flown by civilian Crews flew to and from Denmark but as well as bull bearings and diplomatic baggage they also carried passengers um they could carry in a felt line Bombay uh with a oxygen mask um sandwich and a flask of coffee a single passenger and a remarkable number of people they they brought back um uh pilots and uh Navigators air crew been shot down and occupied Europe and made their way to Sweden uh but they also BR brought back most notably perhaps Neil Spore who was the after Einstein perhaps most second famous scientist um in the world nuclear physicist eventually persuaded when the Germans moved against the Jewish population in Denmark to leave um he was flown back from Sweden to Scotland in the belly of a mosquito in a flight which because he had such a large head nearly killed him he genuinely couldn’t get this the um oxygen mask to fit and so he he lost Consciousness um at altitude and sort of dropped out of the Bombay when they arrived in Scotland and the crew who been concerned about his silence throughout the flight thought they might have killed him but happily he was revived and none the worse for his experience but you know there were many many I mean they also used to carry people to Sweden to carry out um cultural visits um for the British Council like know composer and conductor Malcolm Sergeant was flown out to Stockholm to to do music uh and and sadly it wasn’t in a in a mosquito was actually in one of the other airplanes which prior to the mosquito bacu um TS Elliot was flown to uh to Stockholm for the same reason to conduct s cultural tour the Ambassador wasn’t sure uh what kind of books to leave in um in TS Elliot’s room until he discovered that he was a great lover of crime fiction so he just put crime books in there and but Elliot came back to the Embassy after a poetry reading covered in lipstick kisses because he’d been sort of mobbed by Swedish fans uh I just I mean sadly it didn’t go in the belly of a mosquito but um that that whole fairy route is just the most yeah in in you look at it now you think that that’s nuts you know I guess if you’ve never heard of Neils board but you went to see Oppenheimer that’s the Kenneth yeah that’s right he mention a British pman the Bombay because you know in talking about uh the the the four roles I I haven’t even mentioned that this thing was made out of would and and that was the thing that annoyed guring the head of the luwa kind of almost more than anything he he said when when his big day on the he was supposed to be making a speech on the 10th anniversary of the Nazis accession to power when his big day was ruined by a very very well-timed uh mosquito bombing run 11:00 a.m. over Berlin um he sort of ranted that he was green and yellow with Envy about these machines that the British who could afford out aluminium better than the Germans could make in any piano Factory all around the country um and I mean on another occasion said to them you know look forget all your efforts this was to the head of his um you know the technical heads of all the German aircraft companies forget it let’s us make the this this amazingly primitive aircraft he said you know dripping with sarcasm um let’s just make let’s make mosquitoes we’d be better off just making mosquitoes um and you know really really wound him up because the berliners would say you know what and this is quoted this is from Adolf gallen’s book uh the fighter race charged with trying to protect Germany he said um the berliners would say you know what is it you know the fat one can’t even protect us from a few little mosquitoes um and they you know they they never came up with s of jet 262 a machine that could reliably um intercept the mosquitoes see col and bell for for more on that we’re going to take a quick break so that we can get the latest from the Pima Air and Space Museum with head of collections Andrew Bley here we’re at the Puma a and space museum with our Douglas a20 G Havoc um the a20 Havoc was an attack aircraft light bomber of World War II um originally built and designed with a glass nose with a Bomer um in the Pacific Theater like b2s papy gun came up with this idea of Manning these aircraft with solid noses and a bunch of machine guns for doing strafing attacks on Japanese airfields and attacking Japanese shipping um this aircraft is an actual combat veteran it flew with the 89th bomb Squadron in New Guinea uh on a mission uh I think bombing wewak it was damaged and made an emergency landing in a swamp in New Guinea the crew was recovered in the aircraft sat there pretty much forever until it was found in the 80s and in the early ’90s it was recovered by the Royal Australian Air Force this a20 with another one that they had um they restored the one Helen Pelican which was another combat veteran from the Pacific um they Ed a lot of the parts from this aircraft for that aircraft then actually went to a civilian owner and then we ended up buying from that civilian owner and finished up the restoration put it on display here it’s Unique it’s Unique aircraft in the fact there’s only about four if I recall a20 havocs anywhere on display in the world um with one in a private collection one at the Air Force Museum one here and one in a private collection in Russia but uh I’d say it’s always been one of my favorite aircraft I think just because of the you know lack of them as survivors and also just seeing a lot of those cool photos from World War II where you see these a20s coming in low over a ball bombing Japanese Cruisers and and transports and you know they are like literally flying right like at Mass height over these ships um so I just always found it’ to be a pretty cool airplane to learn more about what is on display and what have events are coming up at the Puma air and space museum in Tucson Arizona please do check out their website at www.pa a.org and now back to the show let’s let’s let’s talk about those those mosquito raids because I think my there’s always someone in your books that I just fall in love with and in this one it was it was Ted sore the Navigator because that poor lad had some stress you know the the the lowlevel raids that they’re having to Flying he’s having to do by dead reckoning at 300 mil hour at w literal wave top levels and he’s what 22 I think yeah I mean he’s he’s he’s yeah he’s I mean it’s absolutely extraordinary I mean I’ve got a son who’s the same age as Ted sisol um and uh I’m not going to be rude about him now but and in fact he has just today uh been given a place on a university Air Squadron which is exciting but there’s a big difference between um being given a place on a university Air Squadron um and being responsible for delivering 18 mosquitoes uh o on over three hours uh from Norfolk to downtown Copenhagen um to to hit a single building and the pressure that this young man Ted sis was under and like like you Matt I he was almost the before even basil Embry Ted sore this young Navigator was my my way into the into it because it seemed so unlikely somehow that such a young man uh could uh make such an impression on such a senior officer so quickly and be given such extraordinary levels of responsibility um and he was the person I first wanted to try to get to know a little more and I managed through an auction house who’d sold um his medals uh to make contact with his son who was uh you know only too happy to help uh and I you know I was absolutely I mean this every so often you kind of come across a there something makes your day um and puts a huge smile on your face when I got in touch with Martin sis Moore his son he knew me uh much to my surprise uh because actually both he and Ted uh before he died in 2012 um had read Vulcan 607 so the thought that Ted sismo this um who who went on to become uh by just 23 at the end of the war 1945 it just 23 years old the most decorated Navigator of the entire War um had um read uh vcon 607 and what one of the things which uh surprised me and you know perhaps kind of bound me to his story even more tightly was the discovery that um after leaving the air force he had a very successful um career in the Air Force after the second World War uh he worked for Marone and had during the folkland war been the sort of um goet responsible uh for ensuring that the RAF could get a mobile radar uh that was in storage a Marcone Mobile radar that was in in storage from from uh from the UK to Chile to give early warning of raids against the um the the British Fleet um from Argentina so um there there’s a lovely sort of um symmetry about that for me um and you know obviously very sad I didn’t get to talk to Ted sore myself but I managed to find quite a lot of interview footage with him um and uh and also talked to Martin his son about some of the things that that I hadn’t had a chance to read about elsewhere I mean a really remarkable man very sort of mild mannered but there was always this sort of real quiet confidence uh to him which clearly basil Embry uh who’s a sort of legendary RAF figure identified recognized and and put absolute trust in I mean Embry was you know in his late now his mid 40s by now um but he was putting the uh uh responsibility for the success of these extremely difficult challenging raids in which there were so many moving paths so many opportunities to get it wrong uh in the hands of a navigator who’s just 23 years old and Embry is one of those guys who Talent spots so well doesn’t he because he he’s he’s in charge of two group which in and of itself we could be here for hours yeah um but he’s just this remarkable almost anti- athor Authority sort of figure isn’t he and I have a question from one of my patreon people which feeds into who basil Li is fantastic we call them Dam casers well I do I don’t think they like it but it’s um uh where are we I’ve gone and put it up here here we go um Errol kavit was asking is there IND any indication that a ride along from with senior officers happened I guess with basil we need to talk about Wing Commander Smith don’t we yeah we do I mean you know uh Embry uh was too senior I mean well it wasn’t simply that he was too senior uh Embry had been in the air force uh throughout the 30s he in interestingly bomah Harris had been uh his squadron commander when they were um stationed in Iraq and he’d been to Afghanistan he’d won the DFC before the second world war even broke out uh Embry and he was a squadron commander he’s a boss of a blenham squadron during the Battle of France um and on the day that he was supposed to hand over command to uh to his successor he realized that he could slip in one m one last raid uh just before the deadline which he did and got shot down and of course you know Embry being Embry uh he was picked up uh not by just anyone but um by uh the sort of most senior German tank commander that that was there in um in France um and uh so he wore the sort of you know Nazi generals great coat in the car was he was interrogated by by by about the Flack he said well yeah I think your Flack is very good it shot me down after all but that was the beginning of a sort two-month Odyssey uh where he escaped from the Germans and was uh evading them um in France for two he was captured again but he killed his guards uh hid in a dung and dung Heap for 3 hours um before uh getting away after they’ come and gone um got to Paris uh tried to pretend he was American to see if the Americans could get him out managed to blag a bicycle from the Salvation Army but eventually he got back over the Border in near perol to Spain in the booth of a car driven by somebody from the British EMB Embassy in Spain so he by the time he was back in the UK and wanting to you know fight again he was always wanting to fight um he had a price on his head because the Germans said he’d murder his guards uh I’m not sure you have seen it the same way um so he was he he was um a valuable commodity to the Germans uh was as he became ever more senior uh somebody who should not have been flying uh submissions um over over occupied Europe um but he adopted an identity as of wi Commander Smith he got um dog tags uh he had uh the name tapes put in his um in his flights flight gear and got rid of all of his Badges of rank and replaced them with um with wing Commander Smiths uh and then flew on kind of all of the most um eye-catching and significant raids that two group and one40 wi particularly flew for the rest of the war he took over in um in summer of 1943 um and uh but you know as they began to prepare for for for uh D-Day um but the only raid he didn’t fly on um was the Amon prison raid and that was because he was specifically told uh he could not by traff Lee mallerie uh who then insisted that they have a meeting at at um at fight command uh so that uh he could make sure Embry was not disobeying that order and that that also meant poort Ted sore um couldn’t go either because Embry told him that if you can’t go um if I can’t go you definitely can’t go either um so it meant uh Percy piard who was um perhaps after guy Gibson uh the most famous bomber pilot in the air force uh then led the raid despite being quite inexperienced in flying um mosquitoes at low level and and lost his life with his navigator on on on that raid the am on raid is just yeah remarkable you fly fly in snow low level you with minimal minimal fighter cover cuz most of the tyon are turned back and you got 17 4243 I think were the ones that stuck with them and and and of course the one sector they don’t cover is the one where Pickard runs into an FW 1990 that’s right Terri you think the Amon raid’s amazing you should hear about a Copenhagen raid and there’s a book all about it which is but this this is what I liked about it was you you you cover Aman you cover our house yeah um Jean D long Trum makes gets Aion in there because it’s a gapo shot you don’t I I did call this one out in our notes you don’t you don’t give old 146 wing and and there are multiple attacks in Amsterdam and roddam under Johnny wells in typhoons but there’s I I don’t one one thing I no it’s it’s it’s another book there’s there’s but it’s a good opportunity for you mentioned me you we might have skipped over it if I hadn’t left it out and it’s given you an opportunity to mention it now there there’s I I there’s there’s so much I my notes go on and on and we’ve been chatting for ages now but there there’s a bit in it where I think it it’s come up today um or this week on military history Twitter that that terrible thing which is Napal in Europe yeah and that is something that has always been not really discussed you know Lee Miller famously had a lot of her footage from SEO taken the typhoons used it in um uh uh against position in in AR just before plunder Varsity but emb’s men use it to devastating effect in in Normandy don’t they in in the summer of well actually it’s it’s a little further south than that um it’s um it’s an SS Barracks um I’m G to forget the um it says Bon mat and I’m going to forget the name of the nearest town to that but it’s a a little further south than than Normandy um and it’s where uh there was uh prior to and after um D-Day um an sas unit operating uh an operation called operation bull basket and their job was uh in harness with the resistance uh to try to do everything that they could to obstruct and delay and make more difficult the Germans reinforcement of Normandy and they were very uh successful in doing that the SAS with the resistance actually made sure that the SS didn’t get to Normandy uh at a time when they might have done some uh damage and uh but they were subsequently ambushed in a forest uh this SS unit and they were uh killed pretty unpleasant those who who didn’t get away were killed pretty nastily and uh when word got back uh it was requested on of two group that they uh uh exact Vengeance for that and uh basil Embry was only too happy to do that uh and they were using for the first time for the British at any rate uh napon which had been developed in the in the states uh and uh you know it’s nasty stuff it’s designed to burn a great temperature but also to sort of glom onto whatever it’s uh stuck to and you know the uh embry’s sort of parting statement in the briefing prior to the mission um when he’d explained who their target was and what they had done to these uh SAS men that they’d captured and who should have been were it not for the Hitler’s Commando order uh treated as prisoners of war and with all of the protections that that affords um he explained all of that and said to his Crews you know you you you let the B bastards burn and that is that’s exactly what what happened uh the mosquitoes went in took out a line of barracks on uh next to a river um and uh there wasn’t much left of either them or uh the SS who had been in there tucking into lamb stew uh made with animals that they had poached from local farmers yeah it it was a perfect Target it was you wood barracks in a wood which is exactly naal was designed to go after yeah yeah yeah I mean Embry yielded to to no one in his hatred of the enemy I mean that that what he had seen in France at the beginning of the war um there you know he he he’d seen them uh running over refugees in tanks uh uh he uh um he was very kind of affected by that and um driven by it and a determination to uh to to to not rest actually until the Germans were beaten and he sought other people who uh he identified that that that trait in to because they’re going to have to be pushing home against targets that most most people would would would bulk at on on that thought of pushing pushing on another one of my patrion listeners who’s we probably all know it’s Joe wiing friend of the show who’s been on he was asking when you were reading it and you do point this out in the book um what you sort of found when a fully loaded mosquito was going into a Target like Copenhagen versus after they dropped its its payload what sort of speed maneuverability would they notice for and you you do describe that quite well especially on the the exit on on Copenhagen which dear listener you’ll notice I’m talking around because you got to read the book to to find out what happens on operation Carthage but just on that sort of technical thing thing was she a sort of leaden duck before she dropped her load or was it only afterwards she became the swan that’s a great sentence um was she a leaden duck before she dropped her load um no um I mean that you know the mosquito was blessed with an abundance of power um and so you know takeoffs could be hairy uh particularly when they were heavily loaded um they always had that that if you were going to get sort of bitten by mosquito it was going to be on takeoff much more so than than than Landing even where you’ve not got power going through the engines but but no once you’re in the air uh they were not uh with because of that abundance of power um you know overly um burdened by a 2,000 bomb load the FB 6es that were flown in um on by by two group They Carried two 500b bombs in the Bombay and this is unlike the bomber models which carried four because the breaches from the 20 mm cannons in the nose uh filled up half of the Bombay so they had two uh bombs in the Bombay two 500 pound bombs under the wings and you know obviously they’re going to be a little bit more Nimble um than uh than they would have been without a 2,000 bomb load um but um really the only drag you’re creating is is uh is is minimal um and under the wings because they they they kept two of them in the in the Bombay um I I didn’t encounter a single reference uh in the research I was doing to uh mosquitoes being um uh uh uh kind of heavy sluggish difficult to control uh um unmanufactured um kind of anything less than they they might have been when they were carrying carrying bombs I mean you know you you only sort of hear praise for uh for that performance dear listener we’ve run out of time to talk about the shell house and things like that so there’s a fantastic book that is out today when you’re listening to this which will tell you all about it and the incredible people um who were unfortunate enough to find themselves in it on that March morning I have to ask you to wrap up Roland all of your books are very human you you tend to to find that sort of that human thread as we talked about to come for this one with the story of the Danish resistance and the way not doing a spoiler here because it’s the reason there’s a raid they get rolled up quite aggressively towards the end of 44 early 45 that seemed to me to be quite a different angle to the sort of the humans that humans the people people that you’ve written about in the past how did that affect you as you writing it um quite substantially uh I yeah you’re right to identify it I felt an enormous Duty um with this book in a way almost I haven’t with the previous one if you think about the previous books um with the exception I mean you know that somebody was killed on the Vulcan 607 raid um obviously people were killed in in in um Harrier 809 but I’m largely talking about a military fighting a military um and in some cases uh you know in one case it was a show of force or it a space mission but um that’s quite significantly different to uh uh um a book about a raid that ultimately takes place in the center of capital city and you know there Embry and sism their first reaction to being uh begged to carry out this raid by the Danish resistance was that you know we’re going to kill 300 people you know this this is we we we can’t risk this but the Dan said you know unless you do great many more people are going to be killed because of the resistance is gone um Denmark now until the end of the war but also Denmark’s future after the war um is destroyed um I they they didn’t embrace the prospect of flying the ra with any enthusiasm at all um but you know those are the hard choices that people like Embry and cmore and indeed the Danes in Copenhagen who after weighing up the pros and cons um said fly the raid had to contend with you know these were really really difficult decisions to which there was no right answer but when when it comes to the sort of human story um the thing that made the greatest impression on me um was getting to meet a man called John hollstein in in Denmark and John’s now in his 80s um he was uh five years old in 1944 um and he was on the receiving end of um bombs from uh uh operation Carthage um he was dug out of rubble um he was um taken to a hotel he patched up he had uh suffered from a fear of flying um after that um which he subsequently overcame um well quite quite substantially in that he went on to enjoy a career um as a a sport parachutist glider pilot and uh with a engineering company that made harnesses for Search and Rescue helicopters um so he really understood the um the nature of the thing that uh these incredible uh air Crews were required to do but as I said you know as a boy uh uh he was traumatized by what it what had happened in in Copenhagen but I went to visit some of the sites that were relevant to to the Copenhagen raid with John who’s sort of incredibly sprightly um in his 80s and just really lovely guy um and we we looked up and down the road where actually one of the mosquitoes I know you’ve been trying not to sort of uh share spoilers but a mosquito was lost um on on the Copenhagen raid um and were tragic consequences of that and I went went to visit the site with John um after we’d gone to some of the other places that were relevant to the raid um um including the the railway yard where the mosquito that crashed hit a um a pylon which led to its it’s it’s Crash um and he looked up and down the road uh and sort of reflected on what it was uh these air Crews had undertaken on behalf of his country and the sacrifice that he’d made they they had made and he just uh kind of said quietly to himself um that that they were Heroes um um and um that was more than anything else that was the thing that guided and informed how strongly I felt about trying to get this story right um I think almost more than any of the other ones I felt a real obligation uh to those who had died in the air those who had died on the ground uh not just in 1944 but um you know throughout the war um to to get their story right and you know I I be for readers to judge whether or not I have to this reader he did I I I thought it was a very difficult thing to balance and I think you you you did it very well especially for what happens on the raid which is tragic but as you said that that there was so so many balls in the air for it dear listener read the book it is out today if you’re listening to this on on the day of release um give it a plug r what’s it called it’s a very complicated title it’s called mosquito uh the raf’s legendary wooden wonder and its most extraordinary raid uh and at the heart of the book is this uh unbelievably challenging but crucial raid on the gustara headquarters in Denmark but through the story I’ve uh through the book I’ve kind of threaded I hope uh um at appreciation of the the mosquito story um more broadly thank you so much absolute pleasure Matt thanks so much for asking me along I cannot thank Roland enough for his time he was incredibly generous to spend the evening with me the other week and As We Said Today is release day for mosquito so this is not the one you would get today it’ll be a lovely hard back like that so please do look it up as always you can get it if you’re in the UK from the dam cters bookshop.org Link in the description below 10% of that goes to support the Pod we hope hope to have more from Roland we’ll have to see if he’ll come back but there’s lot to talk about he is fantastic as you’ve seen and heard so thank you so much to him by the book it really is good because if it wasn’t I wouldn’t have had him on the show next week we do have the episode that I teased last week which is all about R 101 and that is the fabulous Sam Gwyn joining us to discuss his Majesty’s Airship which is all about the this is going to upset a few people the disastrous r101 now people have been tweeting at me because I’m not a fan of the big Airship let’s find out more next week and we can discuss it then until then thank you so much for your support as always if you want to join us on patreon become a damcer there’s all kinds of stuff happening over there you get these episodes early with different intros and outros opportunity to ask questions like Joe and arrol did in today’s episode so you can draw up from3 pound a month plus a bit of that check the link in the description and you can find out all the details there tell your friends as well pod’s doing well we got some exciting news coming up about our sponsor The Fabulous Puma air and space museum out in Tucson Arizona they’ve got a lot going on we’re going to talk about that some more watch this space and follow us on all the socials including Blue Sky now which I’m liking cuz it’s quiet and not nuts there we go until next time thank you so much for your support please do take care of yourselves bye the dam casters is hosted and produced by Matt bone and is a bon broad podcast production to learn more about our podcast and check out our previous episodes head to www.the damaster pod.com