Here's a story I found when doing a skin for one of the BOAC operated civilian Mossies that flew secret night time missions from Scotland to Sweden (they had no guns so they where naturally lighter than the armed version):
"On the 18:th of July 1943, Mosquito G-AGGC after leaving the Swedish coast at 7.600 meters noticed condensation trails – one above and one behind the a/c, presumed to be from Focke-Wulf 190s. Rae, The pilot turned into the fighters and then dived in a spiral down to the sea level, leveled out and gave full throttle. Indicated airspeed was 570 Km/h and the course set for Leuchars. In the full moon the attacking fighters had no problem seeing the Mossie and the chase was on for half an hour without the attackers gaining on the Mosquito. The Germans gave up, probably because of fuel shortage. BOAC's instruction was that if an aircraft was attacked over the eastern part of Skagerak, the pilot was to turn back because of the risk of fuel starvation if entangled in a long chase. However, this time Gilbert Rae decided to continue the flight because he had a Danish officer on board who had just escaped the Gestapo."
It seems they had real problems shaking those 190:s - and it's interesting that they used 190:s as night fighters. Maybe to catch Mossies?
/Mazex
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09-29-2008, 01:50 PM
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