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This is the second of three books in the Osprey Combat Aircraft series dedicated to the most versatile of all British aircraft of the Second World War, the de Havilland Mosquito. Originally designed as an unarmed fast bomber, it was soon realised that the aircraft would make the perfect night fighter, and the second Mosquito to take to the air was the night fighter prototype.
The first two chapters of this book look at the career of the Mosquito as a defensive night fighter, based in Britain. It arrived just too late to be involved in the blitz, coming into service during the spring of 1942, but after a slow start it became the most important British night fighter, operating against the intermittent German mini-blitzes, and taking part in the campaign against the V-1 Flying Bomb.
The remaining four chapters look at the use of the Mosquito as an offensive night fighter, beginning with night raids over Occupied Europe, and moving on to attacks on German airfields, night fighter bases and the night fighters themselves as they attacked the British bombers. This culminated in the "mosquito panic", a period in which just about every lose of a German night fighter was blamed on the rampaging Mosquitoes.
This is a interesting book. The text is well supported with quotes from the night fighter crews themselves, as well as eight pages of colour illustrations of the aircraft and two of the aircrew and two appendices, one providing eight line drawings of the various marks of Mosquito in use and one with a list of Fighter Command's mosquito squadrons.
Chapters
Defensive Nightfighting
"Baby Blitz" And Beyond
Offensive Nightfighting
Intruding
No.100 Group
Mosquito Menace
Author: Martin Bowman
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 100
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 1999