enemy. Even so, Intruder aircraft were invariably alone, flying over enemy
territory close to well-defended airfields playing a very dangerous game of ‘cat
and mouse’ and whichever way it was conducted, ‘Intruding’ was a dangerous,
furtive operation, striking an opponent ‘in the back’ when they least expected it
and in all theatres of the war the Germans regarded the brand as ‘toxic’. They
detested it.
It was within this context that John Augustin and Leslie Green began their
Intruder training at High Ercall, and two difficult techniques in particular had
to be mastered. One was flying at high speed and low level, ‘hedge-hopping’
to the target, hugging the ground, becoming lost in the ‘ground clutter’ of
German radar. The other was returning home and landing safely—but at
night. Both these techniques were practiced over and over again. Even so,
John Augustin had an advantage over the earlier Intruder ‘pioneers’, he and
his navigator were being trained to fly the twin engined de Havilland
Mosquito fighter bomber FB Mk II, a versatile aircraft bristling with innovation, luxuriating in two hugely powerful V12 Rolls Royce Merlin engines
and carrying the AI Mark VIII and H2S radars developed by his father’s GEC
at Wembley. The Mosquito was the one Allied aircraft that could be just
about anything; a fighter, a fighter bomber, a ground or shipping attack
platform, a high-altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft or a long-range
Intruder. It could beat a Spitfire for speed in level flight, ‘dog-fight’ carrying a
2000-pound bomb load, and with extra ‘slipper tanks’ it could fly from the
UK to the Mediterranean non-stop, refuel, carry out Intruder missions in
eastern Germany and fly back to its base in the ‘Med’. The pilots of 51 OTU
would be trained to fly these aircraft to their target at 300 mph just 50 to
100 ft above the ground—and at night. Once they were close by, they would
learn to cut speed to just above idle, and slowly make a ‘race track’ holding
pattern 5–10 miles away from the German base. Having hit a target, the pilot
would learn to ‘firewall’ his throttles, and get out of the area flying home at
100 ft and 410 mph, the Mosquito’s flat-out, sea level top speed. ‘Intruding’
and coming home again, could take up to six hours, and at no point would
the crew be able to relax, except maybe when they approached their home
base. But at night, being relaxed was not always the best condition to be when
attempting to land on an unlit runway. For all these reasons, Intruder pilots
were the ‘best of the best’. But the two-man Mosquito crew worked as a team,
and although the radio and the monitoring of engine settings—normally a
navigator’s domain—was left to the pilot, Mosquito navigation was a very
demanding task, requiring a position fix every two minutes. On main force
bombers, checks were only needed every five minutes or so but the speed of
the Mosquito meant that the slightest error could put the aircraft far off
432
D. Sheppard
territory close to well-defended airfields playing a very dangerous game of ‘cat
and mouse’ and whichever way it was conducted, ‘Intruding’ was a dangerous,
furtive operation, striking an opponent ‘in the back’ when they least expected it
and in all theatres of the war the Germans regarded the brand as ‘toxic’. They
detested it.
It was within this context that John Augustin and Leslie Green began their
Intruder training at High Ercall, and two difficult techniques in particular had
to be mastered. One was flying at high speed and low level, ‘hedge-hopping’
to the target, hugging the ground, becoming lost in the ‘ground clutter’ of
German radar. The other was returning home and landing safely—but at
night. Both these techniques were practiced over and over again. Even so,
John Augustin had an advantage over the earlier Intruder ‘pioneers’, he and
his navigator were being trained to fly the twin engined de Havilland
Mosquito fighter bomber FB Mk II, a versatile aircraft bristling with innovation, luxuriating in two hugely powerful V12 Rolls Royce Merlin engines
and carrying the AI Mark VIII and H2S radars developed by his father’s GEC
at Wembley. The Mosquito was the one Allied aircraft that could be just
about anything; a fighter, a fighter bomber, a ground or shipping attack
platform, a high-altitude photo reconnaissance aircraft or a long-range
Intruder. It could beat a Spitfire for speed in level flight, ‘dog-fight’ carrying a
2000-pound bomb load, and with extra ‘slipper tanks’ it could fly from the
UK to the Mediterranean non-stop, refuel, carry out Intruder missions in
eastern Germany and fly back to its base in the ‘Med’. The pilots of 51 OTU
would be trained to fly these aircraft to their target at 300 mph just 50 to
100 ft above the ground—and at night. Once they were close by, they would
learn to cut speed to just above idle, and slowly make a ‘race track’ holding
pattern 5–10 miles away from the German base. Having hit a target, the pilot
would learn to ‘firewall’ his throttles, and get out of the area flying home at
100 ft and 410 mph, the Mosquito’s flat-out, sea level top speed. ‘Intruding’
and coming home again, could take up to six hours, and at no point would
the crew be able to relax, except maybe when they approached their home
base. But at night, being relaxed was not always the best condition to be when
attempting to land on an unlit runway. For all these reasons, Intruder pilots
were the ‘best of the best’. But the two-man Mosquito crew worked as a team,
and although the radio and the monitoring of engine settings—normally a
navigator’s domain—was left to the pilot, Mosquito navigation was a very
demanding task, requiring a position fix every two minutes. On main force
bombers, checks were only needed every five minutes or so but the speed of
the Mosquito meant that the slightest error could put the aircraft far off
432
D. Sheppard