I presume you mean Operation Carthage,the attack on the Gestapo headquarters in the "Shellhus" in Copenhagen.
That was a specialist low level raid carried out in daylight. Try attacking the heavily defended targets of the Ruhr like that and you wouldn't last five minutes. This is one of the raids I referred to earlier as having mixed results,particularly for the 86 school children killed at the school mistaken for the target after one of the attackers crashed onto a garage close to it.
Look at the logistics too. 18 Mosquitos (plus two filming) to attack one building,plus a large fighter escort. 4 of the 20 Mosquitos were lost. That's a massive 20% of the attacking force. Completely unsustainable in a long term strategic campaign. 1 escorting Mustang was also lost.
Despite toting 44 bombs all the way to Copenhagen only 8 actually hit the target building. 6 bombs hit the Western wing,instantly killing 6 of the 9 prisoners held there. A 7th died jumping from a top floor window.2 bombs hit the East wing in which no prisoners were held.14 of the 18 surviving prisoners were in the South wing of the Shellhus which was not hit by any bombs.
Apart from the 86 school children and 16 adults killed at the school about another 100 people,including 50 Germans,lost their lives.
Once again the reality does not exactly match the post war myth.
Cheers
Steve
Actually that wasnt the raids I was thinking of, though I think you omitted to point out that Gestapo records were destroyed, which was the primary target of that raid, and probably saved many hundreds of lives. The deaths of the innocent danish civilians is a tragedy, but by that logic, the Allies should not have attacked into France, since that attack also caused the tragic deaths of many frenchmen. Of course, in the end, it saved many more from a murderous, rutless regime, but people seem to forget that in their eagerness to attack the allies due to unavoidable collateral damage. I would suggest you get a grip, this was total war, and the Germans were using the whole of Europe as a human shield. They were murdering innocent people by the thousand, but that seems to be forgotten whenever this morality claptrap regarding RAF operations is raised.
Plus, despite the collateral damage, the raid still can be shown as an excellent example of just how accurate Mosquitoes could be. What chance would the school, the building, the prisoners, indeed, the whole city have had, if the raid had been the subject of a raid by a sizable force of four engined bombers
Mostly i was thinking of the attacks undertaken by Nos 138 and 140 wings, where the actual deeds certainly do live up to the post war "myth".
Both wings were involved in the campaign against the V-1 launch sites in the Pas de Calais early in 1944. The Mosquito was the ideal aircraft to attack these small targets, needed only a quarter of the sortie rates required by any other aircraft to destroy each site. This is borne out by the previous mounts used by these wings in these attacks Mitchells, Venturas, Bostons and Wellingtons (I think) by the same outfits, achieved nowhere near the accuracy that was achieved by the same unts after conversion. Mosquitoes were four times more accurate to be precise
These squadrons were involved in two of the most famous of all Mosquito raids, pinpoint attacks on Amiens Prison and on the Gestapo records in The Hague. Amiens Prison (which was the one I was thinking of) contained over 700 French prisoners, many from the resistance. When it was discovered that the Germans were planning to execute these people enmasse, Nos. 487 and 464 Squadrons were sent to knock down the walls of the prison, and give the prisoners a chance to escape. This required some of the most precise bombing ever attempted, but the Mosquito crews were up to the task. On 18 February 1944 the walls of the prison were duly destroyed, and 255 prisoners escaped. Only one Mosquito was lost. I calculate that to be a loss rate of about 0.5%....to paraphrase your earlier opinion....."Completely sustainable in a long term strategic campaign".
The second raid hit the Kunstzaal Kleizkamp Art Gallery in The Hague. This building was being used by the Gestapo to store the Dutch Central Population Registry. Destruction of these records would be a great help to the Dutch resistance. Accordingly, on 11 April 1944 No 613 Squadron was sent to attack the Gallery. Once again, the required building was hit, and most of the records destroyed. There were no recorded aircraft losses
That was a specialist low level raid carried out in daylight. Try attacking the heavily defended targets of the Ruhr like that and you wouldn't last five minutes. This is one of the raids I referred to earlier as having mixed results,particularly for the 86 school children killed at the school mistaken for the target after one of the attackers crashed onto a garage close to it.
Are you claiming the Mosquito did not undertake raids into Germany by Daylight????/ If so, you have got to be kidding...... BC had in fact been undertaking exactly that since 1941. Why would the Mosquito be any less likely than any other type to undertake such raids. Further, Mosquitoes were tasked to undertake daylight missions over Germany, in daylight against heavily defended targets. Are you saying they didnt. sheesh....For example, the two wings mentioned above were involved in the daylight component of operation Clarion, which involved many daylight attacks against heavily defended high value targets like railway sidings and the like with the characteristic low losses for the type.
Some examples
The first bomber squadrons to receive the Mosquito B IV used it for several low-level daylight raids throughout the summer of 1942. On 29 August 1942, Mk IVS of 105 Squadron RAF undertook a bombing mission against Pont-à-Vendin. They were attacked by Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. The Fw 190s attacked head-on before turning to attack from the stern. The Mosquitos used their speed to outpace the 190s. On 19 September, Mosquitos attacked Berlin for the first time in daylight. Once again, when a Mosquito piloted by D.A.G George Parry was attacked by Messerschmitt Bf 109s, he was able to outrun them. One Mosquito failed to return. One of the first missions was the Oslo raid on 25 September 1942, carried out by four aircraft of No. 105 Squadron RAF, after which the Mosquito was publicly revealed for the first time.
So much for the type not being able to penetrate and successfully attack targets within Germany in Daylight. You have got to be kidding.
Two notable daylight missions were carried out on 30 January 1943, when Mosquitoes carried out two attacks on Berlin timed to disrupt speeches being delivered by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels. It is well to note that in the upcoming months the defences of Berlin very nearly defeated BC again.
The first attack, in the morning, comprised three Mosquito B Mk. IVs from 105 Squadron, which carried out a low-level attack on the main Berlin broadcasting station, at 11:00, when Göring was due to address a parade commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Nazis' being voted into power. It was a nuisance raid, carried out for proaganda purposes, but Göring off the air for more than an hour, and it demonstrates in spades that Mosquitoes could, and did attack heavily defended targets, wityh far less chance of loss than their larger cousins.
Mosquitoes from 139 Squadron went to Berlin in the afternoon of the same day to attempt to interrupt a speech by Goebbels, and once again bombed at the exact time. However, Berlin's anti-aircraft defences were on alert and a Mosquito flown by Squadron Leader D.F. Darling was shot down, both Darling and his navigator being killed.
Göring, however, was not amused: If you are seriously claimimg the Mosquito was not up to undertaking daylight penetrations, I expect neither will you.
