“Anyone who supports having this wooden trash should be strung up from the highest lamp-post in Whitehall.”
Purported to be the gist of a memo written by Bomber Harris in 1941.
For the life of me i cant understand why the Mossie wasnt used instead of the heavies, even if it was for area bombing.
I cant agree that they would have sustained a more serious level of losses at night, the Germans didnt have an answer to them , what was available that could have stuck with them even in straight and level flight at night? The Ju88 or Me110 certainly werent up to it.
Even without monika (or after it was withdrawn from use) they still would have been a very difficult target, certainly not as easy to find and knock down as a Lancaster or Halifax.
to quote the then Wing Commander Ivor Broom;
“We did 25 nights to Berlin. You could fly there and be back in the mess before the bar closed. We could carry more to Berlin with a crew of two than a Flying Fortress did with a crew of ten. They had to fight their way there and back in the daylight. We went fast at night, at 28000 ft. “
Says it all i think.
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