The Oslo Mosquito raid (25 September 1942) was a British air raid on

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. The target of the raid was the '' Victoria Terrasse'' building, the headquarters of the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

. It was intended to be a " morale booster" for the Norwegian people and was scheduled to coincide with a rally of Norwegian collaborators, led by

Vidkun Quisling Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonssøn Quisling (, ; 18 July 1887 – 24 October 1945) was a Norwegian military officer, politician and Nazi collaborator who nominally list of heads of government of Norway, headed the government of Norway during t ...

. The raid is also known for it being the moment when the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

revealed the existence of the Mosquito aircraft to the British public, when the BBC Home Service reported on the raid the following day.

Preparation

The operation was carried out by four de Havilland Mosquito aircraft of No. 105 Squadron RAF, led by Squadron Leader George Parry, flying with navigator Flying Officer "Robbie" Robson. The other three crews consisted of: * Flight Lieutenant Pete Rowland and Flying Officer Richard Reilly * Flying Officer Alec Bristow and Pilot Officer Bernard Marshall * Flight Sergeant Gordon Carter and Sergeant William Young.Bowman 1998, p. 13. In order to shorten the mission distance, the four aircraft were flown to RAF Leuchars in Fife,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, where they were refuelled and loaded with four delayed action bombs each.

The operation

The operation involved a round trip distance of , with a flying time of 4.75 hours, making it the longest mission flown with Mosquitos to date. The bombers crossed the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

at heights of less than to avoid interception by enemy aircraft and navigated by

dead reckoning In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating current position of some moving object by using a previously determined position, or fix, and then incorporating estimates of speed, heading direction, and course over elapsed time. ...

. Each aircraft was armed with four 500 lb bombs with 11 second delayed action fuses since in such a low level attack the bombs had the potential to damage the aircraft that dropped them. Despite their low altitude, the Mosquitos were intercepted by two Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters of 3/

JG 5 Jagdgeschwader 5 (JG 5) was a German Luftwaffe fighter wing during World War II. It was created to operate in the far north of Europe, namely Norway, Scandinavia and northern parts of Finland, all nearest the Arctic Ocean, with ''Luftflotte'' 5 ...

flying from Stavanger, causing Gordon Carter's Mosquito to make a forced landing in

Oslofjord The Oslofjord (, ; en, Oslo Fjord) is an inlet in the south-east of Norway, stretching from an imaginary line between the and lighthouses and down to in the south to Oslo in the north. It is part of the Skagerrak strait, connecting the Nor ...

. Rowland and Reilly were pursued by the other Fw 190 until it clipped a tree and was forced to break off the attack. At least four bombs penetrated the Gestapo HQ; one failed to detonate, while the other three crashed out through the opposite wall before exploding. The building was not destroyed, but several civilian residences were, and 80 civilians were killed or injured. The

Norwegian government in exile __NOTOC__ Nygaardsvold's Cabinet (later becoming the Norwegian government-in-exile, Norwegian: ''Norsk eksilregjering'') was appointed on 20 March 1935, the second Labour cabinet in Norway. It brought to an end the non-socialist minority Gover ...

, which had not known about the raid, later expressed serious concern to the British government. Official announcements by the German occupation forces claimed that several British aircraft had been shot down, when in reality a single Mosquito had been lost.

Impact

Although the raid had failed to achieve its objective, it was considered dramatic enough to be used to reveal the existence of the Mosquito to the British public, and the following day (26 September) listeners to the BBC Home Service learned that a new aircraft – the Mosquito – had been revealed for the first time by the RAF, and that four had made a low level attack on Oslo. The Mosquito bomber was featured in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' on 28 September, and the next day the newspaper published two captioned photographs illustrating the Oslo bomb strikes and damage.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Bowman, Martin. ''Mosquito Fighter/Fighter-bomber Units of World War 2''. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 1998. . * Dahl, Hans Fredrik and Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife (translator). ''Quisling: A Study in Treachery''. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. .

External links

IWM Interview with George Parry

IWM Interview with Bernard Marshall
{{Coord, 59.9141, 10.7283, region:NO-03, format=dms, display=title World War II aerial operations and battles of the Western European Theatre Aerial operations and battles of World War II involving the United Kingdom Conflicts in 1942 History of the Royal Air Force during World War II 1942 in Norway History of Oslo De Havilland Mosquito 1940s in Oslo Germany–United Kingdom military relations Norway–United Kingdom military relations September 1942 events

Preparation

The operation

Impact

See also

References

External links