0:02 in 1941 the British government finally
0:04 and reluctantly agreed to let a speed
0:06 freak build their next warplane and this
0:08 man took two 1600 horsepower engines
0:11 stuck them inside of a wooden airplane
0:13 and things immediately got out of hand
0:15 in the best way possible
0:18 today we're talking about the dh-98 de
0:19 Havilland mosquito [Music]
0:40 and while the official nickname is the
0:42 mosquito it also goes by the mossy the
0:45 loping lumber yard the wooden wonder and
0:47 the timber of Terror and when something
0:48 has that many different nicknames you
0:50 know it's going to be good and just like
0:52 so many other stories this story too
0:54 begins with a words from our sponsor
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1:16 Our Story begins in 1909 with Sir
1:18 Jeffrey de havlin he is 27 years old he
1:20 just got married and he has spent his
1:23 entire life working on building and
1:25 designing cars and motorcycles but now
1:27 they're just not fast enough there's
1:29 this new thing out air airplanes and
1:31 they can go even faster so naturally
1:32 he's got to give him one of those the
1:34 only problem is building a plane as I'm
1:35 sure you can imagine costs a lot of
1:37 money even back then when they were just
1:39 biplanes so where's he gonna get all
1:40 this money well he's gonna do exactly
1:42 what any self-respecting man would do
1:44 he's gonna go to Grandma for a zero
1:46 percent interest loan and when I say a
1:48 zero percent interest loan I mean he
1:50 goes to his grandmother and asks for a
1:53 and I quote Advance on his inheritance
1:55 straight up Grandma you need to
1:57 die or front me the money because I'm
1:58 trying to make history over here so
2:00 Grandma I'll be in the gangster that she
2:01 is decides that she's going to give
2:03 little Jeffrey a thousand pounds for his
2:05 airplane project now full stop a
2:07 thousand pounds you're like oh a
2:08 thousand dollars that's a lot of money
2:11 no this is 1909 a thousand pounds back
2:13 then is equivalent to like almost two
2:14 hundred thousand dollars American okay
2:17 like Grandma is apparently loaded so he
2:18 gets all this money and he begins
2:19 designing and making his own airplane
2:22 and after two long years the day finally
2:24 comes that his airplane is finished and
2:25 it's finally ready for its first flight
2:28 so he hops in takes his plane up and to
2:30 the sky and everything goes absolutely
2:32 perfect right until he crashed it the
2:34 plane is completely destroyed and like
2:36 every other speed freak and race car
2:37 driver I've ever met in my entire life
2:39 to have lint just crawls out of the
2:41 wreckage and was like that's fun let's
2:43 do that again he then proceeds to make
2:46 his very own aircraft manufacturing
2:47 company fast forward a couple of decades
2:49 to have one owns a very successful
2:51 airplane company and it's the early
2:53 1930s and everybody is beginning to make
2:55 their planes out of metal but de
2:56 Havilland isn't having it because he
2:58 thinks that making planes out of metal
3:00 is dumb obviously I'm paraphrasing here
3:02 but he's basically like metal weighs
3:04 more than wood which means that my plane
3:05 is going to be slower by making it out
3:07 of metal why on Earth would I do that to
3:09 which the entire Aviation Community
3:11 basically yells at the guy like well
3:14 metal is stronger than wood duh and he's like
3:15 like
3:17 it's an airplane what just don't
3:19 run it into it'll be fine if you
3:21 want strong go build a tank what are we
3:23 even talking about here have you ever
3:24 seen a squirrel with Knight's
3:26 armor on no it doesn't make any
3:27 sense so to have one's like fine I'm
3:29 just gonna have to prove it to these
3:30 people 1934 they're gonna have the
3:33 mcrobertson air race it's 11 200 miles
3:36 from England to Melbourne Australia you
3:38 have to fly all the way there you can
3:40 take any route you want you can stop to
3:42 refuel as many times as you want there's
3:44 this huge cash prize of fifteen thousand
3:46 pounds all the fastest airplanes on the
3:48 planet are gonna show up and try to win
3:50 this race so to haveland creates a dh-88
3:52 comment ends up being the fastest plane
3:53 in the world at this point in time and
3:56 obviously wins this race and obviously
3:58 nobody cares because it's made out of
3:59 wood and they said that that's dumb so
4:01 nobody's gonna learn anything from the
4:04 point he just proved fast forward 1936
4:06 post World War One Germany is starting
4:08 to re-arm their entire country Britain
4:09 takes note and they're like wow we
4:11 should build up some weapons too in case
4:13 they try something so they put out a bid
4:15 they let all the aircraft manufacturers
4:16 know the that they're looking for a twin
4:19 engine medium bomber that's capable of
4:21 carrying 3 000 pounds and cruising at a
4:23 speed of 300 miles an hour so there's
4:24 money to be made with a government
4:26 contract all the airplane manufacturers
4:28 flock to it and start putting in their
4:30 bids and their designs for their planes
4:32 and pretty much all of them follow the
4:33 conventional knowledge of how to build a
4:35 bomber at this point in time which was
4:37 to have a humongous powerful airplane
4:40 made out of metal and absolutely covered
4:42 in machine guns everywhere because you
4:43 need to be able to fire in all
4:45 directions to fight off all the fighter
4:46 planes that are going to try to shoot
4:48 you down and absolutely everybody
4:50 follows that basic outline except for to
4:51 have one he decides that he's going to
4:53 build a plane using a completely
4:55 different ideology from everybody else
4:57 instead of having a plane that's going
4:59 to have armor and machine guns and be
5:00 able to win a fire fight in the air
5:02 against other fighter planes he's just
5:04 gonna avoid the fire fight altogether
5:06 because at the end of the day the
5:08 bomber's job isn't to shoot down fighter
5:10 airplanes it's to deliver the bomb he's
5:12 gonna get rid of all the Armor All the
5:13 machine guns all the defensive
5:15 countermeasures that other bombers have
5:17 and use all of his efforts to try to get
5:19 this plane as fast as possible to just
5:21 be able to outrun the firefight because
5:22 you know what's better than getting shot
5:24 at and having body armor on not getting
5:26 shot at realizing that an ounce of
5:28 prevention is worth a pound of cure he's
5:29 gonna make this playing as fast as
5:30 possible and to do that he's going to
5:33 make it out of wood again so he builds
5:34 his wooden bomber he then proceeds to
5:36 take the most powerful aircraft engine
5:39 on the planet the Merlin and sticks two
5:41 of them inside of this thing and this
5:44 aircraft is the fastest warplane on the
5:46 planet with a cruising speed of 325
5:48 miles an hour and a max speed of almost
5:50 400 miles an hour this thing is
5:52 absolutely Untouchable and that's not
5:54 even the impressive part it's the
5:56 manufacturing process where de havlin's
5:58 idea stands Head and Shoulders above the
5:59 competition you have to remember they're
6:01 going into World War II plastic wasn't
6:03 widely used yet and anything that's
6:05 plastic today was probably metal back
6:07 then metal was used for absolutely
6:10 everything from canteens to tanks to
6:12 airplanes all of it was metal meaning
6:14 that throughout the course of World War
6:16 II metal became extremely scare so much
6:17 so that America was trying to build
6:19 ships out of concrete and Great Britain
6:21 was trying to build an aircraft carrier
6:23 out of wood pulp and ice so being able
6:25 to build a bomber out of a cheap and
6:27 readily available resource like wood was
6:29 a humongous deal and it all trickles
6:31 down from there because not only are you
6:33 just using an uncapped resource by using
6:35 wood that means that you're not going to
6:36 have metal workers and riveters working
6:38 on the plane you're going to have
6:40 Woodworkers working on your plane which
6:41 at this point in time was a pretty much
6:43 untapped labor pool that was still doing
6:45 other stuff like building cabinets and
6:47 pianos they had no real way to
6:49 contribute to the war effort except now
6:51 they do and the list of benefits keeps
6:53 going I feel like I'm in an infomercial
6:55 but I'm not done yet because the
6:57 mosquito's plan is not to fight fire
6:58 fights in the air but to Simply outrun
7:00 them you know what the mosquito doesn't
7:02 need machine guns you know what you
7:03 don't need if you don't have machine
7:05 guns ammunition and you know what you
7:07 also don't need if you don't have
7:09 machine guns people to fire the machine
7:11 guns so you're also saving guns
7:13 ammunition and Personnel because the
7:15 mosquito only has two crew members and
7:17 you know what all those things do they
7:19 add weight to the aircraft like over a
7:21 thousand pounds meaning that now that
7:22 all that's gone the mosquito can now
7:25 carry an extra thousand pounds worth of
7:27 bombs to drop on the enemy which is
7:29 actually what a bomber's job is so just
7:31 to recap to have one has now delivered a
7:33 bomber to the British government that is
7:35 made out of a readily available resource
7:37 with a brand new untapped labor pool
7:40 that is cheaper in pretty much every way
7:43 and it delivers more bombs faster to the
7:45 enemy so clearly the British government
7:48 hates it and I mean really Sir
7:49 Jeffrey to have one really should be
7:51 more considerate how are these poor
7:53 politicians and defense contractors
7:55 going to be able to feed their kids if
7:56 he's out here trying to make planes that
7:58 are cheap and reliable I mean what's the
8:00 point of even going to war if you're not
8:01 going to make a bunch of money off of it
8:03 right look I guess I'm just glad it's
8:06 not a uniquely American thing for this
8:06 to happen
8:09 so all the other aircraft manufacturers
8:11 are talking smack about de havlin's idea
8:12 they're saying that it's basically a
8:15 giant model airplane and that wood is
8:16 not a suitable building material for a
8:18 respectable plane and all this other
8:20 stuff that they're desperately trying to
8:21 come up with so that he doesn't win the
8:23 bid and that's when Lord keaney mittens
8:25 I mean Beaver Brook over here chimes in
8:27 he's the minister of aircraft production
8:29 for all of Britain and he just shuts the
8:32 project down I'm assuming it's giant
8:33 model airplane would make his hands look
8:36 even tinier I've got these tiny hands
8:37 and that gonna make them look even
8:39 tinier in fact the only person that even
8:41 liked the idea of the mosquito was the
8:43 air marshal for the RAF sir Wilfred
8:46 Freeman who also by sheer coincidence is
8:48 the only man in this conversation that
8:50 has flown planes in combat and
8:51 presumably knows what he's actually
8:53 talking about and doesn't have a vested
8:55 financial interest in the outcome
8:57 Freeman is also responsible for the RAF
9:00 ordering the Spitfire the hurricane and
9:02 the Lancaster bomber as well as the
9:04 development of the Merlin engine like
9:06 he's got a pretty good track record of
9:09 picking amazing planes so obviously
9:10 we're going to listen to what sir
9:12 Wilford Freeman has to say right wrong a
9:14 hundred percent wrong what we're gonna
9:15 do is we're gonna have Lord
9:18 mittens over here fire him transfer him
9:19 to a different department and then take
9:21 credit for all of his accomplishments
9:24 and use that Newfound status to kill the
9:25 mosquito project once and for all
9:27 because politics and that's pretty much
9:30 1937 the British government told de
9:31 Havilland kick rocks were not interested
9:33 we're going to move on with our life
9:36 fast forward 1940 World War II has in
9:37 fact kicked off and it is not looking
9:39 that great for the British because we
9:41 are right in the middle of the Battle of
9:42 Britain okay if you don't know the
9:43 Battle of Britain also known as the air
9:45 battle for England was basically the
9:46 Germans were bombing Britain every day
9:48 for about three months straight and
9:49 Britain was obviously sending up their
9:52 Air Force to fight back both sides lost
9:54 thousands of people and thousands of
9:55 airplanes okay if you're not picking up
9:56 what I'm putting down I'm trying to tell
9:58 you the RAF is now short a bunch of
10:00 planes and a bunch of pilots and there's
10:02 really no way of replenishing the amount
10:04 of planes because metal is extremely
10:06 scarce as well as the manpower to make
10:08 the planes anyways if only there was
10:09 some type of plane that they could make
10:11 out of an alternative material to metal
10:13 that had a completely different labor
10:15 force to build it oh wait we've had that
10:17 literally the entire time we just didn't
10:18 want to use it because of politics
10:20 perfect so the British government
10:23 finally reluctantly orders 50 of them so
10:24 de Havilland gets to work right away
10:26 builds all these planes turns them over
10:28 to the RAF the RAF then starts
10:30 practicing with them and the pilots
10:31 absolutely love him the only problem is
10:33 they're a little bit hard to take off
10:34 and land which makes sense because
10:36 they're basically a paper airplane with
10:38 a V8 attached to him so the
10:39 decision gets made that only the best
10:40 Pilots are going to be allowed to fly
10:42 these things and now we gotta find what
10:44 the first mission for the mosquito is
10:45 going to be and it's gonna be super
10:47 secret because nobody knows that this
10:49 plane even exists yet so up until this
10:50 point in the war the British really
10:52 didn't have a surveillance plan capable
10:53 of flying over enemy territory and
10:55 seeing what they were up to so they were
10:57 actually using their Fighters the
10:59 Spitfire to do that and while the
11:01 Spitfire is awesome it sucked for this
11:03 particular job because it simply
11:05 couldn't hold enough fuel to go very far
11:07 into enemy territory the mosquito on the
11:09 other hand instead of filling it with
11:11 bombs we're just gonna fill it with an
11:13 extra gas tank and this thing is going
11:14 to be able to fly from England all the
11:17 way to the Soviet Union and back in one
11:19 flight without refueling and that's
11:21 exactly what it does yeah the mosquito
11:22 is for all intents and purposes the
11:24 world's first long-range reconnaissance
11:26 aircraft that set the groundwork for
11:29 every aircraft after it it's basically
11:31 the acoustic SR-71 so that's what they
11:34 use it for for the rest of 1941 1942
11:36 rolls around they're like oh hey good
11:38 idea this thing can hold 4 000 pounds
11:40 worth of Ordnance what if we just did
11:43 one 500 pound bomb and some extra fuel
11:45 tanks and then we could bomb super deep
11:47 into enemy territory and that's exactly
11:48 what they're gonna do operation Jericho
11:50 a bunch of wooden wonders are going to
11:52 low level penetrate deep into enemy
11:54 territory and deliver a payload
11:57 try saying that with a straight face
11:59 so a bunch of mosquitoes take off to
12:00 Norway they are going to bomb gestapo
12:03 headquarters with 500 pound bombs they
12:04 fly all the way there above the ground
12:07 and or ocean at like a hundred feet make
12:08 it there more or less completely
12:10 undetected and bomb gestapo headquarters
12:12 the only problem was because they were
12:13 so low to the ground they decided that
12:15 they were going to extend the fuse time
12:17 on the bonds because they don't detonate
12:19 on impact they detonate on a timer so
12:21 they extended the timer to 11 seconds to
12:23 allow the planes to get out of the blast
12:25 radius of the bomb so they went ahead
12:26 and they dropped the bombs the bombs
12:28 were a direct hit on the Gestapo
12:30 building the only problem was the fuse
12:32 was a little bit too long and a 500
12:34 pound bomb traveling at like 400 miles
12:36 an hour apparently has enough force in
12:39 it to go through one wall through the
12:41 building and out the other wall and all
12:43 four of the bombs did exactly that
12:45 flying completely through the building
12:47 before detonating so the mission failed
12:49 successfully did they accomplish their
12:51 goal not really but they did prove that
12:52 the mosquitoes were pretty much
12:54 Unstoppable and very accurate so now
12:56 they're going to begin using the
12:58 mosquitoes to nuisance bomb Germany
12:59 every night they're going to begin
13:01 sending out swarms of mosquitoes to bomb
13:02 Germany on their own home turf to begin
13:04 weakening them around and with the
13:05 mosquitoes this works for some reason
13:08 way better than any other plane was ever
13:10 able to do it like the mosquitoes rarely
13:12 ever get caught when they're dropping
13:13 bombs so they're kind of like okay well
13:15 let's try a bigger bomb then and the RAF
13:18 starts using the mosquito to drop the 4
13:20 000 pound Blockbuster bomb on Berlin
13:23 they then proceeded to do
13:25 night for 2 for 220 nights straight
13:27 earning at the nickname the Berlin
13:29 Express and then somebody at the RAF
13:31 finally puts together the fact that
13:33 maybe the mosquitoes are so successful
13:34 at not getting caught on their bombing
13:36 runs not necessarily because it's night
13:37 time and not necessarily because they're
13:39 really fast but because they're made out
13:41 of wood and wood doesn't give off nearly
13:43 as strong of a radar signature as metal
13:45 does which means it stands to reason
13:46 that they would have just as much
13:49 success bombing during the day as they
13:50 would at night which if successful is
13:52 going to be extra demoralizing because
13:54 at this point in time everybody
13:55 understands that there's never bombing
13:57 raids during the daylight because the
13:58 fighter jets would be able to take him
14:00 out immediately but in the case of the
14:02 mosquito if they don't get picked up on
14:04 radar nobody might scramble the fighter
14:06 jets until it's too late so the RAF with
14:08 their Immaculate sense of British humor
14:09 realize that this is a very rare
14:12 opportunity to troll the enemy that they
14:14 cannot afford to waste so British
14:16 intelligence finds out that January 30th
14:19 1943 the Nazis are going to be holding a
14:21 humongous rally to celebrate their
14:23 10-year anniversary of coming to power
14:25 it's going to be huge Hitler's right
14:26 hand man Herman Goring is going to be
14:27 there giving a big speech they're gonna
14:29 put the entire thing out on the radio
14:31 waves so the whole country can hear it
14:33 it's going to be a huge morale boost to
14:35 the Nazis and it probably was right up
14:37 until the RAF sent out the mosquitoes
14:39 and bombed all of the broadcasting
14:41 towers for Berlin so the entire country
14:44 just got to hear explosions screams and
14:46 then the radio cut out forever and then
14:48 the British turned it into an entire
14:50 propaganda thing because not only are we
14:52 hitting you on your own home turf in
14:54 broad daylight it's also in a wooden
14:56 plane so the Nazis are absolutely
14:58 Furious they want to retaliate so they
15:00 ramp up Air Raids on Britain the only
15:02 problem is they can't really pull them
15:05 off in daylight but it is 1943 so they
15:07 have figured out how to put radar in
15:09 their individual fighter planes meaning
15:10 that the night raids are going to be far
15:11 more successful than they ever were
15:13 before or so they thought because guess
15:15 what the British have a plane that's
15:17 pretty much immune to radar so they take
15:19 the mosquito bomber and they turn it
15:21 into the bomber Fighter by putting four
15:23 20 millimeter machine guns in the nose
15:25 plus another other four Browning machine
15:27 guns in the nose and then send them out
15:29 as night Fighters and they proceed to
15:32 absolutely wreck the luftwaffa in night
15:34 combat because they can't be seen by
15:36 radar and they have radar to see them
15:38 then after seeing how incredibly good
15:40 the mosquito was at night fighting the
15:42 RAF had another brilliant idea what if
15:43 they sent out a bunch of mosquito night
15:46 fighters to wait above German airfields
15:49 and then sent out regular bombing raids
15:51 with regular bombers and when those
15:53 bombers got picked up on radar they
15:55 would scramble the German fighters to go
15:57 up and intercept them but the mosquitoes
15:58 would already be above them and
16:00 literally spawn kill the Germans the
16:02 second they got in the air not only did
16:04 this work it virtually shut down the
16:06 left waffles ability to operate at night
16:08 all together and the British were able
16:10 to bomb Germany completely unopposed at
16:12 this point Hermann Goring is sitting in
16:18 find them qualifying okay and you have
16:20 to remember Hermann Goring in World War
16:22 One was a fighter pilot he scored seven
16:24 kills in World War one making him an ace
16:27 so like the whole aerial combat thing is
16:29 like his ballpark so the fact that the
16:31 RAF is having a Warheads on foreheads
16:33 Extravaganza and there's nothing he can
16:36 do about it is driving him absolutely
16:38 insane and then you sprinkle on top the
16:39 fact that he's over there with his
16:42 Superior German engineering and the RAF
16:44 is just dunking on him and his men in
16:46 what amounts to a pinewood derby plane
16:48 this man is about to lose his mind so he
16:50 creates a special division of the
16:53 luftwaffa whose sole purpose is to find
16:56 and destroy the mosquitoes okay they're
16:58 already struggling in the war and this
17:00 man has now just cut out an entire
17:02 section of his Air Force to do nothing
17:04 but hunt down these wooden planes and
17:07 try to destroy him needless to say it
17:09 fails miserably so at this point Herman
17:10 goring's like well if I can't beat him
17:12 I've gotta join him so he orders his men
17:15 to build him a wooden plane and they
17:17 straight up copy the mosquito like so so
17:19 much so that they also call it the
17:21 mosquito but they just spell it with a K
17:23 like straight up yeah you can copy my
17:25 homework but make it look a little bit
17:27 different that's what they did so they
17:29 get the mosquito with a K built into the
17:31 surprise of absolutely nobody it's a
17:32 pretty awesome plane but then guess what
17:34 happens to it you're never gonna guess
17:37 what happens to the German mosquito a
17:40 bunch of high ranking Nazis politicians
17:42 get together and they're like I don't
17:43 think a wooden plane's a good idea I
17:46 want big metal planes with metal armor
17:47 and a bunch of machine guns all over
17:49 them because that's the way to go the
17:52 same political BS that shut down the
17:54 British mosquito 10 years prior is now
17:56 holding up the Nazis so much so that
17:57 they don't even get their first test
18:00 flight in until June of 1944 which is
18:02 way too late in the war for the Nazis to
18:03 begin making a new type of plane and
18:05 mass producing it so that's it the
18:07 Germans never really got their version
18:09 of the mosquito they ended up losing
18:11 World War II everybody lived happily
18:13 ever after so I guess while it was
18:15 politicians with teeny hands it
18:16 prevented the British from getting the
18:19 mosquito on time it was also
18:20 politicians that prevented the Nazis
18:22 from getting the mosquito on time so
18:25 everything kind of equals out in a weird
18:27 roundabout kind of way in conclusion
18:28 that to have a mosquito at a glance
18:30 might appear to be this one-off weird
18:31 thing that happened one time during
18:33 World War II but in reality it is
18:35 probably the single most important and
18:37 influential aircraft in aviation history
18:39 you see all planes today are not built
18:41 with the ideology that they need to have
18:43 armor and machine guns in order to take
18:45 a hit and return fire at least most of
18:46 them aren't foreign
18:48 foreign
18:51 much rather be so fast that they can't
18:52 be caught or so sneaky that they never
18:55 get seen and that entire strategy was
18:57 pioneered by a wooden plane in World War
18:58 II known as a de Havilland mosquito
19:00 thank you for watching best way to
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19:03 over at the fat electrician.com quack
19:06 bang out also the more I study history
19:08 the more absolutely positive I become
19:12 the reason they have to run for office
19:14 is because they can't walk and shoot
19:21 okay no seriously it's like the saying
19:23 oh you can lead a horse to water but you
19:25 can't make him drink except the horse is
19:27 somehow your boss that you're for some
19:29 reason partially responsible for hiring
19:31 but also you have no authority to Fire
19:33 and now the horse is like making all
19:35 these amazing stock trades with top
19:37 secret information that only the horse
19:39 could know which is illegal but also the
19:41 horse gets to determine what's illegal
19:42 so you have no standing to do anything
19:44 about it even though you hired the horse
19:50 I do
19:51 go buy a shirt at the fat electrician.com
19:52 electrician.com thanks
