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