During the course of aviation history, there have been very few aircraft
that have achieved immediate success when entering front-line service.
The arrival of the de Havilland Mosquito brought with it a degree of
instant success that set it apart from a host of other aircraft. It was
not designed to an RAF requirement, but was the result of an initiative
of the designers and builders to utilize the skills of woodworkers and
the relative abundance of wood in the crisis years of World War II.
The result was an aircraft that could be built quickly, was extremely
fast and immensely versatile. Pilots loved it and the opportunities
opened up to them as a result of the capabilities of this new and
exciting aircraft. Here, Graham Simons describes in detail how the de
Havilland Mosquito was built, utilizing many rare photographs from the
design studio and production lines. It illustrates and explains the many
different roles that the aircraft took as the war progressed. Fighter,
bomber, reconnaissance, night fighter - there were few tasks that this
brilliant design could not adopt.