Why German Pilots Couldn't Explain How Britain's Fastest Bomber Was Made Of Wood

Discover the extraordinary true story of the de Havilland Mosquito, the aircraft the Luftwaffe could not catch, could not copy, and could not explain. Known as the Wooden Wonder, the Mosquito was built entirely from wood by British furniture makers, cabinetmakers, and piano craftsmen during the Second World War, and it became the fastest operational aircraft of its era. Rejected repeatedly by the Air Ministry and saved only by Air Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman, the Mosquito outran every German fighter in the sky, carried out the first daylight RAF raid on Berlin in nineteen forty three, served as a night fighter, Pathfinder, and precision strike aircraft, and finished the war with the lowest loss rate of any bomber in RAF Bomber Command. This documentary explores how Geoffrey de Havilland designed an aircraft that defied every convention in military aviation, how the skilled woodworkers of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire shaped its fuselage from birch plywood and Ecuadorean balsa, how the Germans tried and failed to build their own wooden copy, and why Hermann Goering himself raged with envy at a conference of his own aircraft designers when confronted with what the British had achieved. Featuring the stories of Squadron Leader Reggie Reynolds, Group Captain Percy Pickard, Wing Commander Branse Burbridge, Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennett, and the countless men and women who built and flew the Mosquito, this is the history of an aircraft that was dismissed as a folly and became a legend.