De Haviland Museum

The de Havilland DH88 Mosquito is one of the most unusual military aircraft of any period.  It was first flown in 1940 and first saw service in 1941.  Its roles encompassed day or night bomber, reconnaissance, fighter and night fighter and pathfinder.  As an aside, in BOAC colours and with crew in BOAC uniforms, it also flew vital engineering bearings from neutral Sweden to the UK and brought physicist Neils Bohr from Scandinavia to Britain.

It was very light, was powered by two Rolls Royce Merlin engines, equal to half a Lancaster or two Spitfires, and could exceed 400 miles an hour. The reason for its light weigh was that it was constructed very largely from wood, individual components being produced by furniture factories whose usual work had been suspended "for the duration" during the war.  The fuselage was a sandwich of a layer of balsa wood between two skins of plywood, and its wing was an intricate wooden frame covered with Irish linen and then doped -  Biggles would have been at home here.

Almost 8000 Mosquitos were produced and went on to serve in many allied air forces.  They continued in service until the arrival of the jet powered Vampire in 1950.

The Mosquito we are talking about today was built in 1945, saw limited active service but remained in the RAF in Europe until 1950   It was restored by the de Havilland Museum over a period of almost  50 years. The Museum is based in the very premises in which the Mosquito was designed, Salisbury Hall, the home of the de Havilland family just south of the M25 in Hertfordshire, which, in 1940, was a safer location than the main factory in Hatfield.

The early years of the rstoiration work were spent gathering components, and activity often sank into abeyance as other projects took priority.  Our Mosquito, TA 122, a bomber and fighter/night fighter, was sold ex service in June 1950 to Delft Museum of Technology, for £15, minus engines, armament and instruments. The idea was to use it to instruct students on airframe technology.  To make it fit in its new home, the wing was sawn off either side of the fuselage.  By 1965 TA122 had been moved to the store of a military museum, still in Holland.

Around this time the de Havilland Museum was beginning to expand and was looking for a fighter-bomber to fill a gap in its collection.  TA122 was prised out of its Dutch storage and brought to Salisbury Hall, albeit anything but complete.  A wing was sourced from Israel, with radiators and undercarriage and this assembly was flown to Heathrow courtesy of El Al.  Other components came from Canada, Australia, New Zealand. Work on the wing began in 1985, led by Colin Ewer who had worked on the de Havilland production line in 1946.  It took 15 years.

The wing and fuselage were re-united in March 2009.  Engine and propellers were fitted in 2014.  Although she is a static exhibit, all electrical systems are in working order following a complete rewiring. 

She is painted in her 1945 605 Squadron colours and stands as a remarkable testament to the astonishing efforts of the team at the de Havilland Museum, Preservationists of the Year for 2025.