Mosquito Men : The Elite Pathfinders of 627 Squadron

Nicknamed The ‘Wooden Wonder’ for its timber frame and superb performance, the de Havilland Mosquito ranks alongside the Spitfire, the Hurricane and the Lancaster as one of the RAF’s greatest-ever flying machines. Novel in design, operationally flexible and exceptionally fast, it inflicted mayhem on the German war machine as night-fighter, fighter-bomber and pathfinder.

Mosquito Men traces the contrasting careers of the young men of 627 Squadron, including that of Ken Oatley – last surviving member of an illustrious group – who flew twenty-two operations in Mosquitos as a navigator. Rich in technically authoritative accounts of individual missions, David Price’s atmospheric narrative interweaves individual stories with events in the wider war as the Allies closed in on Germany from the summer of 1944.

For those fans of the Mosquito aircraft recently described by Rowland White, Mosquito Men will add the human element to this iconic plane.