What it was like to pilot a real-life de Havilland Mosquito from The Shepherd
George Stewart, who turns 95 next month, flew more than 50 sorties over Germany during WW II
This story was originally published on Dec 24, 2018.
George Stewart says he still "vividly" remembers the first time he went out on a de Havilland Mosquito 75 years ago.
It was Sept. 1, 1943, and Stewart was just 19 years old. At 11 tonnes and with a frame made of mostly wood, the British combat aircraft was one of the fastest aircraft in the world.
"I could not believe that my fondest wish was being answered to fly a Mosquito," Stewart, 94, told As It Happens host Carol Off.
"Getting it started up and that roar is something I'll never forget of two engines, you know, 1,650 horsepower — so loud. But then taking off? Wow. It went from being just a lump to a racehorse."
The Second World War aircraft is the same one flown by the ghost of Johnny Kavanagh in Frederick Forsyth's 1975 Christmas novella The Shepherd, which airs every holiday season on CBC Radio's As It Happens, read by late host "Fireside" Al Maitland.
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In The Shepherd, Kavanagh spends an eternal afterlife flying his Mosquito to save desperate pilots from otherwise untimely ends.
Stewart may not have spent eternity in a Mosquito — but he came pretty close.
The Canadian veteran flew 50 sorties over Germany during the war from his base just north of Norwich. That's just a few kilometres from where the fictitious Merriam St. George airbase in The Shepherd would be located.
"I can definitely relate to it," Stewart said of the story. "I think it was such an incredible way of showing the British spirit in the way they survived the war."
The night intruders
Stewart's role in the war was as a "night intruder" — pilots who provided bomber support during air raids.
"People like me, night intruders, would go to the German night fighter aerodrome, from which the night fighters that were attacking our bombers had operated," he said.
"And we would circle that airfield from about 500 feet up to about 3,000 feet and just keep circling, letting them know that we're there."
Then, after patrolling for an hour, they would "dive in and drop these two bombs on their nice runway and get away as soon as we could."
It was both exhilarating and terrifying, he said.
"We thought of two things. First we might have joy. In other words, we might shoot an enemy airplane down. Second, we might die," he said.
"The German night fighters were terrified of us. If they shot us down, it counted double, so we were pretty careful there."
Mid-air collision
Stewart says he lost some of his fellow Mosquito pilots during those German sorties, but his own closest call came during a training exercise at the Royal Canadian Air Force camp in Centralia, Ont., on Feb. 19, 1943.
"I did have a little thing," he said. "It was called a mid-air collision."
Stewart said his plane's nose crashed into the other aircraft's left wing, while his right wing hit its tail, flipping the other plane upside down.
"He landed on his back in the field and I slammed into the ground ahead of him," he said. "I felt terrible. I was almost in tears because I'd killed a guy. You could hardly recognize it as an aircraft."
But then something caught his eye.
"There was somebody hanging out of it and swearing like a trooper," Stewart said. "It was the instructor and he was swearing because the blood was getting all over his best bluest uniform. Oh my god."
The other student, he said, was trapped amid the wreckage, but they were able to pull him out. Both the instructor and the student were injured, but alive.
Stewart came out unscathed, but the spectacle of the collision was so great that rumours of his demise quickly spread.
"I remember taking my parachute and crossing the hangar to go to my locker when some of my classmates were coming across the hangar and they looked and said, 'Hey, but you're dead!'" he said.
"I said, 'No, not quite.'"
Written by Sheena Goodyear. Produced by Kevin Ball.