DARING OF THE WWII DAYLIGHT BOMBER

Hero airman's medals for sale

- DAN WARBURTON

FLIGHT Lieutenant Raymond Birkett’s Mosquito roared low over the art gallery, dumping incendiary bombs into the already ruined structure, and fled back to Blighty.

It was no wanton vandalism the Kleykamp Art Gallery in the Hague, Netherlands, was then a Nazi HQ.

Containing Dutch population records, the Nazis were using it to check falsified IDs carried by the Dutch Resistance. 

Hence the daring raid by Flight Lt Birkett and comrades on April 11, 1944.

The first two Mosquitos swept in at rooftop height and dropped 500lb bombs on the building, opening it up.