‘F’ for Freddie
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
“Eye-witnesses to the crash told how F-for-Freddie’s rubber dinghy dropped out, inflated automatically and landed, as neatly and naturally as though something had gone wrong over the North Sea” so the local newspapers reported. Except it wasn’t over the North Sea. It was in the middle of a cattle pasture and not far from a poultry farm on the prairie near Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It was certainly nowhere near anywhere a rubber dinghy would have been of any conceivable use. It was also thousands of miles away from the hostile skies of Europe where this particular aircraft had flown a record 213 missions before the war there had officially ended just two days before.
A few hundred yards away, what was left of the battle weary de Havilland Mosquito, nicknamed ‘F’ for Freddie, was still burning while the unimpeded prairie wind scattered the black smoke to nothingness.
The war in Europe may have come to an end but the bills were still coming due. To help pay them, the Canadian government had organized the 8th in a series of Victory Loan drives. Victory Loans were war bonds by another name — they provided an opportunity for ordinary citizens to lend their money at a fair rate to their own government in order to help finance the witheringly expensive war. In doing so, purchasers of the bonds could reasonably claim to be supporting the war effort even if they were unable to serve in any other capacity. As the war drew to a close, however, maintaining enthusiasm for war bonds required steadily more aggressive promotion to meet the quotas set by the government. The Calgary Herald for example, in their Victory-in-Europe edition on May 8th, 1945, reported the city had reached only $5.1 million of the $6.3 million expected of it. The results were similar across Canada. It was clear the National War Finance Committee was going to have to up its game if the quotas were to be met.
What was needed was a little star power to help spark renewed interest in the bonds. Amongst the brightest at the time were the air crews of the Allied Forces some of which were still flying over Europe. One crew and airplane in particular had captured the public’s imagination. It was a battered de Havilland Mosquito marked with the single identifying letter F. Or simply ‘F’ for Freddie as the aircraft came to be known. In a time when some aircraft and crews only managed a handful of missions before being taken out of the fight, Freddie had flown over 100 successfully in less than a year since its first mission on June 21st, 1943. It was eventually crewed by Flight Lieutenant Maurice Briggs and Flying Officer John Baker who together went on to complete 107 missions of their own in ‘F’ for Freddie. The young, dashing, photogenic RAF pilots and, for its day, state-of-the-art aircraft were quite the draw. What’s more, Briggs had a Canadian connection: he had trained near Calgary as part of the Empire Air Training Program which had a number of bases in Alberta at the time. As the war wound down, Briggs and Baker were assigned to ferry Canadian-made Mosquitos to Europe from the de Havilland Canada plant in Downsview, Ontario. So getting Freddie to Canada would be relatively easy for the pilots who were well versed in the Trans-Atlantic ferry route.
Taking all of that into account Briggs, Baker and their famous plane were summoned to undertake a tour across Canada to drum up support for Victory Loans.
In response to a specification from the British Air Ministry issued in 1936, the de Havilland Aircraft Company submitted a proposal for an all new twin engine light bomber. What made the de Havilland proposal unique was their aircraft would be made almost entirely out of wood. While it’s possible that de Havilland somehow foresaw how short the supply of more conventional materials would become, it’s more likely they saw their innovative approach to wood construction as the best way to meet the specification. With their previous DH.88 Comet race place and their DH.91 Albatross airliner, de Havilland had developed a method of laying up strips of wood in a cement mould much the same as carbon fibre would be used today. The resulting structure was remarkably strong and light. The construction technique also enabled more exotic, visually attractive and more aerodynamically efficient compound curves to be incorporated into the aircraft’s final shape.
Given they were expecting more conventional proposals, the Air Ministry was initially reluctant to accept the radical de Havilland design. In time, however, the aircraft company was able to convince the Ministry of the approach, given the prospective performance of the new aircraft. Their case was undoubtely aided by the notion that in the event the crazy idea actually worked, the primary building material was in abundant supply. It literally grew on trees even if those trees were in very remote places such as British Columbia, Canada from where a great deal of the wood for the Mosquitos would eventually come.
Subsequent to a period of prototype development, in June of 1941, the British Air Ministry authorized mass production of what was eventually christened the DH.98 Mosquito. Once the aircraft began to appear in numbers and more than lived up to already high expectations of performance, the Mosquito was quickly — and inevitably — dubbed The Wooden Wonder. It was light, strong and gloriously overpowered by two Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12 engines, the same engine as the legendary Spitfire and P-51 Mustang. As a result of its light weight, slippery organic shape and all that horsepower the Mosquito was, above all, fast — capable of nearly 400 miles-per-hour in level flight. Well over 7000 Mosquitos were eventually produced in Britain, Canada and Australia. They fulfilled a broad range of roles ultimately making it one of the most versatile aircraft in service during the war. It’s stunning performance and superb flying characteristics also made it much loved by its crews.
Given all that history and fresh off of what it had accomplished in World War II, the opportunity to see any Mosquito—but in particular ‘F’ for Freddie — was sure to draw a crowd virtually anywhere it appeared.
Briggs and Baker were not going to miss the opportunity to do something remarkable as they deployed to Canada for their Victory Loan public relations tour. As such, they set a speed record on the 2000 mile, non-stop leg from Greenland to Rockcliffe airport near Ottawa, where they arrived on May 2nd, 1945. The leg had taken them just a little over five hours. While at Rockcliffe they met with organizers of the Victory Loan tour including a British liason officer by the name of Captain H.J. Pringle. Oddly, Pringle formerly requested Canada’s Department of Transport waive their regulations about minimum permissible altitudes at which ‘F’ for Freddie could fly over the built-up areas which were going to be on the route of the tour. Perhaps surprisingly by the congenitally cautious Canadians, that permission was granted. Captain Pringle provided an obligatory admonishment to Briggs presumably with an RAF wink: under no circumstances was he to indulge in “an exhibition of stunting, low flying or of his own personal skill as a stunt pilot.”
The F for Freddie Victory Loan tour stops were going to be quite the shows, apparently.
The first such stop was in nearby Montreal and there were immediately complaints about how Freddie was being flown over the city. Flight Lieutenant Briggs was again provided with a warning about “unnecessary low flying or exhibitionism.” There is no way of knowing what those who didn’t complain about the flying display thought, but a reasonable guess was they loved every second of it as the tour continued unabated. Briggs, Baker and Freddie made stops in Toronto on May 5th and Downsview on May 6th. There, an additional crew member was seconded to the team, a flight engineer by the name of Captain Edward Jack. He would go along with Freddie to address any maintenance problems which would undoubtedly arise from time-to-time.
‘F’ for Freddie then flew on to Winnipeg on May 7th. Captain Jack did not fly with them on that particular leg, joining them later after taking a commercial Trans-Canada Airways flight. After its flying displays in Winnipeg were over, on May 9th, Freddie departed Winnipeg with the ultimate destination of Calgary. Edward Jack was somehow squeezed into the cramped, two seat Mosquito for the trip. Presumably that was on either one or both of the pilot’s laps given the only other alternative for transporting a third crew member was in the windowless bomb bay. That could hardly have been an enticing prospect for Jack considering it was going to be an all day trip. This would include, of course, periodic violent gyrations from Briggs maneuvering the aircraft on the ragged edge of its flight envelope.
It was indeed a marathon flight that day. On their way to Calgary ‘F’ for Freddie gave exhibitions, along with short ground stops, in Regina and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. While enroute, they also performed similar short flying displays as they passed over the rural prairie towns of Yorkton, Weyburn, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Prince Albert and North Battleford. Briggs was reported to have transited between demonstrations at speeds approaching the Mosquito’s maximum and below 200 feet above what the crew must have assumed was empty prairie. By the time they reached Calgary at about 7.30 on that chilly Spring evening, Freddie had been in the air for about eight-and-a-half hours.
However, as they arrived the crew of ‘F’ for Freddie were once again not going to miss an opportunity to make a showy arrival. With a population of around 100,000, Calgary was a moderately sized city by Canadian prairie standards—a little larger than Lethbridge is today. The tallest building at the time was the Palliser Hotel at 12 storeys. Briggs lined up on it and then streaked past the stunned guests at a level where those staying on the upper floors would actually have looked down on Freddie as it thundered by at full throttle. Apparently not satisfied with that thrilling entrance, Briggs went around again, this time treating the Royal Canadian Air Force staff, temporarily working on the 6th floor of The Hudsons Bay Company, to a clear view of the still camouflaged upper surfaces of Freddie. Although it does begin to stretch the bounds of credibility, there were even reports of the Mosquito flying under a trestle bridge which spanned the Bow River back then.
After its spectacular entrance Freddie then departed downtown for the Calgary Municipal Airport in the northeast — where the international airport is today. When it arrived, it made as many as six low altitude, high speed passes much to the giddy glee of the military personnel housed in Release Centre №7 which was immediately adjacent to the airfield. An expectant crowd had gathered to welcome ‘F’ for Freddie, lured in part by the promise that purchasers of war bonds would be able to write their name in chalk on the fabled aircraft. Many of them did.
Briggs, Baker and Jack would have then made their way downtown to their accommodation at the Palliser. Briggs was due to attend the supper dance scheduled for that Wednesday evening. There, he met up with Miss Evelyn Powlan to whom Briggs had first been introduced during his training stint in Calgary a couple of years prior. The two had corresponded regularly in the intervening period. Whether there were any romantic intentions we do not know but there was enough between them that Briggs invited Powlan to the airport the next day. There she would watch ‘F’ for Freddie’s departure to the flying displays scheduled for Red Deer and Lethbridge that Thursday afternoon. She did, in fact, make that trip to the airport the next day.
There may also have been a whiff of international intrigue in the air at the Palliser that night. There were reports that a delegation of the Kuomintang government from China were in town in part to see the Mosquito. This was with a view to potentially purchasing them for the Kuomintang’s looming fight with the Communists for the future of China. Amongst the delegates was supposed to have been a tall, attractive woman who caught Briggs’ eye. She too may have received an invitation to see Freddie off the next day.
Briggs and Baker were back on duty at noon on Thursday where they attended a Victory Loan luncheon at the Palliser before heading back to the airport. They had intended to depart at 2.45 for their flying exhibitions. However, when the pilots arrived at the airfield Edward Jack had the upper cowlings of the Mosquito removed and was dealing with some minor maintenance issues. While it may have taken a little longer than Captain Jack wanted, at shortly before 4.00 in the afternoon he signed off Freddie as ready for the afternoon’s flight to Red Deer and Lethbridge.
Edward Jack was supposed to accompany Briggs on that trip, sitting in the right seat instead of Baker. It was an offer that any ground crew member would have jumped at in an instant. However on that particular afternoon — either feeling tired or otherwise ‘not well’ from the previous night’s social activities? — Jack decided to take a pass on the ride-along. Instead of climbing up and into Freddie as planned, Edward Jack instead assisted Briggs and Baker up the ladder which extended from the entry hatch in the forward belly of the aircraft’s fuselage. Jack would then have closed the small door behind the pilots as they settled into their familiar positions in the Mosquito cockpit.
Briggs would then have fired up the Merlins in a clattering, throaty symphony punctuated with the snap of stack fire. He would then have taxied Freddie out and lined up on the runway into the steadily freshening north wind. Briggs would push the throttles to the forward stops triggering the full howl of the engines to the delight of the crowd which had again assembled at the airport. This included the star-crossed Evelyn Powlan from the Palliser the night before. Shortly thereafter, ‘F’ for Freddie was in the air, effortlessly climbing and accelerating as it headed northwards towards its first exhibition stop.
The control tower at the Calgary Municipal Airport consisted of a small, one storey superstructure built on top and at the corner of a two storey hangar. The walls of the extra storey consisted mostly of windows which offered an unimpeded view of aircraft operations both on the ground and in the air. To protect those who routinely launched weather balloons from the tower there was a metal railing extending three or four feet up from the roof. As modest as this tower was compared to the spires in use at modern airports, at the time it was still the tallest built up structure on the field.
Briggs was not going to leave the crowd at Release Centre №7 without something with which to remember their unwelcome wait in Calgary as they awaited demobilization from military service. At least some of them knew Briggs personally from his previous visits to Calgary in 1943. The people on the ground must therefore have been intrigued to see that instead of continuing northwards on their flight, Briggs instead turned Freddie around and took dead aim and dove at the control tower at full power. The crowd must have wondered how it was all going to end short of some sort of miracle. Briggs flew Freddie to within 300 feet of the tower before quickly pulling up and blowing past it with what must have seemed like inches to spare. As heart stopping as that moment was, there was more in store. Briggs once again brought Freddie around and repeated the maneouvre. It was at this point that at least some of the observers in the glass house of the control tower left, not being able to further stomach the thrill of the intentional near misses.
The show appeared to be over except, at that moment, Briggs contacted the tower to say that a ‘friend’ had just pulled up in a car and that he would come around for a third and final pass before heading out to the exhibition flights.
As Briggs, Baker and Freddie approached the tower on that third pass, the wind was blowing 28 miles-per-hour from north to south. This was roughly aligned with the aircraft’s flight path as it descended from the north. In other words, it was a 28 mile-per-hour tailwind. Assuming Briggs had the Mosquito going flat out at 400 miles-per-hour, the tailwind would have distorted what the pilots were seeing out of the cockpit by something like seven percent. Things would happen seven percent faster than they might have expected although a highly experienced pilot like Briggs would easily and instinctively been able to cope with the discrepancy.
But then there is the question of the mysterious ‘friend in the car’ who some say was the woman from the Kuomintang delegation he might have met the previous night. Did Briggs glance away for a split second to see if it was her? Did he then take another split second to mentally adjust to the tailwind when he looked back to the flight path?
We will, of course, never know.
For those still standing in the glass control tower the first indication of something having gone horribly wrong was a sickening thud followed immediately by splintered wood falling past the windows and to the ground at the foot of the control tower.
Other witnesses reported seeing ‘F’ for Freddie strike the structure on top of the control tower resulting in a severe loss of control. It’s impossible to know that even if there had been no further contact with ground structure whether Freddie would have been sufficiently controllable to enable some sort of emergency landing. That theory was never tested because given it was out of control Freddie went on to strike a mast which sheared off the right wing at the root and thus sealed the fate of the crew. The speed at which Freddie was flying at the moment of impact was such that the fuselage and the remaining left wing were hurled another quarter of a mile south of the tower, near where the field commissary was located. ‘F’ for Freddie slammed into the bottom of the coulee running diagonally across Thomas Pallesen’s dairy farm only narrowly missing the farmhouse. The severed right wing landed more-or-less intact some distance from the main impact site.
With its almost entirely wooden structure soaked in aviation gasoline and oil, ‘F’ for Freddie started to burn immediately and was quickly engulfed in flames. Other than its engines and other metal structure, the aircraft was burned to black, smoking ash in a matter of minutes.
Mrs. May Pultz, her daughter-in-law Mrs. Helen Pultz and Helen’s sister Mrs. G.S. Miller were sitting having tea at the North Trail poultry farm when they too heard the unmistakable sound of something awful happening outside on the airfield. There had been other accidents and they had a distinctive, sickening, terrible sound. The three women ran outside to see the wreckage of ‘F’ for Freddie already being overtaken by fire at the bottom of Pallesen’s coulee. Setting aside any consideration for their own safety, the three women ran towards the wreckage only to discover there was nothing they could do when they arrived. Shortly after, personnel from Release Centre №7 arrived on scene and perhaps with the fire already starting to burn itself out, they somehow managed to pull the burning bodies of Briggs and Baker from the flames.
It quickly became apparent that mercifully neither pilot had survived either the impact with the structure while they were still in the air or when their sticken aircraft hit the ground.
Just two days later, on May 12th, 1945, Flight Lieutenant Maurice Briggs and Flying Officer John Baker were memorialized with full military honours in a ceremony held at the Cathedral Church of the Redeemer in Calgary. They were interred at nearby Burnsland cemetery, where their memorial stones can still be found.
©2019 Terence C. Gannon
Thank you so much for reading. You can also listen to this essay as an episode of the Not There Yet podcast, read by the author.
