Highball, tested on land???

[Agaricus bisporus]

I've just learned that the Highball bouncing bomb was allegedly tested on land. Indeed, there is film on youtube of this - and the results to the poor sod in the Mossie that dropped it...but why?

And where? An airfield in East Anglia was mentioned, but surely such a weapon would carry on for miles on dry land - much further than the boundaries of an airfield?

Any clues?

[bvcu]

The drop tests for the Lancaster were at Ashley walk range in the New Forest .I believe one of the test ones was recovered and restored and is on display, but i forget which museum .

[S'land]

I seem to recall that there were trials in April 1943 at Ashley Walk with the Mosquito as well. I think that this was to do with a possible raid on the Dortmund Ems canal, but my memory is a bit hazy about the Mosquito/Highball project.

I believe that the Yorkshire Air Museum had a Highball that they had recovered from a mine shaft in Wales, but again this is only a very hazy memory.

[DeepestSouth]

Chapter 7 of Sharp and Bowyer's excellent 'Mosquito' is devoted to Highball development (including an excellent diagrammatic drawing of the installation, weapon and bomb sight.

It records that releases were made at Ashley Walk on 19 April 1943 against an armoured wall with the store in a new case packed with aerated resin. Most of the rest of the trials seem to have been water drops at Reculver, Loch Striven, Loch Cairnbawm, Wells Next The Sea, and Sinclair Bay. There was another land test, in early September 1943, though. It was conducted by Sqn Ldr Longbottom and he managed to get 4 out of 12 Highballs to roll the length of a tunnel near Haverfordwest. To show their value, two were then blown up in a reinforced tunnel in North Wales.

If you are interested in Highball, it's worth reading the whole chapter.

[Flap40]

Looking at that youtube video I am fairly certain that is not a Mossie that gets its tail taken off. The tail looks too big and the engines look like radials. It looks more like an A26 to me.

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

It is an A26

[Agaricus bisporus]

Yea, you're right, I hadn't looked too closely (couldn't bear to) it is an A26.

The airfiled I was told featured in land drops was Beccles in Suffolk. personally I doubt this as it was never used by the USAF or RAF and was only ever a part time airfield for the FAA for walruses and suchlike.

Any views on this?

[DeepestSouth]

Agarus,

You're partly right - but Beccles was used by the reconstructed 618 Sqn which moved from Wick to Beccles in August 1944 whilst its Mk IVs were being modified at Airspeed and Marshalls - new Merlin 25s, armour plating, air turbines, wind screens and arrester hooks - which was completed in Sep 1944. The intention was to use 618 for anti-shipping operations in the Pacific - code name Oxtail. Beccles was marked out for deck landing training and a ship was also painted on the runway. The Sqn used 10 Mk VIs and the Mosquito's made dummy attacks dropping sashlight bulbs. The run and height were then checked. The Squadron appears to have stayed at Beccles until it moved to Turnberry on 2 October for weapons training.

A full-scale practice attack on Scapa from Beccles was considered but not carried out. It looks as though the whole Sqn, with 24 Mk Ivs and 3 PR versions, embarked on HMS Fencer and HMS Striker from Glasgow on 31 Oct 1944, reaching Melbourne on 23 Dec and then on to Narromine. No missions were flown, though, and the Sqn disbanded with the Highballs (125 of them) being destroyed statically.

Source for the above : Sharp and Bowyer again!

[phil gollin]

A bit additional.

618 squadron was intended to deploy operationally on Implacable (but never did).

The Highball Mosquitoes were rated for one on-board arrested landing only (!) but the PR versions were supposedly fully carrier rated.

(From ADM files).

.

[Schiller]

An old CO of mine in the Navy served at the end of the war in a Sea Mosquito squadron. They worked up in preparation for going to sea until one day someone told them the squadron was to be disbanded. Apart from a trial deck-landing (the first British twin-engined DL), the aircraft never went to sea as a front line squadron.
The reason, he was told many years later, was that although careful measurements had shown that a folded aircraft would in theory fit down the lift, nobody had taken into account the fact that the props (four-bladed) would not, however they were rotated. Whether this was true or not, I don't know.

[chevvron]

Not getting confused with Upkeep and Highball are we? Upkeep was the cylindrical weapon used in the dams raid and could only be used on water, whereas Highball was much smaller (a Mossie could carry two) and had a rubberised spherical casing which enabled it to be used on land OR water. Haven't you seen the film 'Mosquito Squadron'? I know the film set was at Bovingdon, but I'm not sure if they actually dropped an imitation Highball there.

[DeepestSouth]

Just responding to S'Lands comment about the targets, when 618 formed on 1 Apr 1943 the planned target was the Tirpitz in Alten Fjord, with the raid launched from Sumburgh and planned for 15 May. Highball was similar to Upkeep but was an anti-shipping weapon usually referred to as 'The Naval Store'. The original plan was to use Beauforts to drop it but the Mossie was a better bet!

During the trials at Loch Striven about half the weapons were lost because of release gear problems and the planned raid was abandoned although tests were to continue.

Incidentally, it appears that there was a Mk II Highball, for use by Sea Mosquitos and Sea Hornets.

There was apparently a real fear that if Highball was used then the enemy would learn the secret. The Germans apparently thought that the Dams Raid weapons were rocket bombs.

[wz662]

In the booklet 'Ashley Walk' (ISBN 0 9523888 5 5) by Anthony Passmore and Norman Parker there is a series of three photographs of a Highball drop against the small 'No 3' target (which it hit).

[Brewster Buffalo]

The Germans apparently thought that the Dams Raid weapons were rocket bombs.Not so see this

YouTube - Dambuster Raid -Germany tests their own bouncing bomb! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93AQQ9qYoQo)

[DeepestSouth]

Thanks BB - absolutely fascinating. Once again Sword of PPrune Is Wielded in the Cause of Truth! I hadn't seen that clip before. My myth-take!

DS

[aviate1138]

When we were making Mosquito Squadron all those years ago we had a visit from one of Barnes Wallis' team. I think his name was Startup. He came with a can of 35m/m film. While he was explaining various points he told us about the Highball tests in Wales. Apparently one Highball was aimed into a railway tunnel and it travelled the entire length and then burst through a protective brick wall and into a Welsh village street. No one was injured but there was quite a lot of damage. A Mosquito delivered the Highball. Rotation was forwards not back as in the water version istr.

Does anyone know if this really did happen or was it just a story to open the eyes of a gullible film crew?

The locations were at Minley Manor and in the back field of the Queen's Arms opposite Bray Studios and at Malta Film Facilities at Kalkara. Bovingdon was where we kept 4 Mosquitos [Flying!] and some airfield action stuff. Battle of Britain arrived there as well, so at one time the airfield had most of BoB aircraft + their B25 plus 4 Mossies and the Farnborough Shackleton which was our camera aircraft.

Where is that Time Machine???

[Windy Militant]

You live and learn, I'd heard about the bomb fragment but hadn't heard about the trials.

Sites with Artifacts of Barnes Wallis (http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/irmurray/wallissites.asp)

Apparently Two went through the tunnel while seven hit the portal.

Maenclochog Tunnel (http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/61686)

http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/irmurray/pictures/haverfordwesthighball.jpg

[ICT_SLB]

Slightly off subject, but there was a Tall Boy or Grand Slam lying outside the museum at Fort Lewis, Washington State, USA in the 1980s. It was not identified as such but had been recovered from the ranges. As it was basically undamaged, my guess is that it was jettisoned from the carrier aircraft (a B-17?) well below the usual drop altitude perhaps immediately after takeoff from McChord AFB which is adjacent to Lewis.

[IFPS man]

Hi, Forumites:
Found this old thread and thought I'd add my two pennyworth; I recently went to the Photographic Archives at Hendon with a second cousin of "Shorty" Longbottom, a Vickers wartime test-pilot, and had a look at a couple of rolls of Vickers film on Upkeep/Highball testing.
What was amazing was the filming of the drops into the tunnel in Wales. Longbottom had flown to the airfield at Angle before the actual testing... The camera was very close to the tunnel entrance, and one can see quite easily those which entered the tunnel, and those which went off course. Some ricoched around the entrance to the tunnel and bounced up and over a hill - in all, most fascinating
Andy IFPS man