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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Julia Shuvalova on behalf of Mr Thomas Edwards, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

Herman Goering — in addition to being peeved by Luftwaffe ace Adolph Galland’s requisition for a ‘a Squadron of Spitifres’ — was also stung by the arrival, from 1941, of the de Havilland Mosquito. This wonderful aeroplane was built almost entirely of plywood, bonded by adhesive. According to the Mosquito Association magazine, he said: ‘I turned yellow and green with envy when I saw a Mosquito. The British are knocking together a beautiful wooden aircraft in every piano factory.’

And not only piano manufacturers. After the war, at an art exhibition I was approached by a cheerful individual who, after admiring a selection of aircraft paintings, said he used to build Mosquito nose cones. ‘Where did you do this?’ I asked. ‘At an undertakers’ was the reply. ‘I was a coffin maker.’

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