Chapter 9 Freeman’s Folly: The Debate over the Development of the “Unarmed Bomber” and the Genesis of the de Havilland Mosquito, 1935–1940 Sebastian Cox The de Havilland Mosquito is, justifiably, considered one of the most famous and effective military aircraft of the Second World War. The Mosquito’s devel- opment is usually portrayed as being a story of a determined and independent aircraft company producing a revolutionary design with very little input com- ing from the official Royal Air Force design and development process, which normally involved extensive consultation between the Air Ministry’s technical staff and the aircraft’s manufacturer, culminating in an official specification being issued and a prototype built. Instead, so the story goes, de Havilland’s design team thought up the concept of the “unarmed speed bomber” all by themselves and, despite facing determined opposition from the Air Ministry and the raf, got it adopted by persuading one important and influential senior officer, Wilfrid Freeman, to put it into production (Illustration 9.1).1 Thus, before it proved itself in actuality a world-beating design, it was known in the Ministry as “Freeman’s Folly”. Significantly, even the UK Official History on the “Design and Development of Weapons”, published in 1964, perpetuated this explanation, stating that: When … [de Havilland] found itself at the beginning of the war short of orders and anxious to contribute to the war effort they proceeded to design an aeroplane without any official prompting from the Air Minis- try. They had to think out for themselves the whole tactical and strategic purpose of the aircraft, and thus made a number of strategic and tactical assumptions which were not those of the Air Staff. While the Air Minis- try was still wholly devoted to the doctrine of night bombing by heavy bombers, Sir Geoffrey de Havilland conceived the idea of day bombing 1 Amongst the earliest books to put forward this hypothesis was Edward Bishop, The Wooden Wonder (London, Max Parrish, 1959), especially Chapters 2 & 3. See also C Martin Sharp and Martin Bowyer, Mosquito (London, Faber and Faber, 1967), Chapter 1. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/978900439330�_0�� <UN> The Debate over the Development of the “Unarmed Bomber” 177 Illustration 9.1 Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman. Credit: Air Historical Branch (raf) by fast unarmed aircraft…It was …very fortunate that almost from the outset of the negotiations with the Air Ministry, the Air Member for De- velopment and Production, Sir Wilfrid Freeman, was able to back the de Havilland proposal. He regarded it as a gamble, but thought the risks worth taking.2 2 M M Postan, D Hay and J D Scott, Design and Development of Weapons (London, hmso, 1964) 85–86. Wilfrid Freeman’s nephew and biographer, Anthony Furse, includes some detail of the discussions which took place within the Air Ministry on the question of the unarmed bomber, but sticks firmly to the line that only Freeman recognised the worth of the concept and does not accurately record the fluctuating debate within the Air Staff or the influence (except negatively) of Air Marshal Ludlow-Hewitt at Bomber Command set out below. An- thony Furse, Wilfrid Freeman: the genius behind Allied survival and air supremacy 1939–1945 (Staplehurst, Spellmount, 2000), 70–72 and 118–126. The title of Furse’s biography of Freeman accurately reflects the approach taken. Malcolm Smith in his work, British Air Strategy be- tween the Wars (Oxford, Clarendon, 1984) recognises and briefly discusses the debates within the Air Ministry over the relative merits of speed and defensive armament in bombers and the Ideal Bomber paper referred to below. Smith also recognises the part played by Ludlow- Hewitt, but does not address the early papers circulated prior to 1938, nor the vital role played by Freeman. Smith, 240–247. <UN>.