The navigator was awarded the DFC for ‘exemplary gallantry’ after his Mosquito crew sank one U-boat and seriously damaged another
light Lieutenant Desmond Curtis, who has died aged 100, flew more than 70 sorties in Beaufighter and Mosquito strike aircraft and was awarded the DFC for attacks in the lead-up to D-Day.
In March 1944, Curtis and his pilot Doug Turner were sent with a special flight of Mosquito aircraft to an airfield in Cornwall. Most of Germany’s U-boats were based at French ports on the Bay of Biscay, in addition to a large surface fleet of destroyers and minesweepers. They posed a major threat to the impending operations for D-Day.
Curtis and Turner discovered that they would be flying the Mosquito Mk XVIII, which was equipped with a 57mm anti-tank gun with a 6lb warhead mounted under the nose (known as the Tsetse gun), in addition to its standard fit with rockets and cannons....
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/ ... ter-d-day/