CRADOCK residents older than 80 years of age and residing in Cradock during 1945 will remember this exciting incident that took place on a Saturday morning, a few months after the end of the Second World War in May 1945.
The very agonising daily experience of people and parents standing in front of the bookshop window of White & Boughton, in order to read the names of Cradock soldiers “killed in action, missing in action or taken POW”, came to an end.
Commemorating the peace, the shop windows and verandahs were soon festooned in colourful bunting, streamers and other patriotic emblems.
After a few weeks of festivity the town returned to “normal”.
Toward the end of that year, word got around that one Major Dennis Hosken, an ex-matriculant of the local Boys’ High School and a fighter pilot during the war, would fly over Cradock, at midday, in an aircraft appropriately dubbed the “Mosquito” due to its night attacks on enemy positions.
Seeing that the plane would be en route from Bloemfontein to Port Elizabeth it would fly directly over Cradock. This, of course, would also be an appropriate gesture to the Cradock public, from one of their own sons, who had fought and survived the horrors of war, to be a sort of victory roll.
This unique aircraft was constructed of wood and glued plywood. It was propeller-driven by two Merlin engines and could reach a top speed of 460mph (763km/h).
The Mosquito was designed as a night-fighter/bomber and it was claimed to be one of the most successful military aircraft of its time.
On that particular Saturday morning a sizeable crowd had gathered around the King Edward commemoration horse-watering trough at the lower end of Durban Street.
Why the crowd gathered at that particular spot and not on the market square is not known; probably it was not to endanger a low flying airplane by the tall steeple of the Dutch Reformed Church as it was anticipated that the plane would fly very low to impress the home crowd.
As the hour approached, tension and excitement grew by the minute and everybody peered intently in the direction of Marlow, to the north, from whence it was expected that the plane would first appear.
It was not long before some acute-sighted youth exclaimed, “There it is!”, and sure enough a small black speck appeared in the distance.
This ‘speck’ grew larger by the second to reveal this magnificent aircraft.
It was clear that this was no ordinary flying machine and the roaring-screech of its twin engines completely drowned the cheering of the excited crowd.
The Mosquito came down in a steep dive straight towards the crowd and in a moment the pilot and co-pilot were clearly visible. The aircraft came in so low that some individuals actually fell prostrate on the (then) dirt road. The pilot pulled the aircraft out of its low dive and it shot up steeply into the blue sky only to disappear, within a few seconds, in the direction of Mortimer.
This day was certainly the “Day of the Mosquito” and a unique incident which deserves to be archived in the colourful and complicated history of Cradock.
. This article was written by Mid-Karoo Express correspondent, Wilna de Klerk, based on information supplied by Dr Danie Roux of Middelburg.