Mosquito Intruder Moonbeam McSwine
<p>De Havilland Mosquito FB.VI HJ719/TH-U ‘Moonbeam McSwine’, 1st Lt. James Forrest ‘Lou’ Luma (USAAF) No.418<br>Squadron Royal Canadian Air Force, Night Intruder missions, Ford airfield, March 1944<br>Encouraged to join the Royal Canadian Air Force following a chance meeting with a serving RCAF pilot, American James Forrest ‘Lou’ Luma successfully<br>negotiated his pilot training and was posted to fly the de Havilland Mosquito in England, even though he didn’t even know what one looked like at that point.<br>Arriving in England in the summer of 1943, he was assigned to No.418 squadron to fly night intruder missions and was given the luxury of just a single flight<br>observing a flight instructor (from the navigator’s seat), before making his first Mosquito solo. Re-assigned to the USAAF in July 1943, Luma was allowed to<br>remain flying with the RCAF as they didn’t want to break up his successful partnership with friend and navigator since training, Colin Finlayson, a man with<br>whom he would go on to fly thirty operational missions. The Mosquito fighter the pair normally flew was quite unusual in that it sported nose artwork,<br>something which was the exception rather than the norm on Royal Air Force fighters. Known as ‘Moonbeam McSwine’, the nose art featured a pipe smoking,<br>gun toting Hillbilly girl of the same name, a character from the ‘Li’l Abner’ comic strip which was popular at the time. The pair scored their first victory when<br>shooting down a Messerschmitt Me 410 nightfighter near Wunstorf on the night of 21st/22nd January 1944, an aircraft which had shot down a British bomber<br>earlier that same night and had returned to base to re-fuel and re-arm. On taking off for this second sortie, the Luftwaffe pilot forgot to turn off his lights,<br>making the German fighter relatively easy prey for Luma in his prowling Mosquito intruder</p>
