Don Bennett

Coastal Command used it to hunt submarines on the surface and attack German warships.

The Pathfinder Force, the precision marking organization led by Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett, used it to fly ahead of the main bomber stream and drop target indicators on the exact aiming point before the heavies arrived.

By the time production ended after the war, de Havilland and its Commonwealth partners had built 7,781 Mosquitos in Britain, Canada, and Australia.

Every one of them doing something different, most of them doing it faster and lower than anything else in the theater.

That spring, as the invasion of France drew closer, Mosquitoes were flying night after night ahead of the heavy bomber streams.

The Pathfinder force under Air Vice Marshal Donald Bennett had built the Mosquito into the backbone of its operations.

The heavy aircraft, the Lancasters and Halifaxes carrying their 10,000-pound loads toward Germany, would find the target lit up by colored incendiaries dropped minutes earlier by Mosquito crews flying at high speed through the searchlights.

The night fighter variants were hunting German bombers over Britain simultaneously.

We have Erica Lindbeck.

We have Malik Berger, Liam O'Brien, Don Bennett, and Aaron LaPlante.

So I didn't want to read some of the names out because they're kind of spoilery.

But I'm looking forward to this one.

Search teams from Chile and Argentina combed the area, and BSAA pilots participated in the search, but nothing was found.

Don Bennett, the head of BSAA, personally directed an unsuccessful five-day search.

For more than 50 years, Stardust was one of aviation's great unsolved disappearances.

With no wreckage, the theories multiplied.

I can't quite remember who it was.

And I can remember Don Bennett who, uh-

Oh, yes

... who was, who was my coach.

Fantastic history, fantastic pedigree in terms of former, uh, COs.

I mean, obviously I, I know a fair amount about 10 Squadron because of Donald Bennett, and that's a particular, Pathfinder's a particular passion of mine.

So he was really excited.

So in terms of other, other people of his age, they would've been super excited about going onto a squadron.