Spitfire

To-day is the 70th anniversary of the Spitfire entering service with the R.A.F.
Where would we have been without it and the other fighters and their pilots.

 

Many years ago my immediate superior Bert introduce me to an elderly Gentleman with the words "you two will have much in common" he was introduce to me as the Chief Engineer at Supermarine. The Old fellow had retired, but had a little workshop of his own. When there was something that he could not tackle, he would come down to me and I would get it done for him.
In truth we used to sit and natter at my desk and share the coffee from my flask.
Supermarine was bombed out and burned down early in the war. The planes production was spread far and wide, and assembled from all the small workshops. My old late friend Charley Jupe worked on the Spit...Precision Grinder. I never worked on it, but I did on Concord.
The outlying places that produced the Spit, worked non-stop. Each a 12 hour shift and the machines never stopped running. It was a matter of the next shift taking over with remarks like "Where have we got to Bill?" "Fine mate. got it" and off they would go.
sapper

 

The BBC's item on the Spitfire.
BBC NEWS | UK | Spitfire celebrates 70 years

 

Talking of Spitfires - did you see TV Top Gear's competion with their German Counterparts, under orders "Don't mention the war". The BBC mob arrived in three T9 Spitfires. What a sight

 

Well done to the Spit!

 

I had the honour to sit next to Wg Cdr John Freeborn DFC* at an AirCrew Association dinner a few years ago. He informed me that he had flewn more Spitfires and more hours that any other pilot during the Battle of Britain-he was attributed with 13 1/2 kills. He was also one of (if not the) youngest wg cdrs. He commanded a wing in Yugoslavia. A humbling experience.

Roxy

 

God bless the Spit indeed. and still looks the part.

 

The day that saved the Empire!

 

I wonder just how many Spitfires and Hurricanes were produced whilst Chamberlin was grovelling in Munich, in a desperate attempt to buy time?


John

 

I do not think Chamberlain was buying time.Now we look back in hindsight and take the view that the Munich agreement gave us time to get to think about the worse possible outcome.The fact remains that the RAF expansion programme, inferior as it was, planned for a worthwhile bomber force and the introduction of monoplane fighters as soon as it was recognised that Germany posed a threat.The unveiling of the Luffewaffe in 1935 resulted in the formation of Bomber Command and Fighter Command in 1936 the restructuring of the Royal Air Force whch was to last until 1968. The acceleration in the laying down of new airfields, a number which did not become operational until the Battle of France and the prewar establishment of shadow aircraft manufacturers sites were all part of the decisions made when it became apparent who the enemy would be.It is interesting that immediately after the Great War, those charged with the strategic planning for the Royal Air Force, even as it was being rundown, saw France as the potential enemy on mainland Europe.

Less than 20 years later in the summer of 1940, Churchill thought that only unification beween Great Britain and France would save us from Hitler.

The 1930s was a period where due to the economical difficulties, the investment in the armed forces was not as high as it should have been but by 1938, it was recognised that the civilian population would be at risk. Anyone looking into what was happening in Great Britain would have seen that the Home Office were making plans to protect the civilian population as far as they could."The bomber will always get through" was always at the back of the politician's mind and then there were those who saw that Hitler posed no threat to them and in their mind was the bulkhead against all their fears of the state of a future Great Britain.