LOVE AT FIRST FLIGHT
So vivid, you can almost hear the roar of its mighty engine as you soar through the skies, a new book describes what it was really like to take the controls of a Spitfire. Buckle up for a truly thrilling ride
DAVID CROOK, a young pilot with 609 Squadron, sat nervously in the narrow cockpit of a Spitfire and prepared for his first flight. He had been waiting for this moment for two years. After taxiing out to the runway, he made his final checks and opened the throttle. What happened next ‘took my breath away’, he wrote a few months later.
‘The engine opened up with a great smooth roar, the Spitfire leapt forward like a bullet and tore madly across the aerodrome and before I had realised quite what had happened I was in the air.’
Crook was 25 and an experienced flier in May 1940, yet he ‘felt the machine was completely out of control and running away with me’. However, he collected his ‘scattered wits’, raised the undercarriage and looked round for the aerodrome – which to his astonishment was already dwindling miles behind him.
An hour later, after playing around in the air with his superb new toy, he landed ‘light-headed with exhilaration’ and feeling ‘that I could ask nothing more out of life’.
The many accounts of a first taste of a Spitfire describe the same process: initial alarm at the wonderful power of the beast and the delicacy of the controls, quickly giving way to the realisation that for all its sophistication and potency, it was in fact not that difficult to fly, and so light on the controls that it could be operated with an index finger and thumb.
More than that – it was an absolute joy. In the research for my latest book on the RAF in the Second World War, Air Force Blue, I was struck by the way men who were often uncomfortable expressing emotions abandoned restraint when it came to the Spitfire.
They spoke of it as if it were a beautiful woman, and used the language of love. ‘She really was the perfect flying machine,’ remembered George Unwin, a gruff, Yorkshire-born sergeant pilot who was one of the first to try it out.
‘She hadn’t got a vice at all. She would only spin if you made her and she’d come straight out of it as soon as you applied opposite rudder and pushed the stick forward… I’ve never flown anything sweeter.’
Flying ace Brian Kingcome, the debonair ideal of the ‘Fighter Boy’, settled the question of which was the supreme RAF fighter of the war, once and for all. He wrote: ‘At the outset there was endless friendly banter between Hurricane and Spitfire pilots as to which was the better aircraft.
‘But in the real world there could be only one answer… The Hurricane was a solid, reliable, uncomplaining workhorse but the Spitfire personified symmetry and grace. She was a thing apart, denying comparison. She was as relaxed, as elegant, as obviously and effortlessly at home in her environment as a swallow, and equally poetic in motion.’
To compare the two models, he concluded, would be as invidious as comparing a champion ice skater to a skilled morris dancer.
So for almost everyone who ever handled one, it was a case of love at first flight. The big question, though, was: fast, nimble and beautiful to behold as it might be, was the Spit a match for the enemy aircraft it would be up against? The answer, thankfully, was an emphatic yes.
The Luftwaffe’s best fighter was the Messerschmitt 109. Although smaller than both the Hurricane and Spitfire, it was marginally faster at high altitude and initially better armed, carrying two 20mm cannon as well as twin machine guns, against the British fighters’ eight rifle-calibre machine guns.
The RAF was able to thoroughly test the 109’s capabilities after capturing one intact during the Battle of France. An early report concluded that it was not as manoeuvrable as either the Hurricane or the Spit. Crucially, it could not turn as tightly as the British fighters, which could give them the edge in a dogfight.
The Spitfire and Messerschmitt first went head-to-head in earnest during the air battle around Dunkirk in 1940.
In an early dogfight, Al Deere, a New Zealander with 74 Squadron, found himself being chased by two 109s near Calais.
Deere discovered that he could comfortably turn inside his pursuers so that the roles were reversed and he was now chasing them.
He was now in a position to fire deflection bursts, shooting ahead of the target so that it flew into the stream of bullets. He aimed at the second enemy aircraft and was gratified to see ‘bits flying off’.
The three chased each other in ever tighter circles until Deere ran out of ammunition and headed for home. The experience was eagerly analysed and the conclusion was reached that whereas the Messerschmitt could outclimb the Spitfire up to 20,000ft and always out-dive it, it was less agile at all altitudes and the Spit was ‘superior in most other fields and… vastly more manoeuvrable’.
The assessment seems to have been shared by at least some Germans. A rueful story put about after the war told how Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering confronted the fighter ace Adolf Galland at the height of the Battle of Britain wanting to know why the 109s were unable to subdue their opponents. What more did he need, he demanded?
‘Herr Reichsmarschall, a squadron of Spitfires,’ Galland is said to have replied.
David Crook left behind a vivid account of his first victory over a 109 off Weymouth during the Battle of Britain. ‘The victim I had selected for myself was about 500 yards ahead of me and still diving hard at very high speed,’ he wrote. ‘God, what a dive that was! I came down on full throttle from 27,000ft to 1,000ft in a matter of a few seconds and the speed rose with incredible swiftness… I never reached this speed before and probably never shall again… I pulled out of the dive as gently as I could but the pain was terrific and there was a sort of black mist in front of my eyes.’
The Messerschmitt was now directly in front of him and he ‘gave him a terrific burst at very close range… hundreds of bullets poured into him and he rocked violently, then turned over on his back, burst into flames and dived straight into the sea a few miles off Swanage’.
In theory, the job of the Spitfires in the Battle of Britain was to deal with the escorting 109s as they cruised high over the bomber fleets, waiting to dive on the Hurricanes as they went in to attack the raiders. In practice, the roles often overlapped.
There were, of course, more Hurricane squadrons than Spitfire squadrons in the Battle – 29 against 19 – and for every two German planes a Spit knocked down, the Hurricanes dealt with three.
But it was the Spitfire that captured the public imagination and, despite heroic attempts by historians to give the Hurricane its correct place of honour, that is how things are likely to remain.
One of the Spit’s great strengths was its adaptability. It possessed a unique capacity for development, with each of its incarnations delivering greater speed and destructive capability.
The Mark I, with which the RAF started the war, was a puny thing compared with the later versions, which carried engines with more than double the horsepower of the original Rolls-Royce Merlin. The
Elegant as a swallow and equally poetic in motion… God, what a dive...27,000ft to 1,000ft in a few seconds!
Spit was seen in every theatre where the British war was fought: in Europe, North Africa, the Far East and the Pacific. As the Seafire, it even flew off aircraft carriers.
It was an interceptor, a photoreconnaissance machine and latterly a fighter-bomber – with the Hawker Typhoon, it helped clear the road to Berlin.
The biggest threat it faced was from the Focke-Wulf 190, which, after going into service in August 1941 in the skies over occupied Europe, wrested air superiority from the RAF.
With the arrival 11 months later of the Spitfire Mark IX, the balance tilted back. By the time D-Day dawned, the RAF’s fighters enjoyed near mastery of the air.
In the months before the invasion, Spits were converted to fighterbombers and took part in precision raids on high-value targets in the preparations for the landings.
Once the troops were ashore, the Spitfires roamed the battlefield dealing death and destruction. The air war was a different game now, with the faint atmosphere of chivalry that clung to the early weeks of the Battle of Britain long gone.
Geoffrey Page was one of The Few and was badly burned after being shot down in August 1940. He had numerous operations as one of pioneering plastic surgeon Archie McIndoe’s ‘Guinea Pigs’ in order to return to operations, and he relished the chance for revenge.
In June 1944, Page arrived in France at the head of 132 Squadron. Initially, he was disappointed by the Luftwaffe’s absence and had to content himself shooting up targets of opportunity on the ground. Then, one day, while on a test flight with another pilot 30 miles behind enemy lines, he got his chance, running into a formation of 30 Messerschmitt 109s near Lisieux.
Despite the odds, he plunged to attack. In the dogfight that followed, Page was hit by a cannon shell and wounded in the leg. He dived to treetop level and, pulling out, looked round to see only a lone Messerschmitt now dogging him. ‘Hatred brought with it a new strength,’ he wrote.
His opponent pulled up the nose of his 109 to get enough deflection on his target.
The move was fatal. Already on the point of stalling when the German pilot opened fire, ‘the recoil slowed the airplane sufficiently to flick over and strike the trees 20ft below. Circling the funeral pyre, I watched the column of black smoke rising with morbid fascination’.
The Spitfire was only one of dozens of doughty aircraft that made the RAF the formidable force that it was, in my view contributing more than the traditional services to the Allies’ victory.
It was, though, the one that struck the loudest chord in the hearts of the British people. The Spitfire had a starring role in numerous war films, starting with The First Of The Few in 1942 which told the story of its designer R.J. Mitchell, right down to this year’s mammoth hit Dunkirk. With more than 50 models still in working order, the sight of a Spit rolling and wheeling in the skies above an air display is part of the British summer scene.
One reason for the Spitfire’s status is because it sent a message that endures today. It symbolised how Britain regarded itself – how it was and how it wanted others to see it. The Spitfire seemed to point towards a brighter future.
The pilots that flew them and the fitters and riggers who kept them in the air were representative of the social changes that had taken place in the decades between the world wars. They were men of their time, many of them from ordinary homes. They were forward-looking, ready for challenges and reluctant to give automatic deference to authority unless it had been earned.
The Spitfire, with its clean but efficient lines, summed up Britain at that hour: small perhaps, but defiant and determined and bristling with deadly intent. It offered hope and pride, much needed commodities in those dark times.
Air Force Blue: The RAF In World War Two – Spearhead Of Victory, by Patrick Bishop is published by William Collins, priced £20. Offer price £16 (20 per cent discount, with free p&p) until November 20. Order at mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640.