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Spitfire: legend of the skıes (though it was almost called The Shrew!)
As the RAF celebrates its centenary, Robert Hardman salutes the much-loved plane that sent Hitler packing – and reveals its original name wasn’t quite so inspiring...
Almost 80 years on, it is no contest. Ask any group of people – historians, anoraks, schoolchildren – to name the single greatest weapon of the Second World War and the same name will come out on top: the Spitfire.
There is no other piece of historic machinery which still commands the same respect as Reginald ‘RJ’ Mitchell’s war-winning, historymaking masterpiece.
Pilots from all over the world would come to love its agility and elegance. Some talked of not so much flying a Spitfire as ‘wearing’ it (or ‘her’ as many would say). ‘She was really the perfect flying machine,’ recalled Wing Commander George ‘Grumpy’ Unwin, one of the very first RAF pilots to fly a Spitfire and a Battle of Britain ace, credited with 14 ‘kills’. ‘I’ve never flown anything sweeter.’
Another veteran, Wing Commander ‘Dizzy’ Allen, would talk of a love affair: ‘I have no words worthy of describing the Spitfire. There was certainly no love/ hate relationship between me and my Spitfires; there was only love on my account and on not one occasion did any of these aircraft let me down.’
Having been allowed to fly one myself – for all of 30 seconds, I might add, during a flight in the back of a converted two-seater – I can testify to its grace and sensitivity. It was like taking the helm of a beautifully tuned racing yacht in per fect weather. Merely to sit in one of these things is a lifetime’s ambition for many people. To fly in one is to breathe history, especially when the pilot suddenly announces that it’s time for a barrel roll at 2,000 feet over south-east England...
If it was like this on a clear, peaceful day, what must it have been like in the heat of batt le in 1940? It’s a question millions would ask themselves as they looked up, day after day, to see ‘ The Few’ defending Britain from imminent invasion in our darkest hour.
So many aircraft helped win the war, of course. As RAF veterans have always pointed out, the Hurricane actually shot down more enemy planes in the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire. The flying hours and casualties would be much higher among the crews of the Lancasters and Wellingtons and all the other legends of Bomber Command.
The Spitfire was unique, though, in that it was in production before war was declared and was still in production years after it was over. It served in every arena of war. Its power extended far beyond its famous Rolls-Royce engine and its ability to outsmart the deadly Messerschmitt Bf 109 (known as the Me 109) at 400mph.
Equally important was its capac- ity to make a nation on the cusp of defeat feel invincible. As far as the public were concerned, this was the monarchy and the Empire and cricket and buttered toast and a nice hot cup of tea all encapsulated in three tons of aeronautical brilliance. To this day, the mere sight and sound of a Spitfire swooping overhead will be the crowning moment of so many public occasions. Add in a military band and a spot of Elgar and you’ll have grown men weeping in no time.
And there’ll be chances to see them at several events this year to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Royal Air Force. The Royal Flying Corps had existed since 1912, eventually forming separate Military and Naval wings, which competed for resources. By 1917, with increasing German daylight bombing raids against civilians, a decision was taken to amalgamate them. In 1918, Lord Rothermere – co-founder of the Daily Mail – became First Secretary of State for the RAF and President of the Air Council, and on April 1st that year the RAF was born.
Those who never saw Spitfires in action would be raised on the stories, the films and, of course, the Airfix models. My own generation, growing up in the 70s, might have had models of space rockets and trains and even Concorde, but the most popular of the lot by far was the Spitfire.
And now, thanks to the Mail, a whole new generation can enjoy the fun of putting together a model Spitfire (if they can get their hands on it
before the grown-ups, that is) with our fantastic free Airfix kit, which you can pick up from WHSmith today – the details are all in today’s paper.
You don’t have to be of a certain age to appreciate the curvaceous elegance of an aircraft which had almost no straight lines. Aviation enthusiasts often talk about its ‘elliptical’ wing. But even those who had never heard the word could tell that there was something a bit different about this plane. Here was a winner.
Thankfully, the great man behind it was ignored when it came to giving the thing a name. Engineering genius he might have been but RJ Mitchell was a dunce when it came to marketing. His preferred name for his new fighter? The Shrew. Or, failing that, The Snape.
Mitchell, a teacher’s son from Stoke- onTrent, had been obsessed with planes since childhood. He started his career as an apprentice engineer working on locomotives before joining Supermarine Aviation works, a Southampton-based producer of seaplanes. He rose speedily within the company to become chief designer aged 25. This was the age of air circuses and competitive air races, a time when aircraft were the Formula One of their day. Mitchell’s designs not only won the prestigious Schneider Trophy – a world cup of air racing – but he designed new seaplanes which circumnavigated the globe.
As the threat of Nazi Germany became ever greater, the Air Ministry realised that it was going to need a new, faster fighter and approached the leading aviation experts of the day to produce prototypes. Hawker had a promising model called the Hurricane. Supermarine had Mitchell’s creation, at that point known variously as ‘F7/30’ or ‘Type 224’. Fortunately, when it came to choosing a final name, Sir Robert McLean, the chairman of Vickers-Armstrongs, which controlled Supermarine, was having neither of Mitchell’s suggestions. He insisted on ‘Spitfire’, a contemporary nickname for a fiery little girl. He had one of his own, a spirited daughter called Annie (who would retain a lifelong association with the aircraft up to her death, in 2011, aged 100).
‘ Just the sort of bloody silly name they would think of,’ sniffed Mitchell as he pressed on with his work, by now suffering from cancer. His first prototype was a turkey. With fixed wheels and a problematic cooling system, it failed to reach the minimum speed required by the ministry. The Hurricane, on the other hand, was coming on nicely and made a successful maiden flight in 1935.
Despite his illness, Mitchell was not giving up. He made radical changes to his original design, not
‘She was really the perfect flying machine’
least shaving six feet off the wingspan and devising the elliptical wing which would make such a crucial difference to its performance.
The revised model was ready to go in 1936 with Vickers’s chief test pilot at the controls. Joseph ‘Mutt’ Summers was every inch the dashing aero celebrity of his day. His nickname derived from an early dog-like habit of relieving himself on the rear wheel of whichever plane he was about to fly, in the belief that a full bladder could be lethal in a crash. There would be no such display for the crowd looking on at Eastleigh Aerodrome on March 5th, 1936.
Summers enjoyed an effortless take- of f, eight-minute flight and perfect landing. Removing his helmet, he pronounced, ‘ I don’t want anything touched.’ The remark has entered aviation folklore as proof that the Spitfire was perfect from Day One. Not true. Summers simply wanted the plane to remain as was until he could take it up for further tests the following day. Word soon spread around the Air Ministry, however. Mitchell had produced a game- changer. Within weeks, an initial order for 310 Spitfires had been placed for £1.4 million.
Mitchell’s health was declining rapidly as the cancer spread. A year later, he was dead, leaving his widow, Florence, and teenage son, Gordon, to mourn a man who really can be said to have altered the course of history. The fact Mitchell only ever received a CBE for his troubles (whereas the designer of the Hurricane became Sir Sidney Camm) is a sorry historical footnote.
As war broke out, production of the Hurricane was well ahead of that of the Spitfire. The former was cheaper and quicker to build. A ground crew could turn around a Hurricane in under ten minutes, whereas a Spitfire would take twice as long. German forces were soon tearing across mainland Europe, culminating in the fall of France and the British retreat from Dunkirk. There, though, the Luftwaffe began to realise that the Royal Air Force would not be a pushover. ‘The enemy fighters pounced on us with the fury of maniacs,’ wrote Major Werner Kreipe. ‘The days of easy victory were over. We had met the RAF head on.’
That would become very much clearer in the months ahead as Germany brought the war across the Channel. There were 30 Hurricane squadrons and 19 Spitfire squadrons involved in the Battle of Britain – not to mention gallant pilots from many nations (the highest-scorers during the battle were
the Poles of 303 Squadron). In no time, the superiority of the Spitfire would become clear. Never mind the aesthetics. It was simply the faster, nimbler combat aircraft, though none could fault the heroism or efforts of the Hurricanes and their pilots. The historian Leo McKinstry sums it up in his gripping bestseller Spitfire: Portrait Of A Legend. ‘There is little doubt that the struggle would have been won more easily if Fighter Command had been fully equipped with Spitfires,’ he writes. ‘It is true that the Hurricanes shot down more Germans, but that is only because they made up two-thirds of Fighter Command’s strength and were therefore certain to inflict proportionately greater losses. Moreover, precisely because of their slowness, Hurricanes were given the easier task of taking on the Luftwaffe’s bombers, whereas the Spitfires had to deal with the fast, dangerous Me 109 fighters.’
The Spitfire had also cast a spell on
‘The enemy realised the RAF wouldn’t be a pushover’
the public. All over Britain, towns and businesses would set up a ‘Spitfire Fund’ to raise the nominal £5,000 to buy a plane in their name. There was a terrific response around the British Empire too, notably in Canada where one industrialist donated a million Canadian dollars (£11 million today). Non-Spitfire pilots were, understandably, a little miffed. But who could quarrel with, say, HH Merrett, from the Welsh village of Michaelston-le-Pit, whose son, Norman, had gone down with his Spitfire in August 1940? ‘These tragic circumstances have served only to strengthen the determination of this little community,’ he wrote to Lord Beaverbrook, Minister for Aircraft Production. ‘I cannot provide you with another gallant son. The one who has gone was our only son. But I want you to accept from the village of Michaelston-le-Pit the enclosed cheque for £5,000 to purchase a Spitfire.’
The Spitfire was everywhere – from Dunkirk to the North African desert, Italy, the siege of Malta, D-Day and the Far East. In Spitfire Stories, a fascinating study of those who built, flew and maintained this legend all over the world, Jacky Hyams tells the story of men like ‘Tip-’em Up’ Terry Spencer who was one of the first Spitfire pilots to take on a V1 ‘Doodlebug’ flying bomb. In 1944, he nudged one off course into the Thames. She also pays tribute to the ground crews who would keep their planes airworthy in the most basic and dangerous conditions. Flight Mechanic Ted Sadler thought he’d done an excellent job cleaning and polishing his first Spitfire – until the pilot returned from his mission, shouting. ‘Who cleaned this kite?’ Sadler put up his hand. ‘Well don’t bloody do it again,’ he replied. ‘It shines like a sixpence up a sweep’s backside. I’ve been chased by every Hun over France.’
There would be numerous models and marks of the Spitfire, the last being almost twice as heavy and powerful as the first. More than 22,000 –
a record for a British plane – would be built. Spitfires would eventually enter service with more than 30 nations. In 1948, Israeli Spitfires would go into battle against Egyptian Spitfires.
No other British machine would ever connect with the public in quite the same way – and it still does. In 1940, Douglas Shepley was killed in action in his Spitfire during the Battle of Britain, just weeks after brother George had been shot down and killed over Dunkirk. The year before, their sister Jeanne, of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, had been killed when her troopship was torpedoed. In next to no time, Douglas’s wife and the air raid wardens of Sheffield had collected enough to buy and name a Spitfire in their honour. And to this day, the city still raises a glass to them all – at The Shepley Spitfire pub. Spitfire by Leo McKinstry, £12.99, John Murray; Spitfire Stories by Jacky Hyams, £ 16.99, Michael O’Mara Books.