The Spitfire spies and their fight for a fitting memorial
Francis Dearnley talks to George Pritchard, one of three surviving members of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit
During the Second World War, there was nothing remarkable about the Spitfire AA810. When it crashed in Norway on March 5 1942, its loss was predictable: few aircraft flown on behalf of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) – the clandestine band of fewer than 1,500 who gathered same-day intelligence in unarmoured planes – lasted more than six months on active service. As for the pilots, 48 per cent were killed: one of the worst unit death rates in wartime.
No, it was the aircraft’s survival that made it exceptional. Resting amid ice-capped peaks overlooking Trondheim, it was 70 per cent intact when it was recovered in 2018. Fast forward to 2022, and the team behind Project AA810 – overseeing the Spitfire’s restoration – devised another pursuit: to spearhead a national monument to the PRU in London.
In summer 2021, the memorial was approved. Until then, there were only two PRU pilots known to still be alive, both of whom were over 100. But then another reached out: 98-year-old George Pritchard.
George’s story was, and is, extraordinary. The only one out of his intake of 21 to survive three months in the PRU, he now lives alone – independently – in Northampton, after his wife died several years ago. Born in Croydon in 1924, he was obsessed with aeroplanes. As a child he made models, and his first job was at a cardboard factory next to Croydon Airport.
At 18, he was selected to be an air gunner but continued to request a transfer to pilot training until he was accepted. He was finally moved to Mosquito aircraft and dispatched to join the PRU to fly unarmed reconnaissance missions.
Such missions, he says, often started with a rude awakening at 4am. “A cup of tea from a duty corporal” meant it was your turn to go, whatever the weather and however dangerous the circumstances: such early starts usually meant that a previous pilot had not returned. The enemy knew you were coming.
If Bletchley Park was the ears of Britain, then the PRU was its eyes. Over the course of the War, some 20 million photographs were taken by the unit. Frequently armed with little more than a compass strapped to the knee, taking photographs over a target was immensely challenging. George says: “We had to fly at a fixed speed, 300mph, very steadily. At a precise moment the navigator would say, ‘now’, and I would count the seconds that the cameras would be working, approximately 15-second bursts. Then I had to do a barrel roll, before another 15 seconds of camera burst.”
Death was a constant companion. “Many mates were killed. Some didn’t get home due to running out of fuel, others were shot down.” George himself was nearly killed several times, the closest time being when a large part of the canopy was blown off by anti-aircraft fire. “This was a desperate thing to happen as the cockpit was pressurised, so suddenly, at 27,000 ft, we found ourselves without air.
“It only took us minutes to drop down to 7,000 ft in order to breathe again, but that feeling of gasping for air seemed to last for ages. As frightening as it was, we soon got over it at the time, but this was to affect me deeply in later life, giving me nightmares for many years.”
Despite these horrors, he never lost his love of flying. So much so that leaving the RAF was a struggle – he did it for his wife. He dedicated his career to science and technology, and went on to be instrumental in the development of the first pacemaker. He writes children’s books for Great Ormond Street Hospital and campaigns for the permanent monument for the PRU. “I still think of the guys. We were losing people at the same rate, or worse, than Bomber Command – and everywhere,” George says.
While Spitfire AA810 will be flying again in 2024, he knows time is running out to see a memorial erected in his lifetime. But he remains optimistic; he is healthy and determined – and doesn’t look a day over 80, let alone two months off his 99th birthday. Sharing these memories with George is a privilege; elements of the past, like George, like the Spitfire, hidden in plain sight, made extraordinary by their actions and their survival.
‘Many mates were killed flying. Some ran out of fuel and didn’t return, others were shot down’
For more information about the campaign for a PRU national monument, visit www.spitfireaa810.co.uk/national-memorial. You can support veterans through the Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI) – one of the charities supported by this year’s Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal