National Geo "Spitfire"

Just watched on Bigpond Movies a doco on the Spitfire a fairly recent one there are some superb air to air shots of this magnificent aircraft because thats what it was.
You may argue with validity about the P-51 which was a junket until it got the Merlin or the P-38 which the british tried without supercharged Allison engines and gave them back.
A side note is an aeronautical designer went to Germany and was employed by the Luftwaffe returning to England in 1933 and ended up working for Mitchell.
Funny thing is the double eliptical wing of the aircraft was not new idea, a German designer came up with it around the time of WWI, they seem to think maybe this designer who came back to Mitchell was a spy from Britain!

The thing is when Britain stood alone and she truly was in those darkest of days apart from aircrew coming from her dominions the situation was most dire.
Infact some of the surviving pilots from the battle of britain said if Hitler had crossed the channel England was finished.
The candor of these veterans and pictures of them in their youth fighting a most terrible war has to be seen some were only 18 years of age hardly lived and are sent out to kill or be killed.

There is some touching moments etched into their faces you can tell when they recount certain facts but always underplayed their part in the Battle of Britain or Malta.
A very last touching point is where one of the ATA women signed a Spitfire in 1944 the last one she flew (She flew 400 Spitfires and a total 1000 aircraft during the war)
Any way the private owner has her spifire that she signed it never went to war so bore her signature to this day, they re-united her with the plane she watched it fly in & land.
It was a really a moving moment for her and well in general the owner asked her if she would sign the aircraft again which she did she was only a few month shy of a 100 y/o.

The have a gem of a Spifire in Britain the only surviving one from the Battle of Britain it is so very precious to the flight as it is irreplaceable.
One of the pilots on the end of the doco said"The generation before us had a war, our generation had a war and the next generations went through war."
We have to find a solution!

I have seen allot of docos on the Spitfire as not only a mark of respect to its designer but to those that flew them and worked on them.
But mainly because my father was a LAC Engine Fitter in the RAAF 1941 to 1945 and worked on them as well, I still have his books from his courses.
Its worth the watch just for the airshots of that plane in flight.
Cheers.

Thanks for the info Cinders. The Spitfire is my personal favourite; closely followed by the Mosquito, Hurricane and Lancaster. The sound of the merlin engine is probably the most fabulous mechanical noise ever!

I know very few of you will believe this but in 1966 I was attending the American High School in Bushey, London. I had to stay late because my older brother played football and he was my ride home to Harpenden. While I was doing homework in one of the empty classrooms I heard an aircraft approaching. My first thought was "That's a Spitfire!". When I ran outside there in the evening sunshine was this "glorious Spit" flying low and slow over the school. After watching him disappear over the trees I suddenly thought "How do I know what a Spitfire sounds like?" I had never seen one in flight or heard its engine.
So now I think I am a reincarnated Spit pilot
By the way some years later I found out that they were filming The Battle of Britain during this time.

My adventurous uncle ran across the border to Canada and joined the RCAF as England found herself with her back against the wall before the Battle of Britain. He trained to be a pilot, transitioned to fighters, was posted to RAF Hawarden in Wales where he transitioned into the Spitfire. As he finished training he petitioned to be assigned to the Eagle Squadrons that were populated by Americans. He was killed in a training accident on July 1, 1941. I came across the Battle of Britain Mk.I Spitfire mentioned above, K9942, which now resides at RAF Cosford. I found its logbook posted online. It turns out that it was assigned to my uncle's Operational Training Unit and station while he was training. The OTUs were furnished with either "caned out" planes that had been overstressed or damaged planes that had been repaired but weren't considered battle-worthy. We've got uncle Harry's logbook. Spitfire K9942 doesn't appear in it, but it is nice to know that it was there on the flight line and he walked by it, and probably lusted after it like the rest of us.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/spitr...it-k9942-1.jpg

https://www.veterans.gc.ca/cvwmuploa.../2957713_2.jpg

http://www.in2guitar.com/images2/harrystone3.jpg


Bob

After Cinders post last night I was able to watch the doc on Amazon Prime. I enjoyed every second and will watch it again. Loved the aerials.
Young heroes died almost in front of their families. Those few months saved the world from Herr Hitler.

There was another doco on Bomber Command its an old one it goes through the groups training in Canada before going to England multinational side of things but also interviews at that time crews from the various planes like the Whitley, Wellington, Lancaster and so on and like one pilot said in a fighter you can funk it and no one will know you did but you cannot funk it in a Bomber because of the six other crewmates with you.
At the OTU's the attrtition rate from my foggy old brain I think was in the region of 46% being killed before they qualified sometimes higher so it was more dangerous to learn their operational trade than doing the actual 30 missions the RAAF had to do for a tour of duty.
In one scene that is so tragic its a Lancaster in a vertical dive going behind some trees and the ominous black cloud of smoke and flames erupts from behind them people start running I gues out of instinct but must have known all aboard the craft must have died......:(

Bob,
Looks like he came up through the ranks the hard way like my dad. How did he finish up?

From Post #4 Gil "He was killed in a training accident on July 1, 1941"

Appreciate that, but no mention of his rank or indication on his service dress, was interested, because the hardest climb to becoming a pilot was through the ranks, the same in WW1 with the RFC, "not what you knew, but who you knew" was very much in the times of the day, it also helped if you had a dog...................so you now know what I meant. My Dads rise was a nightmare.........he was Irish and often punched toffee nosed idiots out of squadrons, he was always joined in the cells he told me with Canadians and Aussie pilots who found the arrogance too much to bear when all they wanted to do was kill Germans!!!!!!!;)

The was as much a "Class System" in England as there was in India though it was thinly vieled as Aristocracy I am not sure who coined the phrase "Glamour Boys" as I am positive 99% of those enlisting to be trained as fighter as pilots were there to fight the Hun as their fore-fathers did and the 1% were there for the ladies and what status a Pilots Wings would give them as L/O's to the girls!

Spent some time in India, and my daughter got married there, sadly the Cast system is something that will never die, and was so prevalent in WW1 and WW1.
That sadly is the bigger racism issue in the world when the same nations can't even get along with themselves.
I can't remember the film I watched on a black American fighter Squadron who went through the same thing and weren't acccepted until they saved B17's from being shot down in WW2 a true story.
It saddens me greatly, afterall................... is their blood when spilt a different colour?

Tuskegee airmen they were the Red Tails and the B-17 crews they saved on the day refused to fly with any other escorts unless it was them, it was thought of the blacks that they were of inferior interlect and would never make good fighter pilots let alone a pilot!

Well that showed the world!!!!;)

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Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

Bob,
Looks like he came up through the ranks the hard way like my dad. How did he finish up?

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He ended up as a sergeant pilot. The pic above is from his time with OTU 57 at Hawarden. He literally ran across the border between the U.S. and Canada. As such, he knew no-one and had no pull. It also made him a pariah to the U.S. government because the U.S. was maintaining its neutrality. We visited Harry's grave in 1996. Interestingly enough, it was decorated with a poppy, and was the only one decorated so. A girlfriend? We'll never know.

http://www.in2guitar.com/images2/harrygrave.jpg

I'm on the right in red, my late father (U.S.N. WWII) is behind me. While we were standing in front of the grave my dad just sort of froze up. That evening at the hotel he began talking. He lost his father and brother Harry that year within six months and had to become the man of the house at fifteen years old. He gave away his older sisters at their weddings and took care of his mom until he joined the Navy in '44. He'd compartmentalized his grief in order to cope and the finality of his brother's death hadn't occurred to him until he stood there at the grave with us in 1996.

Harry wrote home from Hawarden shortly before his death:

‘I’m certainly enjoying flying the Spitfires. They are wonderful little airplanes, and Germany is going to have to go strong to make anything better. I have just finished making application for admittance to the American Eagle Squadron here. I’ll certainly be glad to get with some American fellows…

‘Everyone here still says that England is sure to win, and I was always inclined to be an optimist, so I heartily agree with them. If you folks at home keep the airplanes and ships and guns and food rolling this way, I’m sure Germany can’t win.’

Interestingly, the taint of pariah still lingered over Harry through 1999 when a group decided to create an East Tennessee Veteran's Memorial to all of her sons who had died in wars. As the project progressed, my father inquired into Harry's inclusion. He was told that since Harry had joined a foreign service at a time when the U.S. was neutral, the association wasn't interested in including him on the memorial. Being the gentleman that he was, my father wasn't interested in pressing the matter and left it at that.



Right around that time my father was contacted by a retired U.S. Air Force officer who was undertaking making sure that all East Tennessee airmen from WWII were recognized and memorialized in various places around the country. Somehow this gentleman had come across a wartime obituary for Harry. From his research it appeared that Harry was the first wartime casualty from East Tennessee. When he heard that Harry was to be excluded he got hacked off and spearheaded an effort that succeeded in getting Harry's name included on the memorial. Hilariously, the association got the last laugh, in a manner of speaking. When you look for East Tennessee's first casualty, the honor is given to a man who died six months later at Pearl Harbor. Son or not, they just couldn't stand to hand that off to a Canadian Air Force pilot!


Bob

Ahh good to see bias is alive and well.
Great story Bob and great family history something to cherish and pass on to the future Womack generations, just on thing the invisible pic of you all where it is!

Sorry about that. The edit function isn't working so I'll include it here:


http://www.in2guitar.com/images2/harrygrave.jpg

Bob

:confused:

Thanks for that story about your Uncle, Bob. That makes me even prouder to be where I'm from, Kingsport, just 10 minutes away from Johnson City.do you still have relatives that live here?

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Originally Posted by jond41403

Thanks for that story about your Uncle, Bob. That makes me even prouder to be where I'm from, Kingsport, just 10 minutes away from Johnson City.do you still have relatives that live here?

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No, but family lives in Knoxville and Sevierville. I grew up in Knoxville.



Bob

I didn't realize that we had that many veteran pilots from this area until I read this thread. I knew Bush 41 lived in Kingsport for about 6 months before he enlisted in World War II I believe it was(or maybe it was his parents that lived here I can't remember). When he was shot down and picked up by a submarine, one of the crew of the submarine was from Johnson City but I can't remember his name. And I have a first cousin that flew Mohawks in Vietnam that is still missing in action, his name is Charles Alva Dale and was born in Church Hill which is 5 minutes away from Kingsport and he's been missing since 65. I didn't realize East Tennessee contributed alot pilot wise

My late father lived in Johnson City during his teen years, right up the road from the Clinchfield railroad yards. He remembered waking late at night and hearing the great thumping clank of the reversing gear on the mallet steam locomotives as they assembled trains in the yard throughout the night. He entered service from Johnson City.



Bob