Could You Survive as a Spitfire Pilot in World War Two?

foreigner for as long as I can remember, I have always been in awe of the Spitfire, especially after hearing the stories of my great uncle who joined the RAF and remembered his experience flying in them, but why is the Spitfire still possibly the most famous symbol? of the country's spirited resistance during the Second World War I'm Luke Tomes and in this video I'm at the Battle of Britain air show at Duxford to learn more about the battle that cemented the Spitfire's place in history. The Spitfire endured for the rest of the war because it became the main fighter of the RAF, they were the newest and most innovative fighters, the

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s who flew in them during World War II, I can't believe they used so much stuff and why What occupies such a special place in In British Hearts, to this day sight and sound mix and people simply adore the Spitfires, a direct descendant of a series of seaplanes that compete for the coveted Schneider Trophy in the decade In 1920, the supermarine Spitfire was designed by engineer Reginald Mitchell in response to numerous air raids.

Ministry specifications in the mid-1930s called for a fast, high-performance fighter armed with wing-mounted machine guns. Little did Mitchell know that the aircraft would become one of the most revered icons of British air combat. Few Spitfire

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s in my time, in fact a couple of my family members joined the RAF and trained to fly Spitfires during the Second World War. Now, without exception, everyone said there was something truly extraordinary and unique about this aircraft that remains an industry favorite. The British media since it entered battle against the Measuremit 109s in the summer of 1940. It was then in the skies over southern England that the agile Speedy aircraft played a crucial role in defending the escort fighters of the German Luftwaffe, but not on the performance of the Spitfire. only in the Battle of Britain does it really justify its later acclaim.

I have come to the Imperial War Museum's Duxford Airfield to meet senior creator Adrian Kerrison, who I hoped would give me a better understanding of the crucial air campaign and an objective view of the Spitfire's performance. Within this, okay Adrian, let's set the scene, it's the summer of 1940. France has fallen and now Britain is definitely worried about its safety and the RAF was very important to the protection of the island. How does the RAF aircraft fleet compare to that? from Germany, in July 1940, which is essentially the first month of the Battle of Britain, the RAF had about 900 fighters, so that's the Spitfires, the Hurricanes, the Defiance and some twin-engine fighters.

In comparison, the Luftwaffe has about 2,800 aircraft, from what it looks like on paper. as if they are severely outnumbered but in fact around 1100 of those luftwaffa forces are fighters and the rest around 1700 are bombers and obviously bombers are not a massive threat to RAF fighters so actually It's a little more even than it seems. and we are here at Doxford airfield, tell me a little bit about the location of this airfield, why it was so important and what role Duxford played, yes, in the summer of 1940. So Duxford was what was known as a station sector during the Battle. of Great Britain, so the RAF Fighter Command essentially divided the country into these geographical groups and then the groups were subdivided into sectors and each sector had a sector station which was effectively the headquarters of the sector and was where all the Sector squadrons were controlled and directed into combat, so Duxford was in Group 12, which basically covered East Anglia, the Midlands parts of Wales, the industrial north, a very wide area, but the Duxford sector was also in the southern end of Group 12 and bordered Group 11, which was the area.

That covered south-east England and London London, yes, of course, because it was so close to the 12 group, that around September 1940, when the battle was really heating up, the 11 group was calling in the 12 group for reinforcements. Duxford was heavily involved in September 15, 1940, which many of us know is the day of the Battle of Britain, when it is commemorated and it was then that the Liftwaffe launched two massive raids on London, hoping that it would be the final knockout, beloved Battle of Bridge and because the 11 groups. The squads were committed to intercepting this raid. Group 11 called up Group 12 to support and Duxford sent out what were known as Big Win boders, so it was a wing of five squadrons, so in the morning there were about 56 aircraft all flying together and they intercepted some. of the raids on London and caused quite a bit of damage to the lift offices and were sent back later in the afternoon when they lived from the even bigger raid and accounted for around 25 per cent of the lift offices' losses that day.

So We'll talk a little about the plane, we have one behind us shortly. A moment ago I saw the operating room. Can you tell me a little about the different roles and importance of that room during the Battle of Britain? Yes, so the operations room that was in the operations block was probably the most important building in Duxford and other stations in the sector and in the operations room you had the general picture of what was happening in the air, yes, On the floor you would have the map table and this is where enemy movements are essentially tracked and kept up to date.

Upstairs you would have what are known as totalizer boards and these would give you the status of all the squadrons in the sector and on the station. information like the weather and you would have people triangulating enemy aircraft and friendly squadrons so they can then order them to be intercepted, of course yes, around the map table you would have airwomen from the women's auxiliary air force and they would be receiving charts of radar stations and observer corps posts and they would put them in these little padlocks on the table and that would show you where the enemy formations were, how many aircraft were in them and also their estimated height, and then on the dice.

At the top you would have the control staff and the head of that staff was the controller and usually he was also the station commander, that's the station commander, okay, and he looked at this whole picture of everything that was happening and he He would be the key decision maker to see where the enemy formations are, he would look at the weather, he would look at the status of the squadrons, how many aircraft he had available and then he would direct the squadrons where to go, that is. the nerve center, let's talk about the planes, we have a Spitfire behind us now, am I right in saying that this plane didn't actually produce hurricanes?

That's right, unlike the Spitfires, in the Battle of Britain, if we look across the entire battle, the Spitfire squadrons were outnumbered by the Hurricane squadrons about three to two, so there were around of 33 Hurricane squadrons in the battle and 19 Spitfire Hurricane squadrons accounted for more Luftwaffe losses during the battle, so around 55 is ok, that's interesting yes, but Spitfires. they were still 45, they had less, yeah, yeah, so they were obviously a very important part of the fighter commando force and they were the newest and most innovative fighters and let's be honest, they had better performance than the hurricane and No.

You think that's why they remain the most iconic aircraft and almost like a symbol of the Battle of Britain. Yeah, I think that's a good question because obviously we talked about there being more hurricanes that contributed to the battle. Yes, but the Spitfire type. It endured the rest of the war because it became the RAF's main fighter shortly after the battle and would have been the main fire that people in Britain saw for the rest of the war, so I think that has a lot to do with it. with the reason. in a way it became the symbol of the Battle of Britain, although technically it should be the hurricane, they both thank you for that, so Adrian, we've talked about the planes, we've talked about the nerve centre, the operations room, tell me about the pilots, how.

Many train pilots were there and where did Britain come from for its pilots? There were approximately 3,000 aircrew who took part in the Battle of Britain and many of them would have been regulars before the war, many of them would have come. There were also sort of auxiliary reserve squadrons and there were also around 500,600 non-British pilots so there were a lot of Czech and Polish exiles and then you would have pilots contributing from the Commonwealth and even places like the United States and agent myths . about the Battle of Britain there are quite a few, right? Yes, and I know it's a bit controversial to say, but probably the biggest myth is that the RAF came very close to defeat during the Battle of Britain and this.

Actually, it's not entirely true, so there are people who say that the RAF was badly outnumbered, but we already talked about how a large portion of the Luftwaffe forces were bombers and the RAF also had this huge advantage over the Luftwaffe. in the system of doubt and this. it is what provided radar information to the RAF and this essentially allowed the RAF to know when and where to expect enemy tax and essentially preserve their resources which the luftwaffe also had. They never really had a coherent strategy, so they kept changing strategies and they were relying on faulty intelligence and they thought they were doing a lot more damage than they were doing and that's fine, you know, the RAF air stations were easily repaired and the RAF was able to produce aircraft continuously throughout the battle, so it wasn't as close as people.

I actually find out that another myth is that many of the RAF pilots were very elegant and high class. Oh yeah, that's nice, but in fact, only about 200 aircrew members had a public school education, so that's really interesting. I like that. Many of you knew working class pilots and the RAF at the time because it was one of the newer services, there was a lot more meritocracy, so you know almost anyone

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be a fighter pilot, you might not make it to officer, but You can still fly as a sergeant, so if it were really true that almost anyone

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become a fighter pilot, I thought I'd start and familiarize myself with the equipment, the clothes and equipment weren't just designed for the rigors. of the battle was also quite elegant hi Jamie hi, how are you?

Nice to meet you, nice to see you, so you're part of No. 19 Squadron, that's right, we're Spirit of Britain and we portray the pilots of No. 19 Squadron who fly from Duxford in the summer. and autumn 1940. Of course, these are one of the most famous squadrons from the Battle of Britain, aren't they? And here we have some of the equipment, don't we? So this life jacket yes, nicknamed the May West 1932 pattern. uh, yes, life jacket, of course, yes, also to fly it. I guess we have the Irving flight jacket, another classic piece of WWII flight clothing, which is a type B flight helmet, Mark II goggles, and a type D oxygen mask oxygen mask ok patterned flying boots 36 keep your feet warm stick this fuckin' here it's called a Prestige suit popular in the pre-war period and then in the early part of the second

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war quite common to watch the Battle of Britain it's the same as what I'm wearing here, but in black, just cotton, you know, we have scarf, scarf, okay, no pilot can be seen without his scarf, again they are quite vicious items, why do they have to wear scarves well?

I think it was a It's more of a style thing, sometimes some people say it has to do with the collar and looking around you know the guys had style, yeah you know they were proud of who they were and they dressed the way they were. different. I can, I imagine, and here's a life jacket. but another life jacket but this one has been doped I have it so if you see a Spitfire today when the Brick Battle is going on the circle on the side has a ring of yellow paint which is cool and the guys painted it to that they had started. like that, but you can't see it at sea because they had a lot of pictures of 19 Stone Squadron painted on both the front and the back.

They got the marker pack, you take this out and it looks like, uh, dying at sea to try again. Mark your location so you can be picked up by SC Rescue. We have another flight helmet B that says something. We've seen plenty more things to show you, but how about you put on some clothes and let's try them on? for the size and see how you feel, let's do it, let's start with the Irving and we'll have a flight suit under that pair of 36 boots, um, let's go with the May West dope because that's the real one, there we go and we'll stay. a flight helmet up there and you'd be lost without your scarf, scarf, let's get you changed, pilot,ready just in case and then they cut off the fuel all the time, so when Bell left, the pilot literally ran to the The plane jumped out, took off and left, they were able to take off, so the only thing that really some of them, even you, you know, were still strapping on their parachute harnesses, so they were taxiing because they had to fly as soon as they could.

At the time of the air show, I was understandably unable to enter the cockpit of the famous aircraft, but I'm sure Mr. Dan Snow had the opportunity to fly in a Spitfire a few years ago. You can watch that documentary on History hit TV, but anyway we return to the Battle of Britain Air Show at Duxford, where a crew of pilots, including John, were about to give a very special display in honor of Her Majesty the Foreign Queen. Welcome to the story. Visit the YouTube channel. I hope you enjoyed the video and if you would like to watch it.

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