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00:00This fighter was very nearly called the shrew, scarcely a name to inspire a nation nor terrify
00:21an enemy. Sir Robert McLean of Supermarine wrote, the name had to begin with an S. I wanted
00:27something quarrelsome and troublesome, spitting venom, a thoroughly nasty and unpleasant creature
00:33to meet. Shakespeare's shrew gave me, I thought, the very word, but as I looked again at drawings
00:39of the aircraft with its eight automatic guns, the name flashed into my mind. Spitfire.
00:57It's almost exactly 35 years since I first sat in the cockpit of the Spitfire. I was wearing
01:12these clothes, including this scarf. I was 19, scared stiff and fiercely proud to be flying
01:19the most beautiful and finest aeroplane in the world. It was never the most comfortable,
01:24but that didn't matter. This was a superb fighting aeroplane and it was a pilot's dream.
01:36The story of the Spitfire, which we're going to tell, isn't just a film scenario of a designer
01:41working alone inspired by seagulls. Thousands of people all over Britain take part in it.
01:47We shall be meeting designers, factory workers, engineers, who toiled for months on end in
01:511940 without a break to get the Spitfires into the sky. The story begins 200 miles from this
01:59historic fighter station at Coltershall in Norfolk. The river Itchin in Southampton today carries
02:05the hovercraft, another example of British inventive genius. In the 1920s, the thriving firm of Supermarine
02:13built flying boats and seaplanes here. Their chief designer was R.J. Mitchell, who provided the seaplane,
02:20which won the Schneider Trophy for Britain. He went on to the peak of his brilliance by designing the
02:25Spitfire. And as all the world knows, he died tragically soon after in 1937. His son stands on
02:32the ramp where Supermarine's sleek seaplanes entered the water to compete for the world's speed record in 1931.
02:41The last time that I was standing on this slipway was about 45 years ago.
02:46I remember well the anguish and tension which my father showed when the Schneider Trophy planes were
02:54wheeled out and the engines revved up. This to me was something which, although I was so young,
03:00was a very potent memory. I remember the large floats, big silver wings. This was all to me for a boy of
03:09seven or eight, as I was then, something of very great excitement. I perhaps wasn't aware of the real
03:14significance of what was going on. But nevertheless, I do remember these situations and tensions very,
03:20very well. The RAF team had two seaplanes designed by Mitchell to capture the Schneider Trophy outright.
03:28The attempt was sponsored by Lady Houston with the gift of £100,000, and she kept alive a partnership
03:35between Mitchell and Sir Henry Royce. His firm was responsible for providing a winning power unit.
03:42This R engine had the temperament of a thoroughbred. On the night before an earlier race, the Rolls-Royce
03:49engineers had faced a most unusual crisis. They discovered the night before the race that one
03:55of the cylinder blocks had seized. That's right. And you had to go around and collect all the chaps
04:01that we'd taken down to change this block. Very difficult. And we had to get one special man
04:07who was left-handed because it had to be a block where only a left-handed man could undo the nuts
04:12and bolts to change it. Difficult. So that Cyril was there and they went around by taxi and got the
04:19police force out, I think, to collect these chaps who'd all had grand boots up, you know, preparatory
04:25to the day out, you know, and they were all, and somebody switched their shoes around in the hotel
04:30so that nobody knew the right boots. Anyway, they got them all together and they changed the cylinder
04:36block overnight, which is a considerable job, because the rules were that you could do this,
04:41but you couldn't take the engine out of the aeroplane. That was the rule. So they had to do it in situ
04:46in the S6 aeroplane. That's right. And it was done overnight, and the next day, of course,
04:51the aeroplane won the race and won the Schneider Trophy for England. The S6B won, and Mitchell made a
05:00rare broadcast about the real value of his triumph. It is not good enough to follow conventional methods
05:06of design. It is essential to break new ground and to invent and involve new methods and new ideas.
05:13The important aim of the designer is to reduce air resistance. The cooling of the engine presents
05:19many interesting features. The usual methods employed, either by air cooling or by means of
05:24honeycomb radiators, have very high air resistance. On the S6B, the engine is cooled without adding any
05:31air resistance. The cooling water is circulated over both surfaces of the wings and most of the surface of
05:37the floats. During flight, heat equivalent to a thousand horsepower is being given to the air from
05:43these surfaces. The S6B has been aptly described as a flying radiator. For the present, however,
05:50it is generally considered that high-speed development has served its purpose. It has accumulated an enormous
05:56amount of information which is now being used to improve the breed of everyday aircraft. It is helping to
06:03develop our great airliners and ocean-going flying boats and is thus bringing closer together the
06:08outlying parts of the British Empire. This indeed is an objective worthy of all our greatest efforts.
06:18These mementos of success are as modest as Mitchell himself, the man from Stoke-on-Trent who moved to
06:24Southampton where he made his home and his reputation. The government made him a CBE but never a knight.
06:33As a man, I liked him enormously and respected him because he was tremendously well-known. I mean,
06:38he had a huge reputation after the Schneider Trophy seaplanes. To me, he was a sort of, well, sort of wonder
06:45man. But of course, if you really look back on it and you go through the history of the Schneider Trophy
06:51series of seaplanes, Mitchell and the team which he had built up around him, which instead was a very
06:57young team, if you go back, very young team. These chaps, after the S-4 and the S-5 and the two S-6s and all
07:06the world speed records and everything else, these fellows knew more about high-speed aeronautics than
07:12any other design team in the world. I think it is fair to say. Everybody got a bit of a lift from working
07:21with Mitchell because of the success which accompanied his efforts and he was a good leader, in other words.
07:30Well, RJ would normally, on a bit of new design, would gather people around him that knew something
07:37about the job and he'd sort of sit looking at the job quietly. People would be rather timid around him,
07:46sort of thing. And they would make various comments and he would comment back. If he didn't like what
07:54people said, he'd go a bit red at the back of the neck and everything would be very quiet for a bit.
08:01And occasionally, people would bring a bit of paper and show him and he'd look at it rather critically.
08:07If he didn't like it, he'd sort of push it over the end of the bench.
08:12When Mitchell turned his attention to producing a fighter, it is entirely logical
08:21that he produced something like a Spitfire. In fact, it would have been rather surprising if he hadn't.
08:26Air Marshal Dowding invited Vickers Supermarine and Mitchell to design a fighter,
08:30but in the peaceful thirties, the government had little enthusiasm for defence. They ignored the
08:36ominous rabble rising in Germany, where a nation was being harnessed to a war machine training in secret.
08:44Britain's ancient biplane fighters were slower than the Luftwaffe's bombers. The RAF needed more killing
08:51power. The squad leader, Sorley, worked out in tremendous detail and technically that with the rate of fire
08:58and the number of guns you had, but a two-second burst was the ideal short burst as you were coming
09:05into the attack astern of an enemy aircraft. You were overtaking pretty fast usually. Two seconds when
09:12you came in range of 200 yards was about the ideal time to push the button and all the guns fire.
09:19Mitchell drew on his own experience with the RAF high-speed flight and turned to his friends at Rolls-Royce.
09:28They were already developing a new breed of aero engine.
09:33We were hoping, of course, that we would get an aeroplane that would do at least 300 miles an hour.
09:39And, of course, there was great excitement in the drawing office at the
09:43prospects of designing an engine that would produce the power required to produce that speed.
09:49At that time, of course, we had the Kestrel engine. We felt that we wanted a somewhat larger engine.
09:54We had the engine known as the R, which was the engine that won the Snyder Trophy in 1929,
10:01but that was a 20% scale up dimensionally of the Kestrel engine, but was thought at that time to be
10:08rather too big. So we decided that we would want an engine that was somewhere intermediate between the
10:15Kestrel and the Kestrel and the R. And this was how the Merlin engine came to be started.
10:22Rose-Royce built this 12-cylinder engine, the Merlin, as a private venture.
10:26R.J. Mitchell of Supermarine chose it for the Spitfire. Sydney Cam of Hawkers chose it for the
10:32Hurricane. The Hurricane first flew in November 1935 and went immediately into production.
10:38The Spitfire first flew at Eastleigh on the 5th of March 1936.
10:44This prototype was the first of 20,300 Spitfires and over 2,000 Seafires. R.J. Mitchell sat with
10:52his team more tense than he looked. There were two test pilots, Geoffrey Quill on the right,
10:57and Mutsommers, who first flew the Spitfire.
11:05And then Mutsommers took off and it wasn't long before he disappeared completely
11:10from view in the heavens above. And after a suitable interval, he returned and
11:18he made a very characteristic sideslip landing, which on a new aeroplane was perhaps a bit surprising.
11:25I jumped out of the aeroplane, and I think R.J. stepped forward and expected some figures on a
11:31piece of paper. Mutsommers said, it's a good aeroplane.
11:36He said, I don't want anything touched, by which he meant he was quite happy to fly it again on the
11:42next flight without anything done to it at all. And he was very, he was obviously delighted with the
11:49aeroplane. Well, I was very fortunate that I got the job of flying a Spitfire, but one used to perhaps
11:57take off in the morning. And obviously Mitchell had a system, somebody rang him up and said,
12:03the aircraft's airborne. By the time I used to get back into the circuit, I used to, first thing,
12:08I used to look down and, as I was on the circuit, and I would nearly always see old Mitchell's yellow
12:13Rolls-Royce either just driving in through the gate or parked on the tarmac. And as soon as I taxied
12:20in, he was always there. The sort of debriefing people used to come around, but old Mitchell was
12:26always hovering around in the background. If we were going to fly it again, he always used to invite me
12:31to go and sit in his car and talk to him, or sometimes we'd go off and have a cup of coffee.
12:36And I will remember him jokingly taking a bet with one of the test pilots, I think it was,
12:42that the Spitfire would exceed the speed of the hurricane by at least 30 miles an hour.
12:48And of course, this was all taken very lightheartedly, but events showed that this was certainly a good bet.
12:56Why was the Spitfire faster than the hurricane? Well, Mitchell knew from his Schneider Trophy
13:01experience that frontal area had to be cut down, and he determined on the thinnest possible wings for
13:09the Spitfire clad in stressed aluminium. The wing had to be thick enough to contain the wheels when
13:17retracted and to carry eight 303 machine guns for other side. Add fuel tanks and controls, and you can
13:25see it would have been easier to have a thicker wing. And Mitchell was told that having a thinner wing
13:32wouldn't make very much difference. But he insisted on the perfect aerofoil shape, and history proved him right.
13:40In 1933, it was discovered that my father had cancer, and he had to go into hospital and have a major
13:49operation. It left him with a very grave physical disability. And also, of course, he knew that
13:56there was every chance that the illness would reoccur. And he was told that if it occurred within four
14:02years, there was nothing probably that could be done. I think the relevant point is that it was during
14:08this period when he designed the Spitfire, and later still the four-engine bomber, which was designed and
14:17put into building the prototype, but was subsequently destroyed in an air raid over Southampton.
14:25But it was towards the end of 1936 that it became obvious that my father was far from well, and in
14:33fact, it was soon realized that the cancer had returned. And although he bravely continued and went to
14:41Vienna for special treatment in May of 1937, but he returned and he died about three weeks later.
14:53Mitchell's giant bomber was never produced. The Spitfire was his dynamic epitaph.
14:59In 1936, Hitler chose a fighter for his new Luftwaffe. It was the BF 109 designed by Billy Messersmith,
15:10cheap to build and very fast. In 1937, it broke the world's land plane record at 380 miles an hour,
15:18using an engine souped up almost to destruction. Goering and Messersmith let the world believe it was their
15:25standard fighter. Hitler gave highest priority to bombers, and he failed to produce efficient fighters.
15:34He hoped for cooperation with Britain. Indeed, the Luftwaffe actually disclosed
15:39true production figures to the RAF. The Luftwaffe's General Milch visited our aircraft factories.
15:47His diary notes the consternation he caused by asking,
15:51How are your experiments with the radio detection of aircraft? The Luftwaffe's Stukas and Messersmiths
16:00were bloodied in the Spanish Civil War. Dive bombers were fitted with screaming sirens to add terror to
16:07destruction. The Blitzkrieg machine was tuned for war.
16:20The Royal Air Force trained new pilots on hurricanes and spitfires. Clearly, there was not to be peace in
16:28our time. After the Munich crisis of 1938, auxiliaries and reservists were writing a new chapter of air
16:36history. I would have hated to have gone to war myself in 1938 because I wasn't trained. And I think the
16:44year we had between Munich and 1939 just gave us a time to get things better organized, get more fighter
16:51squadrons, better trained, that sort of thing. And I think, had we have fought in 1938, the outcome might
16:56have been a lot different. There were 5,000 of we chaps and the 5,000 embryo pilots in the Royal Air Force
17:04Volunteer Reserve in the summer of 1939. And we all wanted to be fighter pilots to fly the Spitfire.
17:10But the RAF had only one squadron of Spitfires, five squadrons of Hurricanes and 23 squadrons with
17:19outdated aircraft. Spitfires were slow to come from the production lines because Supermarine were
17:25struggling with an order for 310. They had never tackled more than 25 aircraft at once. They were
17:33craftsmen skilled in making seaplanes and flying boats, not mass-produced fighters of revolutionary
17:40desire. Well, I remember in 1938, the foreman came along and said, you chaps will all be working like
17:47hell in the near future. This was at what turned out to be the time of the Munich crisis.
17:54And that was our first indication, really, that things were going to be really tough.
17:58They had a building problem because of the elliptical wing. It's much more difficult to
18:01build than straight wings, obviously. The airplane derived its main strength,
18:06as far as the wing was concerned, from the detorsion leading edge.
18:10The leading edge here is formed of aluminium and the dimensions are critical. The wing,
18:15at first, was difficult to make. Indeed, at one time, Vicar Supermarine at Southampton
18:21had completed fuselages lying around waiting for the wings, which the subcontractor was unable to
18:28deliver. The Hurricane, easier to build, was available in greater numbers at the outbreak of war.
18:34By the spring of 1939, the countdown to war had started and the balance of air power was more
18:43even. Urgent arrangements was made for Supermarine to increase their plant at that time, which was
18:52nothing like the requirements of an order of this size. Orders was placed in Germany and also in other
18:59parts of Europe. And I recall with quite amusement now that in 1939, and the week the war was declared,
19:07a German was installing a horse or Jigbor, which the company had purchased, and he had to be escorted
19:13from the gate to the machine, and then got out of the place as quick as possible.
19:18The Poles fell to the Blitzkrieg. The Messerschmitts destroyed their air force,
19:23and Goebbels fostered the myth of German supremacy. But thanks to their Spitfires and Hurricanes,
19:30the morale of Britain's fighter pilots was high, not least when Douglas Bader rejoined the RAF.
19:36I say, you never forget, oh boy. I mean, I remember this when I sit in this cockpit and look at the
19:42instruments and so on. I mean, one's back home again, you know. I could fly this thing if you
19:48take the hangar down and start it, you know, without any trouble. They were a lovely aeroplane. They still
19:53look about the prettiest thing that's ever been built. I mean, jets included. And you see, that wonderful
20:00champ Mitchell, who designed this aeroplane, I think it was awfully sad that he didn't live to see
20:08what he did for his country. Because apart from the superlative design, it has been, and always was,
20:17marvellously built. If you're always flying an aeroplane where not only bullets from the enemy are going to
20:23destroy you, but if you aren't careful, the wing will fold up. I think it makes a great deal of difference
20:28to morale, you know. The first dogfights between the ME 109 and the Spitfire and Hurricane took place
20:36in the spring of 1940 over the channel in France. A Messerschmitt was captured intact and taken to
20:49Boscombe Dine. To compare it with the Spitfire, the ME 109 was flown by Wing Commander Stanford Tuck and George
20:56Stainforth who had piloted the Schneider Trophy planes. The Hurricanes were slower than the Messerschmitts,
21:04the Spitfires just faster. Well, I thought it was a first-class fighter aircraft. It was very similar
21:12to our Spitfire, a little better than our Hurricane, but very similar to our Spitfire. And in the comparison
21:19trials that George Stainforth and I did, the results were one had little advantages over the other and vice versa.
21:27This fighter basically had to escort the German bombers over here. And the fuel consumption was,
21:38of course, very high for this type of aircraft, a powerful engine. And if it had to fly very slowly at
21:43the speed of the bombers, the pilots were constantly using throttle, which was using more fuel, as opposed
21:50to operating at A, their best altitude, and B, their best throttle setting. So the Messerschmitt pilots,
21:58the 109s, doing their escort to their bombers, I felt were always at a tremendous disadvantage.
22:05The Supermarine experts, now under Joe Smith, fought their own battle for airspeed.
22:16Supermarine were proud of their flush riveting, but in mass production, mushroom-headed rivets
22:22would be quicker and easier. But would these sticking-out rivets so increase the drag as to
22:28reduce the speed? A vital question in view of the performance of the Messerschmitt 109. Well,
22:34there was only one way to find out. Split peas were stuck over the heads of the flush rivets to
22:44simulate mushroom riveting. And the aeroplane was then taken off and its maximum speed very carefully
22:52measured. And then, row by row, the split peas were removed from the flush riveting and comparative
23:02measurements of speed were made. They reached a compromise. If the leading edge there were
23:08flush riveted, they gained 12 miles an hour. Other places could acceptably be mushroom riveted
23:15in the interests of economy and speed of production. Now, on the prototype, they just shot the exhaust
23:23out sideways. The important thing was thought to get the exhaust well clear and so it didn't
23:27get to get to the pilot. But it was later realized, and in the Schneider Trophy too we did that, but later it was
23:34realized that you get jet propulsion out of the exhaust. It was being shot out at considerable speed, and if you
23:40could turn it backwards, it would in fact give you quite a lot of increase in speed. And in fact, compared
23:47with their prototype, the aeroplane in the form we've got in here, for instance, these sort of jets, would go
23:54about 20 to 25 miles an hour faster. Farnborough streamlined the radiator and used waste heat to give
24:02jet propulsion to balance out the radiator's drag. Later, a curved shoulder windscreen gained five
24:09miles an hour and adding doors to the retractable wheels won another six.
24:13Eventually, the tail wheel was made retractable to speed up the Spitfire by another five miles an
24:22hour. But there was one unexpected defect in the carburettor. Now, I'm a German pilot here flying on
24:29Messerschmitt 109. This one has Richthofen's markings on it. But if I saw an attack from a hurricane or a
24:35Spitfire developing behind me, due to the engine that I got which had direct fuel injection, it wasn't
24:42worried of negative G. So my immediate evasive action would be just to stick my nose straight
24:47down as fast as I could and accelerate away. And you see, I'm behind him about to shoot him down and
24:52he does that. Now, I've got an ordinary carburettor in this Spitfire. So when I push the stick forward,
24:59all the petrol flow goes away from the carburettor and the aeroplane goes all this sort of banging and
25:05so on. And things come out from the bottom of the cockpit, you know, the spanners, the people left
25:10on the floor and so on and dust and stuff. So that is no good. Now, what we evolved was somehow we've
25:17got to keep the gravy in the carburettor, you know. And so we used to do a half roll like that
25:25to keep the negative G, which meant you were going down with your back to him and then roll round
25:30and hope that you were in behind him. That you could see him. Now, usually, of course,
25:35he was way about running like a lamplighter, you know, couldn't get him. But we did discover and
25:39Bob will show us that if you held, if you saw him and stayed behind him, although you weren't anywhere
25:44near him, that he pulled out of the dive rather early. And then you could do that across him,
25:49get behind him again. Cut the corner. This was the point. The reason was that a very famous German
25:56pilot had pulled the wings off a 109, pulling out for speed or pulling out too hard. And we reckoned
26:03that this had gone round the German Air Force. And they'd been told to be pretty sort of porky with
26:08pulling the lever back, you know, when they were going very fast. And it made it tremendous
26:12difficult, although our manoeuvre looks complicated. I mean, Bob will agree with me. Actually, after a bit,
26:17you got frankly good at it, you know, so that you could nip around. And he was still there,
26:22but a bit further away. When the pilot turned into a dive to follow the Messerschmitt, or a bunt,
26:27if you like, the fuel was thrown to the top of the carburetor. And the engine momentarily was
26:32starved with fuel and cut, power cut. And this was a disadvantage. By the time the thing had recovered,
26:38the Messerschmitt had gone. And this was cured initially by, in a very simple way, by a famous
26:45lady engineer from the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Miss Schilling. And she put a small thing about the
26:51size of a penny of the holes for it. And we called it Miss Schilling's orifice, I remember at the time.
26:56And this was a partial cure. Subsequently, the thing was cured completely by a development here
27:03of Cyril Lavse's into a new carburetor called the diaphragm carburetor. Now, we never went for petrol
27:10injection because evaporating, putting the fuel in before the supercharger, when it evaporates,
27:17it cools the air and increases the performance of the supercharger. So we gain more power that way.
27:23And we always stuck to putting the fuel in before the, the, uh, supercharger.
27:30In the fighter-to-fighter duels, the Spitfire and Hurricane drew on one more asset. They could both
27:36outturn the Messerschmitt. You see, in the Spitfire, all I do when I got one and I'm behind me was,
27:41it was simply to do a steep turn like that. And he can't get inside me to shoot. Now, Bob, you get
27:46hold of both of them. Yeah, sure. And explain it, will you? Well, now, I'm the Messerschmitt here, coming
27:50down and, and I'm attacking the Spitfire. Now, the Spitfire has a remarkably good, uh, rate of turn,
27:56better than the Messerschmitt. Now, as they're turning steeply, the Messerschmitt, to shoot at the
28:00Spitfire, has got to really aim there, ahead of the Spitfire, because it's turning fast. What we call
28:06a deflection shot. But he can't, the Messerschmitt can't turn as quickly as the Spitfire, so therefore,
28:12all his shots are going astern here. After the evacuation of Dunkirk, Goering realized that the
28:19RAF fighter force must be destroyed before Germany could invade Britain. But he underestimated
28:25the build-up of our fighter production.
28:31German fighters in France were now within range of London, and the Luftwaffe prepared for the
28:36last act of the Blitzkrieg drama. They were soon to discover that Dad's army was not the only
28:43star term in Britain.
28:45Who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler, if you think we're on the run?
28:55We are the boys who will stop your little game. We are the boys who will make you think
29:03again. Cause who do you think you are kidding, Mr. Hitler, if you think old England's done?
29:16Well, we'll be right back.
29:17And we'll be right back.
29:17Well, we'll be right back.
29:18I'm glad that you are following the players.
29:19Yeah, I know.
29:21I'm glad that you are.
29:22I'm glad you are.
29:23Let's see.
29:24I'm glad that you are amazing.
29:29You are my.
29:31So, hanging on.
29:36This Spitfire is still serving with the Royal Air Force,
29:53a survivor of over 20,000 Spitfires and more than 2,000 Seafires.
30:00On this day, March the 5th, 1936,
30:02the first Spitfire, designed by R.J. Mitchell, flew at Eastleigh in Hampshire.
30:10In 40 years, the technology of flying has moved on from this dainty monoplane to the supersonic jets.
30:18But the Spitfire and her partner, the Hurricane, won a unique battle for this country's survival.
30:25Tonight, we tell the second part of the Spitfire story.
30:28The Battle of Britain is reckoned to have lasted from the 1st of July, 1940, until the end of October.
30:39The Luftwaffe's aim was the destruction of our will and ability to resist invasion.
30:46Radar and plotting rooms guided our fighters to the raiders, sometimes 300 to 500 strong.
30:52The bombers flew at 20,000 feet.
31:00They were sitting ducks for fighters.
31:04But their escorting any 109s could be lurking above, ready to dive out of the sun and bunce the British.
31:12There's no doubt that Goering could have set about the Battle of Britain a lot differently.
31:17I don't think he was a, he wasn't a professional airman like our Commander-in-Chief, Dowding.
31:23He didn't appreciate the importance of radar, which had the effect of multiplying our squadrons.
31:29And we had 14 radar stations from the Wash around to the Isle of Wight,
31:33only one of which was bombed during the whole of the Battle of Britain.
31:36Some radar stations were really the eyes of Fighter Command.
31:46Somebody saw the NMN and alerted you on the RT.
31:50And they seemed a long way away and quite small.
31:53Now, when you got a bit smarter, you didn't rush to overtake him
31:57because you found that the little dot, or the aeroplane,
32:01it suddenly came straight at you like that because you're going much too fast.
32:04You had no chance of shooting.
32:06You overshot people like Bob Stamford, Tuckhead, Bloody Good Judgment,
32:10you know, and one or two of the rest of us.
32:12And you didn't rush it.
32:14And the ideal way to shoot another aeroplane down
32:17is to be going at the same speed, 200 yards behind them.
32:23In other words, you had maximum time.
32:26There was no hurry.
32:27And that was the secret, not to be in a hurry.
32:32Most of us, it was purely the aeroplane we wanted to get rid of.
32:35We didn't care a bit whether the chap inside he got out or whether he was killed.
32:38We disliked the iron crosses and the crooked sign of the swastika.
32:48And anyhow, who the hell were these chaps to come over into our sky
32:51and drop bombs on us, on our people?
32:55That was the feeling.
32:56There was no personal antipathy.
32:59I don't think one really thought about a pilot inside it.
33:01Now, if you're flying an aeroplane,
33:07you're very much on the ball, you're alert,
33:09and then you discover that there's a whole stream of bullets
33:11come in from the back of the cockpit,
33:12which actually happened to me once.
33:14Now, there's nothing you can do about it, that.
33:18But physically, you're doing something
33:21to get out of the way of this stream of stuff
33:23that's coming in behind you.
33:24So you're on the job, so to speak.
33:27Now, I don't believe you can be frightened
33:29and active at the same time.
33:31Not in that particular context.
33:34And I suppose other people may have had
33:37a different sort of fears, you know.
33:39But I can't think of anyone
33:41who was frightened actually in the aeroplane
33:44flying along to the battle
33:46or seeing the battle about to start.
33:49It's only when something physical happens to you
33:52that you get this feeling.
33:54I can only describe it as a hand touching my heart,
33:58which, you know, is like that.
33:59If that's fair, well, then I was frightened.
34:02The Spitfire was formidable, but not invincible.
34:07Most of the aircraft were provided by the factories
34:10and repair shops in the Southampton area,
34:13but soon reinforcements were on the way
34:15from Castle Bromwich near Birmingham.
34:18This gigantic shadow factory was built before the war
34:22by Nuffield to make aircraft.
34:24Today, it's the British Leyland plant.
34:28And in 1940, a Stanley Woodley came to Birmingham.
34:31The factory was, in fact, designed by the Nuffield organisation
34:36just to produce Spitfires.
34:38Although this factory was fully equipped and making parts,
34:42they'd never produced a Spitfire in the early days of 1940.
34:45And Beaverbrook, who was of tremendous power in those days,
34:49decided that he needed to have somebody with aircraft experience
34:52to produce some aeroplanes required very, very quickly.
34:55I was sitting in my office in Southampton one day.
34:57I had a phone call to say,
34:59pack a bag, we're going to Birmingham.
35:00And we walked in and took over the factory.
35:04Within six weeks, we'd produced ten Spitfires.
35:08This wasn't because they weren't able to do it here.
35:11It's because we brought in the expertise.
35:13We knew how to take shortcuts.
35:15They were trying to produce aeroplanes,
35:17which we ultimately did here on motorcar lines,
35:19using mass production methods.
35:22That was no good in the early days of 1940.
35:24We really wanted some aeroplanes in a hell of a hurry,
35:26and we got them.
35:26The employees here were a complete mixed bag.
35:33We had lion tamers, we had variety artists,
35:36we had footballers, we had the lot.
35:39All of them did a hell of a job,
35:40and in the end, made a hell of a lot of Spitfire.
35:46In 1901 period, we were doing 400 Spitfires a month.
35:50There was a lot of aeroplanes in 1940.
35:51In 1940, all these people built Spitfires.
36:00We used to work, though, within those days,
36:02six days a week.
36:04And in the offices, it was eight or six.
36:08In fact, we all did those sort of hours.
36:10And then we used to have to go back three nights a week
36:12and home guard duty.
36:13And there were people that worked two and three nights
36:16on the trot, let me break it tall.
36:18We often called them to do a round,
36:19and that was the day, the night, and the next day.
36:21Of course, it was a heck of a night shift.
36:23When you changed over from days to nights,
36:25you did seven in a Saturday morning till 12,
36:28and then you came on at seven at night,
36:30and you did 28 nights straight off.
36:32It was a month of about in those days.
36:34Yes, we had a lot of hours to put in,
36:36and not only the hours of the factory,
36:38we also turned out as a full regimental battalion,
36:4052nd Battalion, home guard.
36:43That's it.
36:44It was a tremendous work.
36:45A hell of a lot.
36:46When you went through Seablock, which was the final shot,
36:49and to see them lined up, you know,
36:51ready to go, ferried across the road for testing,
36:55it was a wonderful sight.
36:56After Dunkirk, we knew that Spitfires were absolutely
36:59the plane to make.
37:02And so, of course, we all got stuck and stuck into it
37:06to make as many as we possibly could
37:07with the materials available.
37:08Well, no, it wasn't just like putting nuts and bolts together.
37:13You felt a lot of satisfaction
37:14of when you're seeing this plane go out with Alec Enshor
37:18and drive it out and then go, you know.
37:22You knew that, you know, things had got to be perfect
37:26or as near perfect as possible,
37:28and you made a special effort.
37:31It's often argued whether or not we used our fighters efficiently
37:34in small or large numbers.
37:35In the 11 group, the Spitfire fought us in flight
37:39or squadron strength, and very rarely in wing strength.
37:43And one of the secrets, that it was elusive.
37:46The Germans could never, the German fighters
37:48could never find the big numbers to see and destroy.
37:51And I think it was the elusiveness of the 11 group,
37:54Spitfire squadrons and Hurricane squadrons,
37:57which came in and out and attacked, nibbled,
38:00and so on and so forth,
38:01which is one of the great factors of victory.
38:03And I think then at the back, you had Lee Mallory
38:06and Douglas Bader, the great exponents of the big wings.
38:10And they had the time to form up,
38:12and the big wings sometimes gave the Germans a hell of a knock.
38:15So there was really the strategy, if you like to call it,
38:18was for the elusive little units of the threatening group
38:22to strike hard and from all directions,
38:26and the big ones to come in from the back and give them a knock.
38:29The morale of German bomber crews
38:31was severely shaken by heavy losses.
38:34But Goering insisted that the MEs
38:36should stay close to the bombers until attacked,
38:38which put them at a tactical disadvantage.
38:41So the fighter, General Galland, told Goering sharply,
38:45then you must give me an outfit of Spitfires.
38:48He envied our defensive maneuverability.
38:51In September 1940, the Luftwaffe attacked the Spitfires
38:55in their most vulnerable form
38:57as unfinished fuselages at Southampton.
39:01People were so shattered.
39:09People were fainting, we females screaming everywhere,
39:12and I don't mind admitting to myself, I was very shattered.
39:15I looked out of the window,
39:17and you could see the smoke from the bombs going up, you see.
39:20And I said to the chap, get down.
39:23And then a moment later, the whole building,
39:25that's this building, was shaking two, three inches.
39:31We had very little warning.
39:34I heard the Akak fire,
39:36and as I ran up the hill,
39:37we didn't trust the factory shelters.
39:39I looked up, and I could see the vicious mitt on my nose,
39:43and I saw a bomb dropping immediately above me,
39:47about the height of a house.
39:49I didn't decide, I had to decide quickly which way to go.
39:52And I suddenly looked across to the right,
39:54and I saw the roof of a house lifting up and falling,
39:58and dust and debris covered us.
39:59We were in the middle of a stick of bombs.
40:02We'd been straddled.
40:06I crashed behind this little first aid post
40:08that was in the center of the road here.
40:10A colleague of mine appeared from the other side,
40:12and within a few moments, it was all over.
40:15We were just thanking God that we were still alive.
40:18Two days later, the bombers returned.
40:21That evening, Lord Beaverbrook arrived here at the works,
40:29and I was sent for with other people
40:32to see this wisdom-faced little man.
40:36And we were going in there,
40:37and all of a sudden, he started thumping the table.
40:40And I don't mind it.
40:40I wasn't in the mood to be thumped very much at that occasion,
40:43having two days of this.
40:44And he thumped the table and said,
40:46Look, I want more spitfires, more spitfires,
40:49and you're going to disperse all over the country.
40:52Complete dispersal.
40:53And I didn't quite understand fully what the hell he was talking about.
40:56But I went out, and he then was asked
40:59if he could be provided for something to eat,
41:01and he said no.
41:02He had to go back to report to Churchill and the cabinet
41:04on the serious situation of this plant here.
41:06And with that, he went.
41:08And on the Saturday,
41:11one of Beaver's henchmen looked out of the window,
41:13the fourth floor at the Polygon Hotel,
41:15and said,
41:15Gooch, come here.
41:17There's the first building to be requisitioned.
41:20I said, well, for your information,
41:21that's a civic centre,
41:23and I don't think that is a suitable place
41:24for making aeroplane.
41:26On the Sunday, I set up team
41:28looking for suitable premises.
41:31There was one across the road here,
41:32which was a sunlight laundry.
41:34As the Spitfire equipment was moving,
41:36and so the calendar laundry machinery were going out.
41:39Next door to that was the Hanson-Dorset bus station,
41:42which we took over.
41:44But eventually, the whole thing emerged,
41:46and 35 factories in six weeks were in conversion,
41:50and 16 of those were working day and night shift.
41:54And Castle Bromwich wasn't spared either.
41:57Work went on,
41:58but there were delayed action bombs,
42:01DAs, among the debris.
42:03I arrived,
42:04I got there about half an hour after the bombing,
42:06and I remember treading on people,
42:08there were people blowing up in the roof.
42:11And I stood outside the gate,
42:12and they said,
42:13You come in if you like,
42:13but the DAs are all over the place.
42:15I come to the top into my shop in E-block,
42:17and when I walked in,
42:18the governor gave me a screw bin,
42:20a small screw bin,
42:21and some mutton cloth,
42:22and said,
42:22Stick that on your head,
42:23and get on with your job.
42:24Production kept ahead of losses,
42:26But there were serious shortcomings in our firepower.
42:30Well, as far as the armament of these two airplanes are concerned,
42:33on the Spitfire,
42:33we had, to start with,
42:36eight guns,
42:37which were four a side,
42:38eight machine guns,
42:39doing about a thousand rounds a minute each,
42:41which is eight thousand rounds a minute,
42:43which you're letting go with.
42:44Now,
42:45on the Messerschmitt,
42:49and Bob will tell you,
42:50they had a cannon straight down the middle.
42:53Yeah,
42:53on the Messerschmitt here,
42:54I think it was very,
42:56very good armament.
42:56Personally,
42:57they had a heavy cannon,
42:59a cannon firing directly through the prop bus,
43:02which is the center of the axis of the aircraft,
43:04and that was very effective armament.
43:06It was dead central in the aircraft.
43:08Then they had two heavy machine guns,
43:10along the top of the fuselage here,
43:12there and there,
43:13which fired through the propeller,
43:15and two other machine guns,
43:16normal machine guns,
43:18outside of the circuit of the propeller,
43:21which was very good armament,
43:22I think,
43:22didn't you, Douglas?
43:23Yes,
43:23I think it was.
43:23I think they must have hit the prop sometimes,
43:25with the sinker.
43:25Well,
43:26I think they knocked Lumpcher out.
43:27Yes,
43:27because I mean,
43:27you know,
43:28you did get knocked out of the propeller.
43:30Well,
43:31we finally decided we had to fit cannons,
43:34because the Germans were fitting armor plate
43:37to their bombers and fighters,
43:39quite appreciably,
43:40and we were finding at one stage
43:43that we were firing 303,
43:44that's machine guns,
43:45up behind them,
43:46and they were taking an awful lot of punishment
43:48before you could shoot them down.
43:49We were told to fit cannons
43:53in the Spitfires within a month.
43:56Now,
43:56this was a tremendous task
43:57in a short time,
43:59and nobody believed we could do it.
44:01And indeed,
44:02Beaver Rock one day
44:03phoned the works,
44:04said,
44:05look,
44:05you can't do it in the time,
44:06you said.
44:06We said,
44:07we can.
44:07He said,
44:08I'll bet you £100 you can't.
44:10We did,
44:10and we had the £100,
44:11which we spread amongst the blokes who did it.
44:13In 1941,
44:16the Spitfires moved to an attacking role,
44:18hammering the Germans in France
44:20and the Low Countries,
44:21destroying communications,
44:23armor,
44:24aircraft on the ground.
44:26Hitler was now at war with Russia,
44:28but at the end of 1941,
44:30the Luftwaffe sent a potent new fighter
44:33into battle
44:33with devastating effect.
44:35This is the Focke-Wulf 190,
44:38a radial-engined fighter
44:40which outflew the Spitfire Mark V
44:42in every respect.
44:49The Air Ministry asked for a combined operation
44:52to capture an FW 190
44:54in order to appraise it.
44:57Official papers now released
44:58tell how test pilot Geoffrey Quill
45:01was called in.
45:02We were going to be put ashore,
45:03and get into the German airfield,
45:07probably Abfield
45:08was the favourite at that time.
45:12I made the stipulation
45:13that I should be got,
45:15the army would get me
45:16into the cockpit of a 190
45:18with the engine running,
45:19and from then on it was up to me.
45:21I thought that if this could be done,
45:24if we got that far,
45:25I thought I had
45:27a little better than a 50-50 chance
45:29of getting off the airfield
45:31and getting back.
45:33And like many combined operations,
45:35this one had a surprise outcome.
45:38One day,
45:39Philip Pinkney arrived
45:41on an army motorbike,
45:44and I said,
45:45hello, Philip,
45:46and he had a very long face,
45:49and he said,
45:50the whole thing's cancelled.
45:51And I said,
45:53why?
45:54And he said,
45:55some chap has landed
45:57an FW 190 intact in Wales,
46:00and the whole thing,
46:01he said,
46:01believe it,
46:02the whole thing's off.
46:02And I said,
46:04I am sorry, Philip,
46:05but I must say,
46:06I was very relieved.
46:08With the advent of the Focke-Wulf on 90,
46:10which was a much better airplane
46:12than the Spitfire 5,
46:13it was faster,
46:14higher,
46:14better arm,
46:14and that sort of thing,
46:15that it had the effect
46:16of pushing our operations
46:17back from northern France,
46:19Belgium,
46:20and Holland
46:20back to the channel.
46:22It shoved us,
46:23it reduced us,
46:23our fighting area,
46:25really.
46:25It was such a good airplane.
46:27And that was not redressed
46:28until the introduction
46:29of the best airplane,
46:31the best Spitfire of the war years,
46:34the Spitfire 9.
46:35We originally designed
46:36the two-stage Merlin,
46:37which is the final engine,
46:40to fit the Wellington
46:41high-altitude bomber.
46:43And that's how we started.
46:44Then the mechanical liability
46:46of the engine
46:47had to be dealt with,
46:48the bearings,
46:49and the conrods,
46:49and the pistons,
46:50and the cylinder blocks
46:52to take this huge
46:53increasing power.
46:54And then one day,
46:55and we just got this engine going,
46:57when Hives said,
46:58what would happen
47:00if we put that
47:00into the Spitfire?
47:02None of us
47:03had thought about that.
47:04It meant a considerable
47:05modification to the Spitfire,
47:07because the engine
47:07was nine inches longer,
47:09so the whole thing
47:09had to be moved forward,
47:11and actually put
47:13the first two-stage Merlin engine,
47:15the Merlin 61,
47:16as we called it,
47:17into the Spitfire,
47:19and flew it.
47:20And then we had
47:20this tremendous
47:21improvement in performance.
47:23But I remember
47:24one pilot telling me
47:25that he climbed up
47:26past the Focke-Wulf.
47:28They were both climbing,
47:29and the Spitfire
47:30soared up past,
47:31and he said,
47:31you can remember
47:32the German pilot
47:33looking at this
47:34astonishment on his face
47:35as he followed
47:36the Spitfire going up
47:37past him.
47:38The beauty of it,
47:39of the Spitfire 9,
47:40was that it was
47:41almost the same
47:42as its predecessors.
47:43It was very hard
47:44to distinguish
47:45between it in the air,
47:46between the Spitfire 9
47:47and the Spitfire 5,
47:48and therefore,
47:49the Germans had often
47:50come rushing at us
47:51thinking they were
47:51flying Spitfire 5.
47:53One day,
47:55over France in 1944,
47:57and I was leading
47:57the Canadian wing,
47:59and we got split up
48:00in a fight
48:01over the Seine
48:01when the German army
48:02was withdrawing.
48:04And I eventually
48:07went down to the ground
48:09level,
48:09and I climbed back
48:10to about 14,000 feet
48:11to rejoin who,
48:14what I thought to be,
48:15a flight of my Canadians,
48:17six Spitfire 9s.
48:19And I saw these aircraft
48:21at the back of me
48:22and in the sun,
48:23and I said,
48:23I'm pulling up
48:24in front of you,
48:26exactly in front of you,
48:28and I'm waggling my wings,
48:29reform,
48:29and it was six
48:30Fockel von 90s.
48:32And all I got
48:33was a share of shot
48:34and a share of from them,
48:35but I think it speaks
48:36volumes for the Spitfire
48:38that I'm here
48:38and alive to downtown
48:40the story.
48:50The Spitfires went to sea
48:52as seafires.
48:54Some were fitted
48:55with folding wings
48:56and remained in service
48:58long after the war.
49:11Spitfires flew from
49:12aircraft carriers
49:13to defend Morton
49:14and were in action
49:15within minutes of length.
49:17They covered the invasion
49:18of North Africa
49:19and every amphibious
49:21operation thereafter.
49:24After D-Day,
49:25one machine
49:26even carried
49:27emergency supplies
49:28of beer to France.
49:35In 1944,
49:37there was almost
49:38a second battle of Britain
49:39against the V-weapons.
49:42The V-1 flying bomb
49:44was a brilliant use
49:45of a ram jet
49:46with automatic pilot
49:47and a speed
49:48almost outstripping
49:50our latest fighters.
49:52Spitfires could just
49:54catch them out of a dive
49:55and destroy them
49:56at considerable risk
49:58to the pilot.
50:02The Spitfire's war service
50:04was almost over,
50:06but the Rolls-Royce team
50:07once more gave it
50:08new power,
50:10the Griffin engine.
50:11It flies today
50:18where the Spitfire engines
50:20were made,
50:21at Derby.
50:22It's 47 years
50:23since Cyril Lovesey
50:25and his colleagues
50:26tuned up
50:27the Schneider Trophy planes.
50:28These are the Hurricanes
50:43and Spitfires
50:44of the Battle of Britain flight,
50:46kept in top condition
50:48to fly at air displays
50:49all over Britain.
50:51Spare parts are precious.
50:53Old wings
50:53and bits dug up
50:54by farmers
50:55are cannibalized
50:56as replacements.
51:00The flight commander
51:02is squadron leader
51:03McRaw.
51:04The Spitfire,
51:05as you well know,
51:07is a most versatile aircraft,
51:09fully aerobatic,
51:10and is probably stronger
51:11than the pilot,
51:13really.
51:13And you could sling it
51:15all over the sky,
51:16but we'd wear them out
51:17quickly.
51:17And they come under
51:18the RAF program
51:20of X-raying
51:21for metal fatigue.
51:23And it's incredible
51:24that our aircraft,
51:26one, for instance,
51:27was built in 1940,
51:29recently passed
51:30its X-ray medical,
51:32let's call it,
51:33with flying colors.
51:34It's absolutely tremendous
51:35when you think
51:36the Chats built them
51:36that long ago,
51:37and they are satisfying
51:39the servicing checks
51:41which are imposed
51:41on them today.
51:42One regular visitor
51:44to the Battle of Britain flight
51:45is a former aircraft woman,
51:48Margaret Horne.
51:49Oh, the slight mechanic
51:50airframes.
51:51You know the drill.
51:52I polish the perspex a lot
51:54because that's what
51:55they gave you to do
51:56if you weren't very bright.
51:57And we shoved the kites
51:58out in the morning
51:59and took the colors off them.
52:01And you gave them a DI
52:02when they came in at night.
52:04And brightened everybody's day,
52:05if I may say so.
52:06Well, not that day.
52:08It doesn't brighten anybody.
52:09Yes, no.
52:10That day, that day,
52:12you joined
52:12a very particular Spitfire club.
52:15Well, we'd had
52:16the rough weather order,
52:17you see.
52:18That meant every kite
52:19had to have a mechanic
52:22sitting on the tail,
52:23as I expect you to remember.
52:24And my pilot
52:26hadn't been properly briefed.
52:27He hadn't got
52:28that vital bit of information.
52:30So as he was just
52:31getting ready to go,
52:32I came along
52:33and jumped up on the tail
52:34and off we went.
52:36Only instead of stopping
52:38at the proper point
52:40for me to jump down,
52:41he just took straight off.
52:42You see, he's still there.
52:43When I saw things
52:45going too fast,
52:46I flung myself
52:47across the tailplane
52:49and caught
52:51hold of the accelerator.
52:52Good gracious.
52:53I tried to move it
52:54so that he'd know
52:54I was there.
52:56But I suppose
52:57he was pushing
52:57the other way,
52:58poor boy,
52:59and didn't feel me.
53:00And the clown
53:01didn't realize
53:02that he'd got a passenger.
53:03Well, I wouldn't
53:03call him that.
53:04I would, Miss Horton.
53:06I would.
53:07Well, I think
53:07it would happen
53:08to anybody.
53:08The whole thing was
53:09he had a lot
53:10that bit of information.
53:11Can you show us
53:12exactly the position
53:13you were?
53:14Good gracious.
53:16Yes.
53:17And then off he went
53:18and did a circuit
53:19with you hanging on the boat.
53:21Well, he realized
53:21that there's something wrong.
53:23Just at that moment,
53:25the control tower officer
53:27had got the message through
53:28that I'd been seen
53:29going off.
53:31So he made
53:31the snap decision
53:32not to tell the pilot
53:33in case it rattled him.
53:34Yes.
53:35So he just came in
53:36and made a normal landing.
53:37He came in.
53:37He made a beautiful landing.
53:39Just as well.
53:39I didn't.
53:40I just felt her drop slightly.
53:42And I only knew
53:43we were down
53:43because I could see
53:44things moving again.
53:46Well, congratulations,
53:47Miss Horton.
53:47That was a day indeed
53:49not to remember.
53:50It was a day to remember.
53:52It may seem strange
53:54that Southampton,
53:55home of the Spitfire,
53:57has taken 40 years
53:58before setting up
53:59a permanent memorial
54:00to Mitchell
54:01and his aircraft.
54:02Stoke-on-Trent
54:03where Mitchell was born
54:04has had a museum
54:05for years.
54:07This procession
54:08puts the matter
54:09to rights.
54:12It's a museum
54:13built entirely
54:14by air-minded youth,
54:16the Air Training Corps.
54:18The aircraft
54:19are the record-breaking
54:20S-6B seaplane
54:22and the Griffin-powered
54:23Spitfire.
54:27They received
54:28their first visit
54:29from a distinguished admirer
54:31well-known
54:32on the scent.
54:32The S-6B seaplane
54:33were well-known
54:34on the scent.
54:34The S-6B seaplane
54:35is a museum
54:37and the music
54:40from a exhibition
54:41in the South Africa
54:42in the South Africa.
54:43The S-6B seaplane
54:43and seaplane
54:44is a museum
54:45that many men
54:45need their first visit
54:46and have more
54:48and more.
54:49The S-6B seaplane
54:50can bring up
54:50to the seaplane
54:51or the seaplane
54:51in the south.
54:52And there
54:52is a museum
54:53of the air-cold
54:54with its own
54:54and with its own
54:55and up
54:56in the Amazigh
54:57with its own
54:58and growing
54:59to the land.
55:00The S-6B seaplane
55:01And to complete the circle of history
55:29comes this fighter,
55:30the multi-role combat aircraft built by the combined efforts of Britain, Germany and Italy.
55:37Of course, where I sit in Munich,
55:40in the Peneva building,
55:42in the same office as Professor Messerschmitt and Kurt Tank,
55:45the 190 designer.
55:47He lives in Munich and he's around a good deal.
55:50And, of course, the many, many people involved in this program,
55:54ex-Spitfire pilots, FW-190 pilots, F-109 pilots and so on.
55:59Fascinating and it's a very rewarding experience.
56:05I often wonder if old Reg Mitchell was alive,
56:07he would have been popping in and out of Munich pretty frequently
56:10to see how things were getting on as well.
56:12Well, I mean, the Spitfire is part of British history.
56:16I mean, it already is and it always will remain so.
56:18You see, the great thing about the Spitfire was that it went right through the war.
56:25The same airframe, there are about 26 models, 26 types of them.
56:28It got heavier, it had cannons, it had ground rollers.
56:33They cut the wing tip, which made it look terrible, of course, with that square wing tip.
56:36But all these things they did for a very special reason.
56:39Now, the remarkable thing, the fellow I always wanted to meet was the champ,
56:42and I'm sure Bob agrees with me on this,
56:44was the champ who invented the name Spitfire.
56:47It's the most wonderful name.
56:48I mean, it's bound to catch on, so to speak.
56:51And there's an awfully interesting thing that Peter Townsend makes in his book,
56:55where he refers to the Germans always saying,
56:58Achtung, Spitfire.
56:59And they were always shot down by Spitfires in the battle.
57:01Whereas, in fact, there were many, many more hurricanes
57:04than there were Spitfires in the battle,
57:05and many more were shot down by hurricanes.
57:07And he quotes a wonderful story,
57:09where they shot a German airplane down up in the Wick area, up in north of Scotland.
57:14And the German wasn't shot into the sea.
57:17He just managed to crash land on the aerodrome, and he got out.
57:20And Peter went up to him and said,
57:22Oh, nice to see you, glad you're right, son.
57:24And he said, I was shot down by a Spitfire.
57:26And Peter said, No, you weren't.
57:27You were shot down by a hurricane, because that's my airplane.
57:29And, in fact, there isn't a Spitfire within 200 miles
57:32of where you're standing at the moment.
57:34He said, Nine-nine, Ich bin Spitfire.
57:36You see?
57:37So, this was the wonderful phrase that Peter invented,
57:39of Spitfire snobbery.
57:41And I think it's the most remarkable thing.
57:42And this, again, is a complement of Spitfire.
58:06So, this is the only thing you can do.
58:11And if the French opened and would you have been a good one?
58:15And the French opened,
58:16you know, is a great or unaquillain.
58:18And of course, this is the first instructions.
58:20So, this was the most remarkable thing.
58:21And the French opened and that it was the only thing that the French opened.
58:23And the French opened and the French opened and the French opened.
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