Each would execute between eight and 18 missions a night, flying back to re-arm between runs. In order to make meaningful dents in the German front lines, the regiment sent out up to 40 two-person crews a night. The Polikarpovs could only carry two bombs at a time, one under each wing. If they happened to be hit by tracer bullets, which carry a pyrotechnic charge, their wooden planes would burst into flames. The downside? When coming under enemy fire, pilots had to duck by sending their planes into dives (almost none of the planes carried defense ammunition). They also could easily take off and land from most locations. Their maximum speed was slower than the stall speed of the Nazi planes, which meant these wooden planes, ironically, could maneuver faster than the enemy, making them hard to target. The Spitfire was one of the first aircraft to have retractable landing gear, a feature that proved to be a problem with some pilots, who forgot to put down that landing gear when they came in for a landing.There was some upside to the older aircraft. Those “beer bombs” ensured a welcome supply of altitude chilled beer to the Allied troops on the ground in Normandy. As a result, the planes were withdrawn to the relative quiet of southern Russia.įollowing the D-Day landings, a few resourceful Spitfire MK IX pilots modified their bomb-carrying wings in order that they could carry beer kegs. LF IX Spitfire.Įfforts were made to more clearly mark the Spitfires with larger and even brighter insignia – notably red stars – yet that had little effect. Soviet pilots had to adapt to the wing-mounted guns, but a bigger issue was that ground-based anti-aircraft gunners had trouble distinguishing the streamlined silhouette of the British fighter from German BF-109s, particularly the squared wing-tip configuration of the later Mk. The aircraft, which had been delivered to the Soviet Union via the North Sea, the Far East and the Persian Gulf, came as the result of a personal request from Joseph Stalin to Winston Churchill.
The British also provided the Soviet Union with some 1,200 Spitfires – in addition to 3,000 Hawker Hurricanes. The 334th, 335th and 336th fighter squadrons, which were part of the VIII Fighter Command’s 4th Group, were all formed in 1942 out of the remnants of the American all-volunteer RAF formations, the so-called Eagle Squadrons – and they mostly flew the Spitfire throughout the war. Less remembered is that more than 600 Spitfires were flown by the United States Army Air Force during World War II, but Yanks had been flying the aircraft even before America entered the war. The aircraft was operated by pilots of many nations during the Second World War, with many Polish, French, Norwegian, Czech and other “free” aviators at the controls. Galland famously responded, “I should like an outfit of Spitfires.” Goering, upset that the battle wasn’t going in Germany’s favor, asked his squadron leaders what they needed to win.
One of the scenes in the movie depicted an actual exchange that Luftwaffe ace fighter pilot Adolf Galland had with Herman Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe. However, while the Spitfire wasn’t used in as significant numbers, it did earn the respect of the Germans. As a result, many now believe that the Spitfire was the dominant fighter used at the time. Far more Spitfires were available for filming, and few scenes showed the Hawker Hurricanes. One reason that people may assume the Spitfire was so prolific in the early stages of World War II may be due to the 1968 film Battle of Britain. Today the Spitfire is associated with the Battle of Britain, but in fact, the Hawker Hurricane actually shot down more enemy planes over the course of the campaign. While the word “spitfire,” which dates from Elizabethan times was meant to refer to “a person with a fierce temper,” it was actually the pet name McLean’s eldest daughter Annie Penrose, who he called “a little spitfire.” The name had been unofficially used for Mitchell’s earlier F7/30 Type 224 design – yet despite that fact, the designer was quoted as saying “Spitfire,” was the “just the sort of bloody silly name they would choose.”
“Shrew” and “Scarab” were among the choices that Mitchell had preferred, but Sir Robert McLean, director of Vickers-Armstrongs at the time, had another idea. The Air Ministry had submitted a list of possible names to Vicker-Armstrong for the new aircraft, which had been developed as the Type 300. The aircraft’s name today may seem iconic, but it was almost named the “Shrew” instead.