Spitfire: A Very British Love Story

by John Nichol

The Spitfire’s development through the war was astonishing. The power of the final mark, the Seafire 47, was such that it was equivalent to the original Spitfire I of 1938 taking off with thirty-two airline passengers on board complete with their baggage.11 The top speed had gone from 362mph to 452mph, the rate of climb to 20,000ft from 9.4 minutes to 4.8 minutes, the range from 575 miles to 1,475 miles.12 The RAF found a model that worked and stuck with it, every variant proving it could at least contend with, if not outdo German developments. Nearly 23,000 Spitfires, including the navy variant, the ‘Seafire’, were built between 1936 and 1946.13 It had been used in combat in every theatre of the war: the deserts of North Africa, the snows of Russia, the jungles of Burma, in temperate Europe and scorching Australia. It rarely disappointed and almost always impressed. More than thirty countries operated the Spitfire, from Taiwan to India, Ireland and Rhodesia. It was flown in combat by Britons, Belgians, New Zealanders, Americans, Argentinians and Norwegians, to name but a few. The Spitfire went on to fight in the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, with both the Israeli and Egyptian air forces using the fighter against each other. It was the final time the fighter was shot down in action.14 It was used operationally in the Korean War in 1950, Malaya in 1951 and remained in service with the RAF as a meteorological aircraft until 1957.