Spitfires & The Battle of Britain

The Battle of Britain was waged in the skies over the UK from July 10th to October 31, 1940.

The aggressors were, of course, the German Luftwaffe, bent on bombing Great Britain into submission prepatory to invasion of the island kingdom. The defenders were the fighter pilots of the Royal Airforce flying Hurricanes and (the now famous) Spitfire, of whom Winston Churchill said, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

"The Few" were made up of 2353 men from Great Britain and 574 from other countries. 544 lost their lives during the period of the Battle, and another 791 were killed in action or died during the remainder of the war.

One of my (presumably very) distant relatives, Pilot Officer John Coggins, was among the casualties around the period of the battle. A member of the 235th Squadron, this is the terse entry from the squadron operations record book that records his demise on December 15, 1940, "P/O Coggins crashed in sea at 1815 cause unknown."

Duxford Air Show

Duxford is a former military air field that saw heavy service during the Battle of Britain. During the height of the battle, some sixty Spitfires and Hurricanes were scrambled daily from Duxford and Fowlmere, another nearby field. On September 15, 1940, a day which was later dubbed "Battle of Britain Day," the squadrons posted at Duxford twice took to the air to repulse Luftwaffe attacks aimed at London. That marked the climatic daylight dogfight of the battle--which the British won--and ultimately Royal Air Force figther command was successful in forcing Hitler to abandon his invasion plans.

As part of the 65th anniversary of the battle, Duxford hosted a two day airshow in September 2005 featuring vintage Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft and surviving veterans from "The Few." I attended the second day of the show during my trip to the UK, and I'm pleased to say, actually got to sit in the cockpit of an operational Spitfire.

Unfortunately, what I did not get to do was see the planes fly. As was common during the Battle of Britain itself, the field was socked in with fog and the planes were never cleared to fly.

Nonetheless, for a (cough-cough) small extra charge, we were permitted to walk along the runway where the planes were parked and my wife and I managed to get some nice shots.

Here's a picture of a Hurricane I took with black and white film. The men standing next to the plane are in period pilot uniforms, so their vintage appearance, coupled with the fog and the B&W treatment almost conspire to make this look like a contemporary photograph from the battle.

Here's a picture that my wife took of me in front of another plane. If you look closely, you'll see that I'm wearing a Duxford fleece jacket with a Spitfire embroidered on. It's a nice souvenir, but the truth is I had to buy it because Duxford turned out to be much colder than we anticipated when we left (a relatively sunny) London that morning.

Finally, the highlight of the trip: my opportunity to sit in the cockpit of an operational Spitfire, documented in the photograph below.

Getting this picture took some doing. When it became apparent that the weather was going to delay take-off of the planes, my wife and I decided to tour some of the exhibits in the adjoining hangers. One of the exhibits was this Spitfire, but when we got near it, we noticed a surprising thing: there was a line of folks snaking around velvet ropes in front of the plane, all apparently waiting for an opportunity to sit in it.

There were no signs proclaiming, "Spitfire Photo Ops" and no barker telling people to step right up to climb into the plane. The whole operation was very low-key, and we realized later, done without the approval of the airfield adiministrators.

Not that this deterred me. I jumped right into the line, but soon discovered that it was moving at glacial speed. I waited for at least 90 minutes--listening to a woman from Texas complain endlessly about how certain priviledged people were monopolizing their time in the plane, getting kicked and jostled by young boys who were playing fighter pilot computer games next to the exhibit, and most importantly, fighting off requests from my wife to "forget about it and go back to the coffee shop where it's warm"--until at last it was our turn.

We paid our donation for the vintage plane fund ("whatever you like--most people are giving 5 pounds") to the guy by the ropes and stepped into the promised land. My wife insisted that we dawdle for at least 15 minutes as others had done, but I felt guilty about making the people behind me suffer, so I was very businesslike about getting in, getting my picture taken, and getting out.

The kicker was that we were the last people to be allowed to sit in the plane. We missed the confrontation, but apparently someone from the airfield saw me climbing into the plane and immediately put the kibosh on the whole operation, citing safety concerns.

So what's it like to sit in a Spitfire? First of all, it was a bit awkward getting in and (especially) getting out, so the safety concerns were legit. It's impossible to see straight in front of you, which I'm told requires pilots to "waggle" the nose back and forth as they go down the runway to see where they are going. It's also pretty snug inside. But the instrument display is very cool and retro looking and the stick and the rudder pedals operate very smoothly (although there may be more resistance with air flowing over the control surfaces).

All in all, it was a great thrill for a kid who must have built at least 200 models of Spitfires while growing up.