Spitfire Swansong

[Talisman]

Spitfire Swansong.

Now there are but a few of them left. Only a few of those myriad Spitfires which once speckled the British sky from the Orkneys to the Isle of Wight, that droned singly or in sections, squadrons or wings across the Channel, that swept at tree top level or thirty thousand feet, from the Pas de Calais to the southern reaches of the Elbe, that swallowed sand and harried the Afrika Korps from El Alamein to Tunisia, that duelled out of lonely Malta and chased the enemy from Sicily to the Gothic Line, that patrolled the aching sunlight in the Bay of Bengal, that teetered like tipsy seamen on flimsy undercarriages aboard aircraft carriers. A babble of tongues chattered in them. Canucks and Yanks and Britons nattered over their radios; expatriate Frenchmen, Norwegians and Poles whooped into their microphones at the sight of black-crossed fighters. Aussies and South Africans drawled at each other at vast altitudes……
Grievous things were done to the Spitfire in the name of progress. Her wings were clipped and her supercharger blades cropped for better low level work and the outraged bird was dubbed the ‘clipped and cropped Spitty’. They added blades to the propeller so that in the end she actually had two sets, one rotating against the other. Lumbering cannons poked out of wings designed to carry machine guns. They put a hook on her tail and called her a sea bird. Once, be it known, she slung beer kegs on her bomb racks and ferried cheer to the Normandy beach head.
Today, a vintage group of fighter pilots recall her peculiar whistling call as she arched across the sky. Nostalgia brings back the sound of her Merlin engine muttering in the misty half light of a hundred airfields, as crewmen warmed them up at dawn readiness. Some men who probably feel they live on borrowed time, still wonder how her stout iron heart achieved the mechanically impossible and brought them home alive. Those who did not know her may wonder how mortal man can cherish an undying affection for her gasoline reeking camouflaged memory. And no one can tell them.

 

M. Maffre

 

Happy landings,

 

56RAF_Talisman