Warbird Information Exchange

I was recommended to join this forum as being the best place likely to help me. I am on a quest – here are the details and the reason why:

On 8 November 1941 a Spitfire Mk Vc serial number AA963 rolled off the production line at the Supermarine factory at Eastleigh in Southern England. It was test flown later that day. This Spitfire was then christened “Borough of Southgate” as it was presented to the RAF and bought from funds raised by the citizens of the London Borough of Southgate, a working class suburb of North East London, which had suffered badly at the hands of the Luftwaffe during the 1940/41 Blitz. The fact that the people of Southgate had managed to raise the money to buy ‘their’ Spitfire was remarkable as this was a predominantly poor area, and it was testimony to their spirit and determination to get back at Goering’s air force that they succeeded in just a few months.



(Photo of AA963 fresh off the factory)

This ‘presentation’ Spitfire was technically quite unique, as it was one of the very first Mark V’s to carry the ‘C’ wing armament option which dispensed with Browning machine guns and carried a total of four x 20mm Hispano cannon instead. (This 4 x cannon option quickly proved to be unsuccessful in combat and later aircraft were usually armed with a mixture of cannon and mg’s). However AA963 never had an opportunity to prove her worth in combat as she was crated up in mid-December 1941 and sent to the port of Liverpool to wait for a ship to the States.

The reason for this was that after the events of 7 December 1941, a request was made by President Roosevelt to Winston Churchill for ‘one of the latest Spitfires’ to tour the US and assist in fund raising for the War Bond Drive. Spitfire AA963 arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 10 March 1941 and was shipped on to Wright Field for assembly and evaluation. After being briefly displayed at Chicago Municipal Airport in April 1942 she then joined a US War Bonds promotional tour called the ‘Cavalcade of the Air’, which commenced with a flypast over New York on 13 June 1942 in the company of a British Beaufighter, P39 Aircobra, P40 and a captured Messerschmitt bf109E (RAF serial AE479. This bf109 aircraft was flown all over the US before being pranged by a US Navy pilot in November 1942, ultimately being rescued post-war from a Canadian junk yard then transported back to the UK where it is currently on display at Duxford museum). The ‘Cavalcade’ tour covered many US cities over a period of 3 months, including St Louis, Washington and Kansas City.

I have many gaps in the precise ‘Cavalcade of the Air’ itinerary and would very interested if any of your readers could supply any information of this era of Spitfire AA963’s US service. My last ‘sighting’ of AA963 was at Lincoln AFB in Nebraska in mid-1943, where I believe she was being used as a non-flying instructional airframe for fighter aircraft mechanics under training. At this time there were US fighter squadrons using Spitfire Mk V’s in the European Theatre of Operations under the ‘Reverse Lease Lend’ scheme and it is logical that a Spitfire Mk V airframe would come in handy for mechanics to train on before an overseas tour of duty.



(Last known photo repainted in USAAC colours but still bearing her RAF serial - presumably at Lincoln AFB)

What happened after Lincoln AFB is anybody’s guess – the trail has gone well and truly cold. If anybody reading this is able to shed some light on the missing details of AA963’s service, I would be extremely grateful, as I started my quest to track her down when I was a cadet at No 85 (Southgate) Squadron and my Commanding Officer gave me the first photos taken at the factory on the day she first flew. I was born in Southgate, and was a pilot for many years. It is my intention one day to write down the full history of this aircraft and present it to the people of Southgate, my home town. I now live in Auckland New Zealand. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Barry

PS - I originally posted this topic in the WIX Maintenance Hangar, where there are already a few posts in reply. I have moved to the main WIX section after many people advised me that it would likely reach a larger audience. Thanks.

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Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

This is a fascinating story... really interesting to see the spitfire in "US" markings. Have you thought of contacting the Lincoln AFB association to see if anyone there has further photographs/details?

http://www.lincolnafb.org/

Best of luck!

Cheers,
Richard

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Richard Mallory Allnutt - Photography - http://www.rmallnutt.com

Sure, but there have been plenty of Spitfires in US markings - US early war UK & N Africa(?) and later PR types, as represented in the NMUSAF.

Have you looked at: http://www.raysturtivant.btinternet.co.uk/gifts.htm

I'd also ask on Key, sometimes known as theSpitfireforum: http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=4

Good luck!

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Hi James... I was actually referring to the olive drab, retaining the RAF serial, which is why I put the US in quotes. It's an unusual scheme.

Cheers,
Richard

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Richard Mallory Allnutt - Photography - http://www.rmallnutt.com

Great story.
I didn't know that there were Mk Vs with 4 cannon and no machine guns. You can't see the front of the wing in the photos; I wonder what the mounting looked like.
4 20mm cannons would have a devastating impact if you hit something. They extra two cannon would be heavier than a .303 and carry less ammo. The early cannons had some jamming probloems, but later 4 cannons became standard.

_________________
Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Ah, yes indeed. Pretty much unique, I'd guess.
Cheers!

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

Hi Bill,

The original 'C' (Universal) wing for the Mk V gave a few armament choices, including the 4 x Hispano option, but on RAF evaluation trials the extra weight/weight distribution impaired speed and other performance aspects which spoilt combat prospects. Also the odd jam tended to have a negative asymetric recoil effect by wildly yawing the aircraft away from its intended target, which would probably really piss off the pilots (the RAF ones anyway - Luftwaffe would no doubt be grinning).

Following these tests nearly all later marks of Spitfire were equipped with a mixture of cannon and machine guns, until later in the war and post-war when cannon feed problems were sorted out and some of the later Griffon engined beasties were fitted with four.



Here she in in April 1942 on display at Chicago Municipal Airport showing off her 4 cannons for the camera.

Cheers

Barry

_________________
Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

Richard,

Yes I already contacted the Lincoln AFB website months ago and they agreed to put this story on there. Unfortunately it does not show yet, although I am in touch with a local Lincoln, Nebraska historian who has done some digging for me in their newspaper archives.

James,

I've got Ray Sturtivant's book 'Gifts of War' and it shows minimum information, about the same as I got from the RAF Historical Branch, which basically ends once AA963 was 'struck off charge' as it departed England's shores for the US.

For an aircraft whose main task, and the reason for being sent across the Atlantic in the first place, was to be strenuously displayed in public in order to raise funds for War Bonds, there is a surprisingly meagre amount of information on the net. The two other Mk V's (Va's) that were sent over in 1941 went straight to Langley AFB for testing and evaluation. These other two Spits never got much time in the public eye and consequently were not often seen. This is not the case with AA963 as it extensively toured the US as part of the 'Cavalcade' in conjunction with the flyable bf109E and the other 'hot ships' of the day.

There were only about four or five other Spitfires sent over to the US during the war and the fate of most of these has already been recorded elsewhere.

I've tried researching the USAAF museum archives but they are reluctant to release any information to me as I'm not an American citizen. Likewise the official US military personnel website won't help my research into the Spitfire pilot who flew it as part of the 1942 tour - Army Air Corps Lt Carter Clayton PORTER, who survived the war but sadly passed away only a few years ago. His log book would have been a treasure trove of information on this project.

At present I'm working my way through on-line archives of the newspapers of all US cities between the period May - October 1942. Slow process eh!. Trouble is a lot of them don't have their archive information on-line. For a whole gaggle of wartime fighters to 'hit town' as part of a US Treasury War Bond Drive there just HAD to be good coverage in the local news, or so you would have thought.

Thank you for your interest,

Cheers

Barry

_________________
Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

I'm still keeping my eyes open for info, Barry. I'll be making another research trip to AFHRA early next year and will see if I can ferret out anything on AA963.

Scott

Thank you Scott.

Did you find that photo of the 'Foreign Aircraft Status Board' at Wright Field I sent you?

Hope it was some help in your research on other stuff.

Interestingly I have since established that the British ace, Robert Stanford-Tuck was asked to put on a show at Wright Field when he was over in the States around November 1942. The 'very tired and worn out' Spitfire he was asked to fly for his hosts was none other than AA963. Nice bit of history.

Cheers

Barry

_________________
Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

Hi Barry,
James made a very good suggestion re. the Flypast forum,there is a member on there called Mark 12,who is a mine of Spitfire information,he may be able to help you.I believe he also is on this forum sometimes.Good luck.

G'Day Barry,

Fair enough, it's a book I don't have, that not being my main area of interest. Not surprising though.

The net isn't - as you've found - perhaps the best place to find that kind of data - but it sounds like you are well into the real research already, which can be drudgery!

[Edited to avoid misleading discussion]

More immediately practically, it sounds like you may need a US helper! Anyone?

Another perhaps obvious thought would be to talk to the local archivist / librarian of Southgate, to see what period records there may be. At the least you'd hope for some documents of the 'presentation' and while it's an outside chance, there may be more of it's later career that found it's way there. A long shot, of course.

Good luck, and do try Key. I'm sure Mark 12 will be along shortly anyway...

Cheers,

_________________
James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

I'm curious about that as well, but there may be some reason behind it.

First, what exactly do you mean by "USAAF museum archives"? I'm not aware of any such museum. There's the NMUSAF, the USAF History Unit, and the Smithsonian that have records, but I'm not aware of any separate USAAF organization.

If you are trying to get information out of the NMUSAF about a specific pilot, I don't know that you'll find anything. The National Archives hold all this information, and it must be requested through them. The list of how to request records can be found here - http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/milita ... .html#ways . However, be aware that a fire at St. Louis resulted in the loss of many records (although a lot have been found recently because they were moved to prevent their loss to the fire and the move not noted anywhere), so you may get back that the records you're looking for are lost or destroyed.

Thank you guys for your input,

JDK/CAPFlyer - re: my requests to the NMUSAF (sorry my error - not the USAAF museum - I got the name wrong). A couple of years ago I tried for a while to get some info on line. I kept coming up with on-line messages asking me for a US address, which of course I do not have as I live in New Zealand. Maybe I was reading the website prompts incorrectly, or maybe the website has been updated since I tried. I'll have another go. The military personnel website kept asking me for my service enlistment number or my relationship to the person - similar problem. Maybe there was another way of getting this info but I couldn't work it out. As I said - it was a few years ago.

I didn't mention it as a criticism on the US, far from it - just a sense of frustration.

My main focus has been on trying to see if there is any mention of AA963 in the 'Sarah Clark Collection', which the majority of files are kept at the Washington National Records Centre, Suitland Maryland. I have made a few requests but have not got any response. Sarah Clark was the 'Administration Manager' at Wright Field during the war years, and apparently retained every record and piece of paper on just about everything that went on there, as she suspected that one day people would be interested in preserving the history. Her collection of documents aren't available on line and I have found it difficult to get access.

JDK - I've already covered the Southgate history angle and I think I've got all that is there, including a nice shot of boys from my old school collecting for the Spit selling 'shrapnel' and other bits of Blitz weaponry in 1941.

Sopwith - I will follow up on your advice.



Thanks again

Barry

_________________
Little Johnny : "When I grow up I want to be a pilot!"

Johnny's Mother : "Don't be silly Dear - you can't do both!"

Barry,

I did get the Status Board from you but haven't yet had time to continue the research.

Very interesting information about that old, worn out, dilapidated machine being used for an aerial display by Stanford-Tuck.

Scott