THIS neat three-bedroom 1930s home on an estate in Southampton does not look anything out of the ordinary.
But it is the location of an extraordinary moment in history — the birthplace of the legendary Spitfire.
GettyA classic World War II Spitfire in flight[/caption]
Chris BalcombeThe house in Bitterne Crescent, Southampton where the Spitfire design was first sketched out[/caption]
SuppliedDesigner Alf Faddy, who sketched the plane on a tablecloth[/caption]
Monday is Battle of Britain Day, the 85th anniversary of the moment, after weeks of bringing terror to our skies in World War Two, it dawned on Adolf Hitler that he could not invade the UK.
Sadly, not one of The Few — the 3,000 brave young pilots who fought dogfights in Spitfires and Hurricane fighters over southern England in the late summer of 1940 — is still with us.
But one of the Spitfires that took part in the Battle of Britain is still able to take to the skies to mark the anniversary.
So, in the absence of The Few, tributes are being paid to the incredible army of men and women who helped to create the Spitfire — the undoubted star of the campaign.
And today The Sun can reveal the amazing story of how the most famous fighter aircraft the world has ever seen was created after a Sunday lunch in that spick-and-span suburban Southampton home.
School teacher’s son Reginald “RJ” Mitchell, chief designer at the Supermarine aviation factory, and his wife Florence had been invited for lunch at the house, the family home of his trusted assistant, Alf Faddy.
Our research reveals that Faddy had rented the house, in Bitterne Crescent, in 1934.
The previous year Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, and many feared his Nazi party was intent on expansion through force.
So chiefs at Britain’s Air Ministry desperately wanted a fast fighter plane, with a top speed of 400mph, that could travel long distances to destroy German bombers if they tried to invade Britain from across the North Sea.
Mitchell’s first effort, known as the Supermarine Type 244, had been a disaster and almost ruined his reputation.
The plane was overweight, its gull wing design caused too much drag, and the top speed of 228mph was disappointing, compared to the 400mph later achieved by the Spitfire.
The T244 was also too slow to climb to 15,000ft and its experimental cooling system proved unreliable.
So that Sunday afternoon, following a roast beef lunch in the Faddys’ dining room, the two men began discussing a totally new fighter.
Paul Beaver, author of a new book on Spitfire creator Mitchell, says: “Faddy took a pencil and started to sketch on the tablecloth.
“But realising that his actions might be seen as vandalism by Mrs Faddy, he started on the wallpaper behind his chair.
“After about 30 minutes, he and Mitchell were satisfied with the drawings and sat back to admire this brand new plane.”
With a radical wing design, a metal skin instead of stretched canvas and retractable undercarriage, it would have eight machine guns to shoot down Luftwaffe bombers.
Paul adds: “Faddy’s son David, who was then aged seven and went on to become an aeronautical engineer himself, remembered the sweeping lines, streamlined fuselage and the beginnings of the Spitfire’s distinctive elliptical wings.
There is no doubt Mitchell was the father of the Spitfire, the man who conducted the orchestra of engineers and designers that created this incredible plane
Paul Beaver
“Just then Faddy’s houseproud wife Hilda came in with a wet cloth and wiped it away.”
Mercifully for the outcome of World War Two, the next morning at the Supermarine factory, Faddy quickly transferred the dinner table ideas to paper, though sadly those original drawings have since been lost.
Unknown to most of his colleagues, the previous year Mitchell had been treated for rectal cancer and almost died on the operating table.
He knew that if the disease returned, he would die early.
Fortunately, while Mitchell had an outstanding brain and was a brilliant engineer, his real genius was to bring together an engineering team of 200 men and women who could turn his dream for the Spitfire into a reality without him.
Paul Beaver says: “Mitchell and many of his team came from the railway industry, which was the Silicon Valley of its day.”
RJ was only 24 when he was made chief designer at Supermarine, and his sea plane designs won some of the biggest prizes of the time.
Despite their success, the company had to be bailed out by engineering giant Vickers, who gave Mitchell a five-year golden-handcuffs deal because he was the jewel in the crown of Supermarine — the man that everything revolved around.
But there was a moment in 1928 after the Vickers takeover which could have changed the future — and the outcome of the Battle of Britain.
SuppliedA prototype Spitfire[/caption]
SuppliedThe Supermarine’s chief designer RJ Mitchell[/caption]
Paul reveals: “Mitchell got to the office at Supermarine and there, sitting at the Chief Designer’s desk with his feet up, is Barnes Wallis, who later becomes famous for the Dambusters’ legendary bouncing bomb.
“Wallis, who was leafing through key documents, said, ‘Right, I’m in charge’. Mitchell replied, ‘OK, that’s fine. I’m going home’.
“On his way out, he told his very loyal private secretary, Vera Green, ‘Take a note to the chairman of Vickers and tell him I’ll be resigning in three days.”
Wallis went to Vickers’ head office in London and tried character assassination, claiming Mitchell was “a bad leader and terrible timekeeper who had a poor grasp of structural design’.”
Paul says: “This was all rubbish, of course, and Mitchell won.
“Wallis returned to his old job and ended up designing some of the most destructive bombs of World War Two.
“But having seen off Barnes Wallis, Mitchell probably got a bit disheartened when his first attempt at a fighter for the Air Ministry didn’t go well.
“So it wasn’t back to the drawing board but to the dining table, where the Spitfire — then known as the Type 300 — comes to life.
“Because of his cancer Mitchell wasn’t in the best place so he turned the whole idea over to his trusted lieutenants, Faddy, Alan Clifton, Joe Smith and Trevor Westbrook.”
Surprisingly, Mitchell wanted to call his new fighter the Shrew, the Air Ministry preferred the Scarab or Shrike, but Vickers’ chairman Sir Robert McLean had the casting vote and decided it would be the Spitfire.
‘LOST WITHOUT IT’
Paul says: “There is no doubt Mitchell was the father of the Spitfire, the man who conducted the orchestra of engineers and designers that created this incredible plane.”
Sadly, RJ Mitchell never saw his invention in action, but although he was desperately ill, on March 5, 1936, he managed to drive six miles in his Rolls-Royce from his home to Eastleigh Airport, now known as Southampton Airport, to watch a test pilot put the new plane through its paces.
Shortly after, Flt Lt Humphrey Edwardes-Jones became the first Royal Air Force pilot to fly the Spitfire, at Martlesham air base in Suffolk.
He recalled: “Usually the first flight of a new aircraft did not mean a thing — they were happening all the time.
“But on this occasion the buzz got around that the Spitfire was something special and everybody turned out to watch — I can remember seeing even the cooks in their white hats lining the road.”
Just weeks later the Government placed an initial order for 310 Spitfires.
In early 1937, Vickers chartered a plane to fly Mitchell, his wife and his secretary from Southampton to Vienna, where in the days before chemo and radiotherapy, he spent three months recovering from surgery.
But on June 11, 1937, RJ Mitchell died, age 42.
Biographer Paul says: “He didn’t live to see the Spitfire enter service in August 1938.
“The Spitfire didn’t win the Battle of Britain but we may well have lost without it.
“We only had 29 Spitfire squadrons at the beginning of the Battle of Britain, but there were 39 Hawker Hurricane squadrons.
National Spitfire ProjectAn illustration of the planned 131ft monument to the Spitfire in Southampton[/caption]
SuppliedMitchell: Father Of The Spitfire, is out now[/caption]
SuppliedAuthor Paul Beaver standing in front of a Spitfire[/caption]
“The Hurricane shot down more German aircraft in the Battle of Britain — about 52 per cent to the Spitfire’s 42 per cent.
“The loss rate on the Spitfire was lower.
“We lost the greatest engineer of his generation.
“He was the Isambard Kingdom Brunel of his time.
“Sadly, he is not the household name he ought to be, but everybody knows the Spitfire.”
There is no statue to him like there is to Battle of Britain RAF chief Keith Park or Arthur “Bomber” Harris.
But later this year work will begin in Southampton on an incredible 131ft, £7million monument — twice the height of the Angel of the North — to RJ Mitchell’s greatest plane.
And one day there may even be a blue plaque on a modest 1930s house in Bitterne Crescent to mark the unlikely birthplace of the Spitfire.
Mitchell: Father Of The Spitfire, by Paul Beaver, published by Elliott & Thompson, price £20, is out now.
FLYING HIGH 85 YEARS ON
AROUND 22,000 Spitfires were built and today 100 in the UK are still airworthy.
But only one that took part in the Battle of Britain is still flying.
PA:Press AssociationSpitfires of No19 Squadron in 1939[/caption]
Ludwig Martel, who flew Spitfire Mk 11a number P7350Royal Air Force
Spitfire Mk 11a number P7350 now belongs to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
But on October 25, 1940, the plane – flown by 20-year-old Ludwig Martel, the youngest Polish pilot to fight in the historic battle – was shot down and could have ended up scrapped.
Pilot Officer Martel was one of 12 pilots of 603 Squadron to scramble from Hornchurch, Essex, to engage with enemy aircraft at 20,000ft.
They were immediately attacked by German Messerschmitt 109s.
Two other Spitfires in the formation were shot down, with their pilots bailing out.
A German cannon shell punched a large hole in the port wing of P7350 and Martel was hit by shrapnel in his body and legs.
Despite his injuries, he managed to fly the Spitfire down through thick cloud while fighting to stay conscious, to force-land, wheels up, in a field near Hastings.
Martel, who was trapped in the aircraft before Home Guard soldiers found him, returned to operations two weeks later.
Spitfire P7350 was repaired and ready to fly again on December 7.
It was damaged many more times and constantly patched up before finally being sold as scrap for £25.
Thankfully, scrap company John Dale and Sons recognised its historical importance and presented it to a museum at RAF Colerne, Wilts.
It remained there on the ground until 1967 when it was made airworthy again for the film Battle Of Britain, starring Michael Caine.
AlamySpitfire No P7350 at a 2007 air show[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
