Garvey immediately pushed his unarmed Spitfire over into a tight spiralling dive in a desperate evasive manoeuvre but at least one of the Fw190s was able to pursue him downwards. At the bottom of the turn, at zero feet and throttle wide open Garvey pulled his Spitfire’s nose up to avoid some trees…
Modelling biplanes scares me but when my wife asked me to build one, and it turns out there’s a bit of a story behind the one she chose, how could I refuse…?
On the 25th of September the Battle of Britain was entering its third month. While there may never be complete agreement on the specific the win/loss ratios, it is nevertheless true to say that through August and early September the RAF had barely managed to replace its losses in aircrew and aircraft. Aircraft production had been heavily targeted by the Luftwaffe and the RAF’s operational aircrew losses were only just matched by the training unit output; the exhaustion of both its physical and material reserves was a real and present danger.
UPDATED to include information on F/O James M. Cartmell DFC, pilot of the featured Mosquito MM312.
In just 37 days between 1 May and 6 June 1944, No.140 Squadron, RAF flew 143 PR sorties over France. The foresight they helped provide saved countless lives on D-Day and after. This is the story of how they did it.
Prior to June 13th, 1944 the British had never sent women to a combat zone. On that day, Myra Roberts, Lydia Alford and Edna Birbeck became the first of around 200 “Flying Nightingales” who risked their lives to bring home what would amount to 100,000 wounded men from mainland Europe over the remainder of the war. This is their story.
G-George flew 89 sorties over occupied Europe with No.460 Squadron during a period when most operational Lancasters were shot down before they had even reached 20. In 107,085 total sorties flown by Lancasters, 2,687 went missing. Remarkably, G-George brought its crew home alive from every operation it flew on.
The Photo Recon pilot had no wingman, no flight, no formation. He flew alone in radio silence for hours at a time, navigating on dead reckoning all over mainland Europe; in his unarmed Spitfire he had only its altitude and speed, along with his wits and airmanship as protection.
If you read to the end, a sense of fatigue wouldn’t be unexpected. It will pale though when compared to the fatigue these men must have endured. I don’t know how they did it.
Making-History 