by John Nichol
The veterans who had flown them in battle had more pressing worries now. Building new lives, new careers in the postwar years, bringing up young families and adapting to an ever-changing world. As they grew older, their memories of the Spitfire diminished, as did their numbers as old age took its toll. Then, with most veterans in their mid-nineties, a remarkable thing happened. Those enthusiasts, and entrepreneurs wealthy enough to own a preserved Spitfire, began to offer the elderly veterans a chance to take to the skies one final time.
When Allan Scott and Joy Lofthouse were separately offered trips neither hesitated for a moment in accepting. Despite the passing of seventy years since their last Spitfire flight, their love for the aircraft had never waned. The fact they were in their nineties only made them more determined. They may have lost some of their mobility but they certainly had retained their aviation spirit.
And deep down, they understood this really would be the very last time they would fly their beloved ‘Spit’.
* * *
The conviction that having lost his twin sister in the 1920s to the influenza outbreak meant that he was the one ‘born to survive’ proved correct for Allan Scott. After three operational tours in Spitfires from 1944 he saw out the rest of the war as a test pilot, surviving a number of accidents. And despite a miraculous near-death escape from a Tiger Moth crash in 1953, followed by months of reconstructive surgery, he had not been put off flying. So when an entrepreneur offered a Spitfire trip, Allan, by then aged ninety-four, did not waver. He found himself back at Biggin Hill, where he had started his operational career in the RAF with 124 Squadron in 1941. Dressed in an all-in-one green flight suit, the years fell away as he approached the aircraft he had not flown in seven decades. Stepping into the specially fitted rear cockpit, Allan immediately felt at home. ‘It’s just like riding a bicycle,’ he joked as he strapped in. ‘It’s instinct; you fly a Spitfire by the seat of your pants.’8
As the Merlin roared into life, the grin on Allan’s face broadened and remained fixed as the fighter bounced down the runway. His mind turned back to the first time he had raced down Biggin Hill’s strip, to the first time he had experienced that thrust of power as the Spitfire dashed forward, eager to embrace the air. He remembered waiting nervously on the flight deck of HMS Eagle, he recalled the airstrip at Malta, scrambling to get airborne to meet the enemy coming in overwhelming numbers. Then, he was airborne again, soaring into the blue, airscrew spinning as they powered upwards.
‘You have control.’
The words filled Allan’s headphones with an indescribable thrill as his pilot handed control of the Spitfire from front to back seat. The decades disappeared as Allan gripped the control column and felt the aircraft come alive in his hands. To hell with it, I’m ninety-four, let’s put her through her paces. He pushed the stick over and suddenly found himself in a steep turn, laughing as the Spit reacted like a thoroughbred. The old lady responded as enthusiastically as she ever had, flying over the Kent fields that the RAF had sacrificed so much to protect over those six long years of fighting.
As his pilot looked in his rear-view mirror he could see the pleasure writ large on Allan’s face, a genuine delight of memory, nostalgia and joy he had not seen in any of his other passengers.
The veteran was flying over old country, bringing back memories of his days at Biggin Hill in 1941. He found the Ashford to Redhill railway line he had used as a navigation aid, telling the pilot, ‘Coming back from a raid over France with the sun at our back, we would cross the white cliffs at Dover then follow this railway line towards base.’ The war films might have been in black and white, but for Allan, in 2015, the colours remained as vivid as they had back in the 1940s. Back on the ground the cockpit canopy flew open to reveal a beaming veteran pilot. ‘That was marvellous!’ exclaimed Allan, who had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for his wartime exploits, which included five kills. ‘I loved the Spitfire; it was almost a part of me. It was a pleasure to get back into the air again. It handled beautifully.’ As Allan climbed down he chatted excitedly to those who had helped organise the flight. ‘Allan was over the moon,’ observed one onlooker. ‘He was both dumbstruck and awestruck. He was like a teenager.’ But the nonagenarian Spitfire pilot had also left those onlookers in awe of him. On countless occasions Allan had fought back the fear of death and taken to the skies in the Spitfire to protect his country from a vicious enemy. He had killed and seen his friends killed. When asked about the risks he took, he responded with the modesty of many of his generation: ‘I didn’t do anything, I was just doing my job.’ The person who asked the question was astonished. ‘We couldn’t begin to imagine what he went through.’
He was right.
* * *
Joy Lofthouse came as close as any woman could to facing those dangers above the skies of Britain, ferrying aircraft for the ATA. After the war, she had married a Czech RAF pilot then had been forced to flee Czechoslovakia when the Communists took control. With three young children to bring up, then a career teaching in Portsmouth, she’d given little thought to ever flying a Spitfire again. Of course, she frequently had the chance to reminisce about her days in the ATA at the ‘Spitfire Girls’ reunions. ‘They were such impressionable years, they never quite leave you,’ Joy recalled. As the years went by, numbers at the reunions dwindled, memories of their exploits flying Spitfires faded.
Then, one day in 2015, she was given the opportunity to fly in a Spitfire again. Like Allan Scott, after getting over the initial disbelief at the offer, the thought of being behind the controls once again became an overwhelming desire.
It was a sunny day in May when she found herself surrounded by media as she walked slowly, but purposefully, towards the Spitfire at Westhampnett airfield, still in use since its wartime years but now as a civilian airstrip. Despite the ninety-two years evident in the deep wrinkles, Joy still had a spring in her step as she climbed into the rear cockpit. ‘I feel excited but aware of my age, so hoping that things go OK. I’m not as confident as I was when I used to fly them alone when I was young!’ she told a reporter. For Joy, flying the Spitfire during the war had been the ultimate thrill. To repeat it in peacetime was pure delight. ‘It is the iconic plane. It’s the nearest thing to having wings of your own and flying.’9
As she sat in the cockpit, looking at the instruments she had not seen for seventy years, the initial apprehension she had felt slipped away as the Spitfire took to the skies. It was also a poignant moment for her to reflect on the loss of her sister Yvonne MacDonald, who had passed away a year earlier, in 2014. The two girls had earned the nickname ‘the Spitfire Sisters’, the only female siblings to fly the aircraft during the war. They were the trailblazers for the feminist generation. For a moment Joy dwelt on her sister’s passing then threw the Spitfire in a tight turn. At least they had shared the same beautiful experiences of flight.
Back on the ground, Joy beamed with happiness. ‘It’s incredible to be in a Spitfire again after so long. I am so lucky to be given this chance to fly it again. It’s hard to describe the feeling.’ Then she added something that perhaps captures the enduring essence of the Spitfire for those who had flown her and grown to love her in the war. ‘It was perfect. It made me feel quite young again.’
Joy Lofthouse passed away in November 2017, another of the Spitfire veterans who died before this book was published.
* * *
For sixty years Joe Roddis had buried the memory of his first love, Betty Wood, from whom he had parted at Worthing train station just before D-Day.
‘As I walked away I looked back to see her crying. But I harboured no thoughts of romance. It wouldn’t have been the right thing to do. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of our relationship and I got on with my life.’
Soon after the war ended, Roddis married an Auxiliary Territorial Service lady he’d met a few months earlier while still in England. Mary Martin was a striking young woman and a searchlight plotter for the heavy AA artiller
y. They had met at a dance in Emsworth, Hampshire.
‘I saw her and knew she was the lady for me. Both she and a friend approached me for a dance but Mary got there first and that was that. She was a great dancer but I stuck to the foxtrot as I couldn’t do the tango!’
They had a daughter and son and remained married until 2000, when Mary was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She died the following year. Joe was devastated at the loss of his soulmate. He remained in their three-bedroom house in Derby feeling the loneliness of a widower as he continued with his DIY and fishing.
In 2004 he was interviewed about his wartime experiences working on the fighter for a Channel 4 documentary called Spitfire Ace. By chance, the grandson of Betty Wood had seen the programme advertised and, knowing that she had been involved with Spitfires, told her to watch it. Betty was also now widowed and living on her own in a flat in Selsey Bill. The moment she turned on the television, Joe’s face appeared on the screen with his name below.
Eager to track down her wartime companion, she wrote to Channel 4, who passed the letter on to Joe. He was delighted to hear from his old love, but unsure how to proceed. After a fortnight of deliberation, he picked up the phone. Over the next few weeks they chatted for hours before eventually arranging to meet at Chichester railway station, just eight stops down the line from Worthing where they had parted in tears six decades previously.
‘I arrived by train and there she was on the platform. Even though all those years had passed she was the same Betty I had last seen at Worthing sixty years earlier. It was a totally wonderful moment; the war and the Spitfire had come full circle and brought us together again. We relived all the places we’d danced and the things we’d done during the heat of wartime.’
The friendship blossomed and just two days later Betty asked, ‘What are we doing hanging about?’ It was a question many who had faced death in WWII were asking in their later years. Joe returned to Derby, sold his house, its contents and his car and moved down to finally live with Betty.
‘It was the start of what were to be eight of some of the most wonderful years of my life.’ The couple spent holidays in Portugal, the Isle of Wight, Devon and Wales, living life to the full. Joe was eighty-three and Betty eighty-four, so there were not too many foxtrots danced. The couple moved into a bungalow and lived blissfully together. ‘I couldn’t have been happier. It was the perfect ending,’ Joe said.
Then one morning in February 2012 Betty complained of feeling unwell. She was rushed to Chichester hospital where it was found she’d suffered a ruptured stomach ulcer. At 8pm she underwent surgery. Before she went into the operating theatre, Joe gave her a kiss and a strong hug, saying he loved her. They never spoke again; after the operation, Betty went straight onto a life support machine but never recovered. She died a few weeks later.
Joe was heartbroken. ‘Words cannot describe my feelings. She was so strong and active. Life can be so cruel.’10 When I met Joe at Goodwood airfield in West Sussex (the old Westhampnett) the hurt and loss were still clearly visible in his eyes, which filled with tears as he remembered both the happiness and sadness of those years with Betty in war and peace. Because of his close links with Goodwood, he kept his attachment to the Spitfire. Aged ninety-one, he was asked if he could start and run up a Spitfire Mark IX in front of the Goodwood crowd during a display. There was no stopping him and, with little hesitation and no reference to the manuals, he fired up the Merlin for a final time. For a moment he looked skywards, thinking of Betty and the aircraft that had brought them together. Joe Roddis passed away in April 2017. A lone Spitfire performed a flypast at his funeral.
* * *
The Spitfire’s development through the war was astonishing. The power of the final mark, the Seafire 47, was such that it was equivalent to the original Spitfire I of 1938 taking off with thirty-two airline passengers on board complete with their baggage.11 The top speed had gone from 362mph to 452mph, the rate of climb to 20,000ft from 9.4 minutes to 4.8 minutes, the range from 575 miles to 1,475 miles.12 The RAF found a model that worked and stuck with it, every variant proving it could at least contend with, if not outdo German developments.
Nearly 23,000 Spitfires, including the navy variant, the ‘Seafire’, were built between 1936 and 1946.13 It had been used in combat in every theatre of the war: the deserts of North Africa, the snows of Russia, the jungles of Burma, in temperate Europe and scorching Australia. It rarely disappointed and almost always impressed. More than thirty countries operated the Spitfire, from Taiwan to India, Ireland and Rhodesia. It was flown in combat by Britons, Belgians, New Zealanders, Americans, Argentinians and Norwegians, to name but a few. The Spitfire went on to fight in the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, with both the Israeli and Egyptian air forces using the fighter against each other. It was the final time the fighter was shot down in action.14 It was used operationally in the Korean War in 1950, Malaya in 1951 and remained in service with the RAF as a meteorological aircraft until 1957.
As the years pass, the number of originals inevitably dwindles; however, some fifty Spitfires remain and many more replicas have been built. One of only four flying Spitfire Mark Is was auctioned at Christie’s for £3.1 million in 2015. When Lord Beaverbrook set up the Spitfire Fund in 1940, the production cost was set at £9,000.
From its first flight in 1936, through the war and beyond to today’s airshows, the Spitfire has continued to seduce both fliers and spectators alike.
William Dunn, an American ace who scored 71‘Eagle’ Squadron’s first victory in May 1941, gave some indication why.15
‘The Spitfire was a thing of beauty to behold, in the air or on the ground, with the graceful lines of its slim fuselage, its elliptical wing and tailplane. It looked like a fighter and it certainly proved to be just that in the fullest meaning of the term. It was an aircraft with a personality all of its own – docile at times, swift and deadly at others – a fighting machine par excellence. One must really have known the Spitfire in flight to fully understand and appreciate its thoroughbred flying characteristics. Once you’ve flown a Spitfire it spoils you for all other fighters. Every other aircraft seems imperfect in one way or another.’
Hugh Dundas reflected similar feelings. ‘There is something Wagnerian about the Spitfire story, the more so since it is certainly true that there never was a plane so loved by pilots, combining as it did sensitive yet docile handling with the deadly qualities of a fighting machine. Lovely to look at, delightful to fly, the Spitfire became the pride and joy of thousands of young men from practically every country in what then constituted the free world. Americans raved about her and wanted to have her; Poles were seduced by her; men from the old Dominions crossed the world and the oceans to be with her; the Free French undoubtedly wrote love songs about her. And the Germans were envious of her.’
Jeffrey Quill, one of the first men to fly the Spitfire, was fulsome in his praise. ‘It is impossible to look back on the Spitfire without recognising it as something unique in aviation history. By the efforts of the many thousands of people who were in some way involved with it, the Spitfire threaded its way through the historical tapestry not only of Britain but of the continent of Europe and of a great overseas Empire. They helped to design it, build it, maintain it, administer it and fly it – and in all too many cases to die in it . . .
‘The little Spitfires, so easily recognisable in the air, captured the imagination of the British people and became a symbol of hope and of victory. In the three subsequent years the sound of Spitfires sweeping daily over northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands, challenging the enemy to come up and fight, brought the hope of victory and liberation to the people of those occupied countries.
‘The Spitfire was very much a pilot’s aeroplane. It had an indefinable quality of excitement about it, an unmistakable charisma, which greatly appealed to young and eager pilots. It is to the eternal credit of a generation that to be a Spitfire pilot became the dream and pride of so many of its young men.’
> * * *
Air Marshal Cliff Spink was the RAF fighter pilot who took ninety-year-old Spitfire veteran Brian Bird flying at the beginning of this book; the event which sparked my own interest in the aircraft. Cliff was my Station Commander at RAF Coningsby in 1992 and is a highly regarded aviator with many years of flying experience. So perhaps the last word on the venerable Spitfire should go to this former RAF fast jet and current Spitfire pilot:16
‘It is difficult to capture in just a few words why the Spitfire became so iconic. It was a massive leap forward in design; it performed so incredibly well for its day. It came at a time in our nation’s history when we needed “heroes” – machines as well as men and women. It had the name; what a name! It was a true pilots’ aeroplane and anyone who has flown the aircraft will attest to its outstanding handling qualities. It looks just stunning; a sweeping series of compound curves and that amazing ellipsoidal wing. Finally, the deep growl of the Merlin was the perfect complement to the machine.
‘I have been incredibly lucky in my flying career to have flown around sixty-five different types and marks of aircraft. The beautiful Hunter, the mind-blowing Lightning, the mighty Phantom and the very capable Tornado. I’ve been privileged to fly countless Second World War and vintage aircraft from many nations, including the Hurricane, the Mustang, the Kittyhawk and, of course, ten different marks of the Spitfire.
‘I am often asked which is my favourite aircraft. It is a very difficult question to answer. Who couldn’t be impressed with the gut-wrenching climb performance of the Lightning, almost touching the lower reaches of space, or of howling along in a Hawker Sea Fury? So I answer the question this way: if God said that I could have just one more flight, my last flight before I die, in any aircraft I have ever flown, I would choose to get airborne in a Spitfire.’
