Spitfire Lighthouse

Over the years, Southampton has been livened up by a number of 'sculpture trails', and several of them had Spitfire-inspired sculptures! Another trail, Light the South, recently featured 40 large (8ft) and 40 small sculptures of lighthouses. And, sure enough, one of the lighthouses was inspired by the Spitfire!

I wonder what will be next ...

'Tolly Hello' Spitfire

'Tolly Hello' was a Mk IX Spitfire (serial number MK210) which was sent to the USAAF for testing the fitting of drop fuel tanks. Its nickname comes from the rather distinctive nose art!

The model I managed to get my hands on had the option of fitting a normal propellor as well as a plastic disc, which simulates a rotating propellor. As none of my other models has this option, I decided to fit the disc rather than the fixed propellor.

And here is a picture of the nose art on the real 'Tolly Hello' Spit.

Marwell airfield

For work-related reasons, I get to spend time at Marwell Zoo once or twice a year, and this has happened for quite a few years. But it wasn't until quite recently that I became aware that the area around Marwell used to harbour a secret airfield in WWII ...

To make the airfield less recognisable as such, it had removable hedges! Surfing the web, I managed to find a contemporary aerial photo which shows where the runways were.

This is a current Google Earth image of the same area ...

... so, obviously, I tried to overlay the WWII runways as best as I could on that satellite image:

And, of course, we set out to see what is still visible of that secret airfield today ... We started at the one remaining structure from those days: a 'Robin' hangar along Thomson's Lane.

The hangar, still called 'The Aircraft Hangar', is used by CNC Polystyrene.

Looking in roughly southeasterly direction from the Hangar, as indicated by the red arrow here, ...

... and all you see is fields:

We then drove in counterclockwise direction to Portsmouth Road, looking roughly northeast, from where the end of one of the two runways used to be (again, as indicated by the red arrow):

Fields again, but you can just spot the gap in the tree line where the two runways used to cross each other:

Further counterclockwise, along Hurst Lane, and looking southwest (as indicated by the red arrow), along where the other, longer runway used to be:

No sign of anything airfield-related!

Bit further along Hurst Lane, looking southwest along where the shorter runway used to be (as per the red arrow) ...

... and just a field!

So, it appears that, apart from the 'Robin Hangar', essentially nothing is left to show that there was a secret airfield here in WWII. Maybe no surprise, given that the airfield was meant to be secret ...

But did you notice the wind vane in the picture of the hangar above? If not, here it is in close-up:

Spitfire!

I expect this is a more recent addition to the hangar (rather than it dating to the 1940s), but it's certainly a nice nod to the history of the site.

Spitfire with 'Rutter' stripes

One of my Spitfire models has the D-Day invasion stripes, which were painted on allied planes to try and avoid them being shot down by 'friendly fire'. Recently, I bumped into a Spitfire model which had stripes around the nose and on the tail, rather than on the wings. 

Digging a bit further, it appeared that this (earlier) configuration of stripes was meant to be used for Operation Rutter, an invasion plan prior to Dieppe, which was called off when it became clear that the Luftwaffe was aware of the plans. A bit more about 'invasion stripes' generally is here.

And, as far as I can ascertain, this is a picture of the actual Spit that the model is based on.

"They keep coming!"

"They keep coming!" That was in the subject header of an email sent to me by Alan Matlock, the chairman of the Spitfire Makers Charitable Trust. 'They' of course refers to Spitfire Makers plaques, which had already been coming thick and fast in the last few weeks in Woolston (see here and here). Alan alerted me to yet another three that been given their rightful place. 

Two of the three are in the city centre, both linked to Martin's Rubber Co. One is on Oxford Street, where the company was based since 1937, and where they made rubber gaskets, seals, plugs, and hydraulic installations for Spitfires.

The second of these two is a few hundred meters away, in Orchard Place. This is where the company moved to in 1952 (and where they still operate), and where they kept making parts for Supermarine.

The third of this latest trio of plaques is at Langrish House, near Petersfield. Of the 22 plaques unveiled up to today, this one is the furthest away from where the Supermarine factories were in 1940. Based in the stables at Langrish, Talbot-Ponsonby & Co made munitions and parts for Spitfires.

So that's 22 plaques so far! Sure many more will follow ...

'Donald Duck' Spitfire

The 'Donald Duck' Spitfire was a Mk V Spitfire flown by the Polish fighter pilot Jan Zumbach. Actually, he flew three different Spits, all marked with his 'Donald Duck' emblem. 

I found out that one of these is available as a 1:72 model. And you sure know what happened next ...

And here is a picture of Jan Zumbach in the cockpit of one of the real 'Donald Duck' Spits.

'The Girl in Green'

Last week, at the unveiling of the Spitfire Makers plaque at the railway tunnel where about 50 people perished on September 24, 1940, Alan Matlock highlighted the stories of a number of people who died there. One of these stood out for me: Margaret 'Peggy' Moon. Possibly because she was the only woman killed there, possibly because she was just 19 years old, possibly because she was said to be quite a beautiful young woman, possibly because she wasn known at Supermarine as 'the girl in green'. Or, likely, a bit of all of the above. More on Peggy can be found here.

Cyril Richard Russell, who worked at Supermarine in those days and was of the same age as Peggy, wrote in his book "Spitfire Odyssey" many years later:

“Later that Wednesday morning [the 25th], my foreman, Bill Heaver, came over to me and told me quietly that one girl had been killed yesterday. He knew that a few weeks previously I had had quite a crush on her, and we had gone to the grand Theatre together. She was a secretary, and known to the lads as ‘the girl in green’ because of the smart green outfit she wore, with a little fur hat. Her name was Peggy, Peggy Moon from Canada Road, and a lovelier girl one could not wish to know. Now she was dead, and how grateful I am that I was not the one who found her – but what a waste!"

Peggy has become the 'face' of the 'Supermarine Fallen' to me. Sadly, no photo of her has (yet?) been found; I would very much like to put a face to the 'face' ...

Peggy was buried in St Mary Extra cemetery, and we decided to try to find her burial place and pay our respects to the 'Girl in Green'. 

Many thanks are due to Robert Stidworthy, who gave us detailed directions, allowing us to find her grave easily!

As I mentioned in my blog post last week, we kept some of the forget-me-not seeds that we all scattered in the small memorial garden at the tunnel entrance. Plan is to sow them in a dedicated pot for in the garden, but we felt it would also be nice to scatter some of these around Peggy's gravestone. If these come to flower in spring, they would form a direct link between where she perished and where she was laid to rest.

We will definitely come back in spring to see whether any of Peggy's forget-me-nots are flowering!