The Spitfire: Britain's Flying Past

We're talking about being British, aren't we?

What really matters to us.

Fair play, roast beef, the Queen?

Yeah, OK.

But I'd like to nominate something quite different,

something I've loved all my life and it's celebrating its 75th birthday.

It's the most wonderful...

the most beautiful...

greatest...

aircraft in the world.

It is, of course, the Spitfire.

Oh, gosh! A victory roll.

But our story isn't just about a plane, it's about people -

the men and women who've loved this thing for three-quarters of a century.

It was the nearest thing to flying oneself.

You went into combat daily with it together.

The people who gave the Spitfire its soul.

My Spitfire and me.

Ordinary people who did the most extraordinary things.

Anything that moved, short of a horse, was an enemy.

You would have done the same.

First you hear it, then you feel it.

-ENGINE ROARS

-It's so exciting.

And does it matter if it's British?

Of course it does!

I've come here to meet a legend - a British dream machine

built by a golden generation.

It was going to be called the Shrew.

I'm so glad it wasn't.

Are you ready?

Fantastic!

There it is, the Spitfire,

surely the most beautiful British plane ever built.

The Spitfire looks so beautiful

because it was designed for a purpose, a brutal purpose.

GUNFIRE

Brutal and absolutely straightforward and horrible.

It had to go at great speed...

..and then bring all the force of its machine guns

and cannon onto the enemy aircraft.

GUNFIRE

The key point about the Spitfire, as far as I'm concerned,

is it's got this absolute purity of design.

And that's why it's so beautiful.

But beauty is only skin deep.

I want to get to the heart of the Spitfire story,

and this particular Mark IX Spitfire is going to be my guide.

I want to tell the story about this particular Spitfire, the MH434.

What did it do in the war?

Where did it fly to?

And who flew it?

And what about all those people

whose lives were changed by this Spitfire,

the tens of thousands of people,

who not only liked this plane, they loved it?

Now for the really good bit.

We're going to see it fly.

Unfortunately, MH434 has only got room for the pilot.

But don't worry, we're going to be up close and personal

seeing the Spitfire in its natural habitat in the sky.

I'm going to be cruising alongside in formation

for the flight of my life.

-Want a hand?

-Yes, please.

-JOHN LAUGHS

-All right, I'll give it a push.

I shouldn't be pushing on that, though, should I?

'It might weigh more than three tons but pushing it is a joy,

'and soon we'll be firing up the famous Merlin engine on MH434 one more time.

'A top class commercial pilot,

'Paul Bonhomme, will have the privilege of flying the Spitfire,

'and I'll be in the safe hands of Bill Giles who will fly me in his Aztec.

'I've been really looking forward to this.'

-See you later.

-All right, Paul, have a good one.

I learnt to fly in a plane like this when I was an RAF Cadet.

I was called Flight Sergeant Sergeant, if you want to know.

Could I fly one of these things now?

Only if things go wrong.

Hello, Bill, are you all right?

Right, get cracking.

'Prepare for a great journey into the past.

'We're going back to Spitfire Britain,

'following the story of one plane, our plane,

'MH434, as it roars back to some of its wartime haunts.'

First, we're heading west to the Castle Bromwich factory

where our plane was built in 1943.

Then we're off to Hornchurch in Essex

where MH434 took off over 90 times

to defend Britain against the Luftwaffe.

We'll soar over parts of the most stunning coastline

to revisit this Spitfire's battlefield in the sky.

And, best of all, we'll be meeting some incredible people,

the few remaining voices from Generation Spitfire.

ARCHIVE COMMENTARY: 'Having got our pilot into his seat

'complete with cap, goggles and the rest of the outfit,

'we have got to lash him in there so that he will not fall out.

'Wouldn't you hate to be in a strait waistcoat of this kind?'

More than 20,000 of these iconic planes took off from British bases

during the Second World War.

Pilots as young as 19 flew several missions a day

and during the darkest days of the war,

one in five of them didn't make it back.

ARCHIVE COMMENTARY: 'Now the takeoff.

'Throttle right forward, stick central,

'ease her off the ground,

'back with the throttle to normal boost.'

MUSIC: "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire

Oh, I can see her now.

Wow, that is something, isn't it?

And it looks surprisingly menacing.

It looks like there's a shark with wings on.

Blimey!

Oh, it looks terrific, it really does.

John, are you enjoying your trip?

Absolutely fantastic. You look marvellous.

I don't mean you personally, but you and the plane.

Well, I think I'm just a spare part. It's the aeroplane is the best bit.

This is what it would be like if you were in a Messerschmitt

and a Spitfire started to come in and attack you.

I can't see anything now. I think I'd have been shot down if this was real life!

I can't see him.

Where is he?

Where is that Spitfire? I'm sure he was somewhere.

Here we go. Ooh, gosh!

Oh, yes! Right.

He swept right past us.

Fantastic. Now, he could have riddled us with bullets.

I bet he would have wanted to, but we're trying to say no to that.

But isn't that wonderful?

That's where you want to see a Spitfire, don't you?

In the sky, not on the ground, not in some museum,

flying there in the sky where it should do.

It might look old-fashioned now

but the Spitfire was the very latest in the Second World War,

and our model, the Mark IX, was the best of the lot.

Its top speed was over 400 miles an hour.

It could operate at higher than 40,000 feet.

Its two 20-millimetre cannons and four machine guns were fierce enough

to bring down the mightiest planes in the Luftwaffe's arsenal.

The stakes couldn't have been higher.

Tens of thousands of British civilians

and hundreds of fighter pilots were killed during the war.

And it wasn't only the RAF who believed in the Spitfire.

It was flown by nearly all Allied air forces.

Hello, Paul, it's John Sergeant here.

-Well done, brilliant flying.

-Thanks, John.

Do you think we're a bit old-fashioned or do you think,

you know, you're the old-fashioned plane?

No, this is a beautiful machine.

It's... As I've said before, it's a work of art

and flying very well.

Right, Paul, we're not too far from Birmingham now where we want to be.

'It's so easy to get caught up in the excitement this plane generates.

'But as the West Midlands spread out below us,

'it's time to re-engage with our mission.'

We're now right over the factory at Castle Bromwich

that produced half the Spitfires in the war.

But on 13th August 1943,

one particular Spitfire was built there, and that's ours, the MH434.

So it's a great homecoming.

During the Second World War, the most important Spitfire factory

in the country was here at Castle Bromwich.

And one man can remember actually building the plant.

His name is Eddie Fox.

Our job as engineers was to build... make and build production lines

so that you can make Spitfire aircraft.

-You're going to show me round, are you?

-Yeah.

Today, this is a state-of-the-art car factory.

When Eddie arrived here for the first time, over 70 years ago,

it was an empty shell, but he and his team soon created

an efficient production line.

When MH434 was built in August 1943,

it was one of 300 Spitfires completed that month.

Not bad for a man in his early twenties.

How many Spitfires altogether did you end up building here?

I think it was about 12,000.

-And that's more than any other factory in the country.

-Oh, yes.

What was it like when you produced

the very first Spitfire from this plant?

It went out through the big hangar doors

and we all stood and cheered and really...

patted ourselves on the back, if you like,

because we'd got one off.

Alex Henshaw, the test pilot, the chief test pilot,

-he gave us a display with that aircraft.

-Oh, right.

-God!

Talk about flying...low.

How he never took our heads off I don't know, you know,

but he really threw that Spitfire around.

And that also gave us a great, warm feeling

knowing that that was the first one that had come off the production line

and it did everything that Alex Henshaw wanted it to do.

By 1943, nearly 16,000 people were working round the clock here,

building Spitfires and other aircraft.

Nearly half of them were women.

With on-the-job training, and no shortage of work,

people flocked here.

Catherine Degregorio was just 16

when she arrived from County Limerick in Ireland.

She was working in the tool room when MH434 was built.

Coming from a little village and then come over here to a big place

and to think you're going to build Spitfires... You can't...

I can't explain the feeling, you know.

You sort of think to yourself you're in a dream, it's not real,

it's not real, but, of course, it was real.

It was good, it was very good.

And the people were lovely. People that worked there

were all very cheerful

and carrying on, helping each other along.

It was such a delicate thing to sort of put all them bits together

and see what comes at the end of it.

Gave you a lift to think, "Ooh, I helped to build that."

It makes you feel quite proud to think we, you know,

we took part in it all, yes.

Catherine didn't think she was building a legend.

Nobody thought that.

But she knew that her work was vital.

She was determined to do her bit.

And that certainly deserves a salute from one of her planes.

Oh, yes!

Brilliant, Paul! Well done!

OK, Paul, that was amazing, wasn't it?

Going back, seeing the factory where your Spitfire was built.

It is nice to take the aeroplane home.

Eddie and Catherine's stories

show the passion people felt for their plane.

It's amazing how many people found themselves

caught up in the whole Spitfire story.

One of the people who lived here during the Second World War

was June Eastlake, and she was just a little girl

when her whole life was turned upside down by the war.

During the war, June's family lived

just a few miles from the factory at Castle Bromwich.

The Spitfire factory was one of the first factories targeted.

-So you remember it?

-Yes, yes.

And what was it like?

Absolutely dreadful.

I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

The drone of the German aeroplanes, the sound of the bombs coming down.

Every time a plane came in or out, I used to shake.

How much did you understand of what was going on?

I can remember standing waiting our turn to be let out of the shelter,

and it looked as though the world was on fire.

AIR-RAID SIRENS WAIL

My dad was a fire watcher.

I've got the little card showing that he'd been trained in fire watching.

There were thousands and thousands of incendiary bombs dropped,

and, of course, they were there to put them out.

So he was fire watching,

and a landmine fell on the house next door.

And, erm...

..the house collapsed and buried my father.

I can remember coming up from the shelter in the morning.

We were taken round to where we lived, but of course,

before you got there you could see that everywhere was devastation.

And there was a tea wagon there,

manned by volunteers,

which was the normal thing where there'd been a big bomb dropped.

I heard this person say,

"Give this woman a cup of tea, she's just lost her husband."

And that's how we realised that dad had died in the raid.

But nobody told you directly?

-No, no, no. Never did.

-They never did?

No, Mum didn't either.

We just knew it had happened.

But this was happening to not just us,

it was the norm, and you accepted it, strangely enough.

That's... What an extraordinary way of knowing something that would change your whole life.

My dad died on the 17th of May.

But March, two months before, we all went to the photographer's

in the city centre, and there was Mum and Dad and the four children.

We all had our photograph taken as a family group.

That's the photograph there.

Pass it over and I'll show you.

That's my dad. He was only 33.

So this is the last photograph?

It's the only photo, family photograph, we have.

Where are you?

I'm at the back with the sticky-out hair.

-Yeah.

-I was eight.

I love that photograph.

I've got... I carry one with me, a small one in my purse.

-You carry it with you all the time?

-Yes, it's in my purse, yes.

-Yeah.

PROPELLERS DRONE

June's story gets to the heart of one of the main reasons we love the Spitfire.

It's a physical reminder of the sacrifices

people made during the war, the tragic side of the Spitfire story.

We're leaving the midlands now, just as MH434 did in 1943,

when it was delivered, by air, to RAF Hornchurch in Essex.

It was flown by one of the Air Transport Auxiliary, or ATA pilots.

They delivered more than 300,000 aircraft,

despite being unarmed and without radio communication.

They were sent to bases right across the country.

All of them were volunteers, and one in five of them were women,

among them a 20-year-old, Joy Lofthouse.

You ask anyone, of the single engines, which was their favourite,

and it would be a Spitfire.

I've heard someone say you only had to blow on the stick

and it did what you wanted.

It was the nearest thing to flying oneself.

It was almost as though the wings were part of you,

not part of the aeroplane.

I was 16-and-a-half when war broke out.

I'd never SEEN an aeroplane, leave alone been in one.

Several of my boyfriends said, "Oh, you're joining ATA.

"Are you going in as a driver or something?"

And I said, "No, they're teaching me to fly!"

And of course a lot of them didn't want to believe it

as I'd never been in an aeroplane before.

You must remember, we were young.

When you think what the youngsters do now -

jumping out of aeroplanes and bungee jumping.

Nothing seemed dangerous.

Nothing seemed out of our abilities, if you like.

I never remember being instructed on to how to use a parachute.

We were usually taught forced landing was the better way.

If the engine cut, try to save the aeroplane if you can

by making as good a forced landing as you could.

Don't be a bleedin' hero, just try to get it down safely.

If you knew you were near an American airfield

you would always choose that,

partly because they were full of admiration for us flying,

and the food was better in the mess, you got a good lunch.

And also they would take you to the PX

which was their equivalent of NAAFI, their shop.

And there they would let you buy lipstick and chocolate and stockings.

The proudest achievement of my life, obviously, was flying the Spitfire,

being allowed to fly this aircraft, which everyone knew about,

that sort of saved the country in the Battle Of Britain,

and I was allowed to fly it.

I don't think I could do anything that would make me prouder than that.

There's a story that when he couldn't subdue us in the Battle Of Britain,

Hitler got cross with Goering

and said, "What do you want to wipe out this air force?"

And Goering said, "A squadron of Spitfires."

Joy tells her story so charmingly

that you could easily forget just how much nerve it took,

climbing into a Spitfire with so little experience,

in the middle of the war.

And would she have found it difficult to fly the Spitfire?

I don't think so. I think the Spitfire's a delight to fly.

I think as long as you follow the basic rules of, you know,

opening the throttle slowly on takeoff

and treating the aeroplane with respect,

it's a delight to fly.

So the only thing she would have difficulty with, I suppose,

would be the prejudice of some of the male pilots

who would have thought a girl couldn't do a thing like that.

That's exactly.

I don't know, it's a little bit of that.

But probably laid to rest when a Spitfire arrived out of the gloom

on a foggy day, and a young lady steps out of it.

A lot of the pilots would have liked that, wouldn't they?

Yes, quite right.

MH434 was delivered to RAF Hornchurch in Essex

where it became the favourite plane of an ace South African airman,

Flight Lieutenant Pat Lardner-Burke.

He had already established a reputation

as a top-class fighter pilot

when he received his brand-new Mark IX Spit.

He revelled in being centre-stage in battle.

But he was less keen on the limelight in peacetime.

Remarkably, his children are only finding out now,

40 years after his death, what an extraordinary man their father was.

When did you first see all this stuff that your father had?

-It was probably only about two months ago.

-Really?

Well, I've always known that it's, you know,

it's been in the family, but my mother, as good a hoarder as she was,

she generally had all of this stuff boxed up and kept in the attic.

This is an amazing treasure trove, isn't it?

What have we, what is this?

I think here you have got the... the seat for the Spitfire,

and this is the parachute.

Named as Squadron Leader Lardner-Burke, so...

So it was written on there.

Ready to go. He would have been flying Spitfires at that time.

-We've got his boots, haven't we?

-It's the flying boots.

I understand the idea of these was that the fur part was detachable

so that they could, if they were shot down over the Continent,

they would detach this part of the boot, or the top part,

so they could pretend that they were a French civilian, possibly.

-And walk their way to Switzerland if they were lucky.

-Hopefully, yes.

Yeah. Now this is the famous helmet.

This is the proper, this is the pukka helmet, yes.

When we think of a Spitfire pilot, we think of them wearing these.

Well, this is, I can promise you, this is original.

Yeah, here are the goggles.

The goggles. The oxygen mask.

What's it like for you, seeing this equipment that your father had?

It has reignited our father's memory.

-That's your dad there, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

That's his Natal Squadron, 222 Squadron, based at Hornchurch

and he would have been flying 434.

So these would be his flying friends.

And that's him. Looks as if he's alongside a Spitfire, doesn't it?

It does. That's certainly him. This is the 222 Squadron.

-Where is he in the picture?

-Sitting on the front row with...

seems to have the squadron dog in front of him.

-Squadron dog, he seemed keen on dogs.

-He does, yes.

We never saw any of that in later life.

Do you wish you could have asked him about the war when you knew him?

I would say that we actually spoke very little about it, if at all.

He certainly wasn't going to start discussing the war

with his young children, so very, very little.

He died when I was 14,

so I do feel that perhaps we would have a little...

If I was a little older and, you know,

we'd have had a pint of beer in a pub,

I think maybe we could have spoken about it.

But as we were children, it was never discussed.

Martin never had the chance to talk to his dad about the war.

But his father's logbook reveals

that this was really where they played with fire -

the English Channel.

Our Spitfire marshalled the skies over this strip of sea.

It provided cover for Allied bombers headed for German targets in France.

Within three weeks of our Spitfire being built

it was in action against the Luftwaffe.

And for seven of some of the most difficult months of the war in 1943,

this aircraft was right in the thick of it.

And you can imagine what it would be like,

streaking out over the Channel, as we are now,

and at any moment, you could be hit by German raiders.

In fact, you were HOPING to meet German raiders.

Your job was to defend England.

Martin has allowed me to read the logbook

and also 222 Squadron's operational flying diary,

written during the war at debriefing sessions

which were held after his father's missions in MH434.

It's a remarkable account.

On August 27th, 1943,

Lardner-Burke set off at 1830 hours from his base in Essex.

He was a member of 222 Squadron,

which had 12 Spitfires in operation that day.

They were providing cover for 240 American B-17 bombers,

flying fortresses, each loaded with 8,000 pounds of bombs.

Pat Lardner-Burke died in 1970.

But there are still a few men left who know exactly what it feels like

to have to set off in a Spitfire to defend Britain, nearly 70 years ago.

Once you're up there, you're part and parcel of the aeroplane.

You can't be terrified.

Doesn't even take the time that it's now taking me to speak to you.

You're away. You're getting on with the job.

Once you're in that aeroplane, then a totally...resignation came in.

"I'm here, I've got to go, I'm going to do it."

Really, when you're in it you're in it so tight with the straps done up

so that when you turn upside down

you don't bang your head on the hood.

And I'm going to do my very best to get back

and do as much damage to those Black Cross "gentlemen" as I possibly can.

They crossed the Kent coast and then joined the bombers over the Channel.

They went over the French coast at Berck, near Calais.

They then turned north and hit very heavy flak.

Two of the planes were hit

and seven of the airmen were reported to have bailed out.

Flak is just a shell that explodes at a certain height.

And they used to get our height, absolutely.

The bomber crews had to just stay in position.

They had to take anything that was going.

I admired them immensely.

We were defending this country against the King's enemies.

And we knew anybody who thought at all would know that the effort

that was being put in by the Germans and the Luftwaffe,

they weren't doing it for fun.

They weren't doing that for fun.

And we had to stop 'em.

That was the important thing.

Not whether...Jim shot down ten and Bill shot down one

and poor old Sid didn't get any.

It didn't matter who shot down what.

It never worried me. It never worried me.

But what was important was that these Germans were up to no good

and they had to be stopped.

The Spitfires were orbiting at 26,000 feet when a call came through

saying that nine enemy aircraft were attacking the bombers below.

The 222 Squadron, led by Wing Commander Compton,

swooped down to attack the loose formation of Germany FW190.

You find yourself on your own.

I mean, if the wingman gets...

has to break away to look after himself and the rest,

you're on your own. It's up to you.

This is a dramatic moment.

In his MH434, our Spitfire, Lardner-Burke opened fire

on a Focke that had been firing at Wing Commander Compton.

He let rip with a two-second burst from 350 yards

and hit its wing and tail.

The Focke was hit and the MH434 turned sharply

and dived out of the way.

And it was just like a swarm of bees,

everything going round and round and round.

Don't stand around looking and thinking, "Where is everybody?"

Before you do that, chuck it around.

Chuck it...

I mean it, really, vicious.

Not in any flying manual that an instructor will tell you to do.

Lardner then turned his attention to a second plane,

opening up his machine guns for four to five seconds.

The Focke dived to avoid Lardner-Burke,

but the RAF pilot followed him to just 2,000 feet

and watched his crash near Calais.

So MH434 had had a good start to its campaign

and then headed home to its operational base at RAF Hornchurch.

Hornchurch was a key RAF command aerodrome

in both the First and Second World Wars.

The local people were used to living with the dangers of an airbase.

But it still seems very surprising that in 1937

a school should be built so close to where the planes took off.

And that's where we're going next.

That school and its pupils are still keenly aware

of their close link with the Second World War.

-What do you think about the Spitfire?

-It's fast.

It's fast, yes.

-Very manoeuvrable.

-It's very manoeuvrable.

What else have we got? Wait a moment.

-It's cool.

-It's what?

-Very cool.

-Very cool?

-Yeah.

-It's on our badge.

-Where is it on the badge?

Oh, right, there it is on the badge, yeah.

-So is Spitfire your favourite plane?

-ALL:

-Yes.

That's the right answer.

'These children are almost as enthusiastic about the Spitfire

'as I was when I was their age.'

They're crazy about the old plane.

They may remember it fondly, but the 900 or so kids

that went to school here in 1943 lived with it daily,

and the pilots were their heroes,

all of which makes what happened on March 24th of that year so poignant.

Jim Ring was in class on that morning.

He was just nine years old.

Our teacher, Miss Cullen, was up at the blackboard

and we heard this awful noise

and it got louder, much louder.

And we just yelled to the teacher, "Get down, Miss."

And we all dived under our desks.

The sound Jim could hear was a Spitfire

heading straight for his classroom.

The pilot, an American volunteer,

knew his Merlin engine was in trouble soon after he took off

less than 500 yards from the school.

Official documents record that his engine failed

at just over 200 feet and that his plane went into a spin.

Those who were at the school vividly remember the scene.

So he tried to bank and turn towards this school

in an effort to get back to the airfield.

There were children in the playing field where he crashed

and they remember him signalling desperately to get out of the way.

He was so low and he realised he was going to hit the school

so he put the nose down on the Spitfire, which came down here.

So he deliberately crashed his Spitfire right here

in order to avoid going right into the school

-and killing lots of people.

-That's right.

-And then what happened?

-Well, it bounced up

and the wing struck the school wall there where the plaque is.

The pilot was killed on impact.

His name was Raymond Sanders Draper

and that's now the name of this school.

Jim and his fellow classmates

helped to have it renamed in his honour in 1973.

'The schoolboys from that tragic day remember Sanders Draper

'every year with a memorial service.'

Yes, hello.

'Jim has arranged for me to meet some of them.'

Hello.

-How do you do, John?

-Right. Well, here we are assembled

and that is the grave stone, isn't it?

RS Draper.

What are your memories of that terrible day?

One of shock, actually.

Of hearing the tremendous bang as the craft came down.

Although we were told it was a Spitfire,

I went home thinking it was the Luftwaffe.

-Really?

-I really did, yes.

-You thought it was an attack?

-Yes.

-What are your thoughts now about this brave man?

-I think about him a lot.

-Really?

-I really do, yes, I do.

It's quite moving.

-It brings it back.

-It does, it's quite moving.

If it hadn't have been for this man, none of our children

would have been born and their children wouldn't have been born.

It would have had such ramifications.

You can't express it in the same way as you can feel it.

-Our young days were taken up with the Spitfire.

-Yeah.

You looked out of the school and you would see them taking off,

circling round, landing, you'd count them back in.

So all of you feel that you do really owe your lives to this man?

100%, yes. Without a shadow of a doubt.

If it had been a few feet higher, he would have gone through the window.

He would have smashed through the school.

So that's why you keep remembering?

Oh, it is. Yes.

I think also what is sort of striking for you at your age,

-is that this man was 29 when he died.

-Yes.

-Yes.

-That's quite something, isn't it?

-Yes.

-A young man.

-A young man.

-Whole life in front of him.

Gave his life away.

-Well, not for nothing, for us. For us.

-Yes.

'That's the true spirit of the Spitfire, isn't it?

'Young men and women doing remarkably brave things

'for people they didn't know and perhaps would never meet.

'Jim and his fellow classmates certainly haven't forgotten.'

Our plane, MH434, was delivered to RAF Hornchurch

just a few months after the accident at the school.

It wasn't a special Spitfire then.

There wouldn't have been a fanfare,

just another small moment in the old aerodrome's history.

RAF Hornchurch is now a nature reserve,

only a few signs of its past.

I came here in the 1960s as an RAF Cadet

anxious to get a flying scholarship,

and that's how I learned how to fly.

But when I was here, this was full of the buildings

and the runways of the war.

Like many aerodromes around London, air raids were common,

especially in the late summer of 1940.

A teleprinter operator, Joy Caldwell,

was just 19 when she reported for duty here at RAF Hornchurch.

In total in that three months of the Battle Of Britain

we had 20 air raids on Hornchurch Airfield.

One night we had a landmine came down.

They came down in parachutes as you probably know,

and it was caught onto the side of the hangar,

number three hangar, which was our nearest. That hung there

all night, and we knew that if it touched the ground

or if the wind got up that it would blow us to bits,

but we couldn't do anything about it, we just had to carry on.

About four in the morning the bomb disposal people came in

and they defused it.

They had a cup of tea with us and they went over to Elm Park

where another one had come down,

and unfortunately they blew themselves,

all of them were killed in that one.

Which, I mean, five minutes they were drinking tea with me,

the next minute they weren't there.

And you say you mourn, you don't mourn.

You see tragedy, yes, but you can't mourn.

It was another disaster or another thing that had happened

and you didn't talk about it,

you just lit another cigarette and got on with it.

The Battle of Britain marked

Hitler's first significant defeat in the Second World War.

But victory came at a terrible cost.

Over 500 RAF pilots were lost

and tens of thousands of civilians were killed or injured.

They always say you never hear the one that comes down and I didn't.

And it was pretty painful.

I was going into Ops and it blew me between the sandbags

over the counter onto a wireless set and it didn't half hurt.

I reported sick for the first time, the only time I reported sick,

and the MO said, "Oh, I've got plenty of dead round here.

"Just lean against the radiator for 48 hours

"and then you're back on duty."

And what they didn't know was that I'd fractured my back.

I am not special. I'm just a person.

I was put in a situation that any of you could have done

or would do to protect your freedom and your home.

You would have done the same. Any of you would have done the same.

Joy was working at Hornchurch on September 8th, 1943

when her colleague, Flight Lieutenant Pat Lardner-Burke,

climbed into his Spitfire on the first of his three flights that day.

It was 0845 hours and MH434

was part of a larger wing that were acting as high cover

for 72 Allied Marauders

as they headed for targets in Lille.

They were attacked by ten to twelve Focke-Wulf 190s,

but the wing continued its escort.

They lost one of their Spitfires,

but Lardner-Burke got his plane home safely.

The excitement was enormous, enormous.

And, I mean, I always found that when I came back,

although it might be cold, I was still sweating.

You've got to love it

because you went into combat daily with it, together.

You and that aeroplane.

My Spitfire and me.

At 13.45 Lardner and his plane were back in the sky again,

this time providing cover for 12 Venturas on their way to Abbeville.

They flew over France at just 2,000 feet

climbing to a height of 22,000.

Soon they came across 12 Fockes.

It looked like they hadn't been spotted and dived to attack.

He would have to be very sharp.

This was all happening in short seconds

with lots of your colleagues around you in formation,

all joining together to do something.

You are worrying about the guys that you're flying with,

the operation that you're on,

whether you're going to do the right thing,

whether you're going to make a mistake,

whether you're going to come home with the same number of people.

Another three or four minutes

and it had all disappeared and you're by yourself.

The Focke-Wulf 190s broke formation

and 222 Squadron only managed to hit one of the enemy aircraft.

Lardner-Burke was back in Hornchurch just after three o'clock.

You watched the Spitfires being refuelled, rearmed,

bullet holes patched, everybody working like mad.

And then the phone would go and you'd think,

"God this is a quick one,

"we've only been on the deck an hour and a half, two hours,"

and off you'd go again.

You would be exhausted, but you had a certain sort of

feeling of unity with the others in your squadron.

They were an amazing bunch of guys. You should have met them.

Just before six in the evening, 222 Squadron

spotted 12 Messerschmitt 109s.

Lardner-Burke and another 222 pilot opened fire

and black smoke was seen bellowing from the plane.

Lardner-Burke broke to the left,

allowing the other pilot to fire for 14 seconds.

The Messerschmitt ploughed into the ground at 500 miles an hour.

From up here Britain looks so peaceful.

It's hard to believe that 70 years ago

we would have been flying through a battlefield.

But there's still plenty of evidence of Britain's flying past,

if you know where to look.

We can see Biggin Hill down there, can't we?

Yeah, the main runway you can see running across from left to right.

And that was such an important airfield

-during the Battle of Britain, wasn't it?

-Absolutely.

Biggin Hill's closeness to London

made it a prime target for the Luftwaffe.

RAF squadrons based here

claim to have destroyed more than 1,000 enemy aircraft,

losing several hundred pilots in the process.

Ground crew suffered too, with many people being killed

in a dozen separate attacks spread over six months.

I suppose what's striking,

always when you're up in the air watching the Spitfire pilots,

you think how lonely they must have been

and how difficult it must have been controlling these small planes,

all right, fighting for your country,

but at extraordinary personal risk

when you would know that many of your friends would have been killed on these missions.

So coming home, as we are now, flying down,

this must have been a terrific sense of relief

that we are back on the ground.

Back on terra firma.

But sometimes it's easy to forget

that for every Spitfire pilot in the air,

there was always someone on the ground

anxiously waiting to see if they would come home.

Flight Lieutenant Pat Lardner-Burke's son, Martin,

has found some letters from his mother

that reveal the extraordinary demands made,

not just on the pilots but also on their families.

We'd actually only just unearthed these very recently,

a couple of days ago.

Credit to my mother here. I mean, she's a wonderful hoarder.

"On Sunday afternoon I went down to Hornchurch,

"Sundays being the day when females are allowed onto the premises."

"Pat is expected to have the afternoon off,

"though when I arrived he was away on an unexpected sweep,

"so the adjutant met me with the squadron car.

"Pat arrived back at about four and we then had tea and sat on the lawn."

"At six o'clock they went off on another sweep."

"I managed to get down to the aerodrome and then watched all 26 Spitfires take off."

"It was a marvellous sight."

And 26 Spitfires took off, and, er...

..you know, she just sat on the lawn. HIS VOICE BREAKS

Yeah.

And these guys would, you know, the wives and the girlfriends

would just sit there and hope that 26 got counted back again.

"They were away for one-and-a-half hours,

"and then we watched them all come back again."

But they had to just wait.

Well, you imagine having a tea party,

and suddenly all the partners take off,

-and you just don't know if they're coming back, do you?

-No.

Do you feel you know him? Do you feel closer to him now?

I actually do, yes, yes.

Yeah. And your feelings about him?

Well, he's still my father.

We knew him when we were young.

I mean it's a bit tricky, I can't... That's not one I can really answer

because, you know, my feelings are for my father.

-But pride?

-Oh, there is pride, yes.

-A lot of pride.

-Yes.

Flight Lieutenant Pat Lardner-Burke recorded his last flight with MH434

in October of 1943.

They'd been together on nearly 60 sorties

and claimed two-and-a-half kills -

two Focke-Wulf 190s and a Messerschmitt 109

he had shot down with his 222 colleague.

D-Day now loomed large on the horizon.

It was the ultimate call to arms, a vital part of the Spitfire story.

Unfortunately, we lose track of our plane

three months before the Normandy landings.

These photos of MH434 were taken then at Hornchurch.

Flight Lieutenant Lardner-Burke was put in charge of 1 Squadron,

and he played an active role on D-Day.

Sadly, the D-Day generation are disappearing,

but there are still a few special people who remember

one of the most extraordinary days in our history.

When we flew on the morning of June 6th, the Solent was empty,

all the mechanised vehicles had gone,

and one thought about those boys on the beaches,

although we didn't know how bad it was going to be.

We took off at four something,

and we were over the beaches at 5.20 for the dawn.

And we looked down and saw this colossal armada.

I mean, everybody's described it better than I can.

I do believe that in World War II,

a Spitfire pilot's role was an extremely important one,

and obviously the landings in D-Day and the need for protection

to our thousands of ships and the men who went across

was a vital protective element.

The sea was just littered with ships.

The Navy were there

with several of the captured French battleships as well,

and they were all firing up into the air, mainly at us.

I think they'd been warned there was going to be a huge invasion,

probably of 109s, which look a little bit like a Spitfire,

and everybody was a bit trigger-happy, I suppose.

We didn't... We didn't grumble about it.

It was a natural thing, I suppose, to happen.

At least they were firing at somebody.

The Spitfire story has so many elements.

Sacrifice.

Bravery.

Even glamour.

The British people loved the Spitfire.

It's a romance of a kind.

But I don't think any Spitfire love story can beat this one.

Engineer Joe and truck driver Betty, or Butch to her friends,

met working on Spitfires during the war.

If there's three things in this story,

it's Betty, Joe and the Spitfire.

Their love story began in a hangar at Biggin Hill in 1943.

Joe was standing on the wing of the plane.

-A plane like this?

-Yes.

-And of course they were all cheeky.

-Were they?

-Oh, yes!

I looked at her and I thought, "Mm, I wonder."

-You wonder what?

-"She's the best-looking lot in that bunch,

-"I wonder if I've got a chance with her."

-Right.

And I obviously had,

cos I think she said something like it, but a lot ruder.

Did you really? Can you remember that, Betty?

I think it was a bit saucy.

No, go on, you can tell us now. We're ready for it.

-And if you don't, I will.

-You say it.

-She says, "I'm having some of that."

-Did you really?!

Goodness me! I mean, this is shocking, isn't it?

She was only 22, you know, we were both 22 then.

So before you knew where you were, you were going to dances together.

-Yes, well we were both mad on dancing.

-Right.

-Absolutely mad on dancing.

-Like you.

Joe and Betty's friendship blossomed

in the dance halls in and around London.

A night of dancing the foxtrot, the waltz and the rumba

provided them and other servicemen and women

with a brief respite from the realities of the war.

But as Joe and Betty grew closer,

there was one reality they could not escape from.

We had feelings for each other, but Betty had informed me,

she says, "Look, I am engaged."

Now, Bet was engaged to

-a sergeant engine fitter in the RAF in the Middle East.

-Right.

After that, as far as I was concerned, there was no romance.

There wasn't going to be any romance.

I wasn't going to query that bloke's pitch

when I'd drawn the good straw languishing at home

and he was out in the desert.

So you then felt, Betty, that you'd made a promise to your fiance.

My fiance arrived in England and I had to come and tell Joe that...

..that he had come home and this would have to be the end of it, you see.

And my old life was returning and I had...had to forget Joe.

But I was very, very upset, in tears.

I asked her to marry me.

I'd got it out, that's what I wanted to do.

I wanted to hear myself ask her.

Because you knew that you were...

Because I knew that she wouldn't say yes.

Not that I didn't want her to say yes,

I would have loved her to have said yes, but she couldn't.

It was a very hard thing to say no to Joe, really.

It was... It's something I can't answer, really.

Well, I'm not even going to try and help you here, love,

because I can't.

-I know the dilemma you must have been in.

-Yes.

I wasn't. I was footloose and fancy-free,

so I couldn't put myself in your place,

and I knew that if I asked you and expected an answer

I'd be hurting you, causing you more problems.

So I didn't push it.

Joe and Betty had their last dance together

in the Worthing Town Hall in 1944.

Joe tells me it was a slow foxtrot.

Betty married her fiance,

and Joe also settled down and started a family.

In 2004, now both widowed, Betty was watching the telly

when there on the screen she recognised an old friend talking about his beloved Spitfire.

Soon afterwards,

they spoke to each other for the first time in 60 years.

Once again, some of that old Spitfire magic

had brought Joe and Betty together.

I knew that we must meet.

We must see each other again to see if there was owt still alight.

And she met me at Chichester station,

and, to me, she looked like

the same lass I'd said cheerio to 60 years ago.

-Really?

-Yes.

What did you think about him?

Well, he had the same voice, a little grey.

BETTY LAUGHS But just the same old Joe.

We went about like we used to when we were 22.

We'd even hold bloody hands. People used to look at us going out, you know.

But it's...it's very hard to explain, John, very hard.

Yes, yeah.

-It was there, wasn't it, love? It still is.

-Oh, yes.

I think, really, we get on better in a way

because we have more time together,

rather than just under a bloody Spitfire wing or in a dispersal hut

or, er...in some snoggy little dance hall somewhere.

We're our own people now.

We're living it that way,

the way we would have done had we got married in the times we met.

These last seven years have been wonderful.

-And you love each other.

-Of course we do.

There's that many ways of defining love, I don't know.

-But if it means do you want to be together all the time, yes, we do.

-Yes.

Well, for me that is the greatest love story ever told,

the final scene in our Spitfire story.

But surely endings don't always have to be cut and dried.

We've left some loose ends.

What about our plane, MH434?

You might have thought its fighting days were over when World War II ended,

but they weren't. It flew for the Royal Dutch Air Force,

crash landing in the Dutch East Indies in 1947,

and then moved to the Belgian Air Force

before returning to Britain in the 1950s.

The Spitfire. It's 75 years since the first one flew,

and they're now more beautiful than ever.

The pilots who fly them say there's nothing better.

But we can't just leave it like that.

It's time for former Cadet Sergeant Sergeant to have a go.

And here's my new best friend, a Spitfire with room for two.

Oh, this is the moment. This is the moment!

And we're taking off. Wow!

MUSIC: "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire

It was the greatest thrill of my life.

Wow. Look at that. Look at that!

So easy to manoeuvre that it must have been

the very nearest thing to having wings oneself.

I'm flying it. I'm actually flying a Spitfire.

Special, superb, splendid...

I've been given control

of the greatest plane that's ever been made.

You more or less put it on and you were flying.

Richard, what do I do now?

Move to your left, John, moving off to the left.

-OK, you have control.

-I have control.

-You have control.

-OK.

-Thank you.

Once you've got a Spitfire right, you could do anything with it.

Oh, goodness me, we're going low now, right over the airfield.

We felt we had the best aeroplanes in the world.

What a climb, and you can feel the climb, over we go.

Oh, gosh! A victory roll!

You can't expect chaps to fly and fight in a Spitfire

and then forget about it.

It's imprinted on your mind for ever.

Yeah. We've done it.

That was a victory roll.

Ah! It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.

When I started on this programme,

I thought it would be interesting and fun.

What I didn't expect was to get so emotionally involved.

It's churned me up.

It's turned me upside down.

This Spitfire...

what a story!

Whoo!

Happy birthday, Spitfire. Many happy returns.

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