Supermarine Spitfire: Fending Off the Nazis in the Battle of Britain

this video is brought to you by squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business check out squarespace through the link in the description below more about them in a bit [Music] after the disastrous events which culminated in the lucky escape at dunkirk britain faced a painful prospect with an artsy war machine now rolling right up to the english channel many felt an invasion of britain was only a matter of time whether adolf hitler truly intended on invading an island with a fearsome navy still protecting it is up for debate but at the very least it was decided that the island needed to be softened up with some bombing raids before any further action happened the resulting attacks and the stirring defense that met them has come to be known as the battle of britain and it went on for nearly four months these raids were primarily focused on defense installations and airfields but eventually shifted to civilian targets as the blitz began british cities would be bombed for the next eight months but instead of capitulation the aerial defense held firm and central to it was an aircraft that had come to symbolize the epic struggle loved by pilots adored by those on the ground it protected and no doubt feared by the germans the supermarine spitfire became not only a british hero but an international one too certain pieces of military hardware have become synonymous with the country and a particular period and the spitfire was exactly that indeed when i think of planes of the second world war it is the only thing that enters my mind arriving just a year before the outbreak of world war ii they were held in reserve as the initial acts of the war played out because they were deemed untested in large-scale combat instead it was their cousins the hawker hurricane who made their way across the channel in the defense of france it quickly became clear however that german aerial power was much too much for the hurricanes and as the british army scampered back home from dunkirk it was only a matter of time until the spitfires were unleashed in the early 1930s the uk's air ministry set out a series of specifications for a new modern aircraft capable of speeds of 400 kilometers now at 250 miles per hour in response they received seven designs from different teams and they chose a design that would eventually go on to be known as the gloucester gladiator now one of the designs that was passed over was the supermarine type 224 an open cockpit monoplane that had been designed by rj mitchell while there must have been a degree of disappointment of having missed out on the air ministry's decision those involved knew full well that the supermarine type 224 fell well below expectations but in a wonderfully stubborn way rj mitchell and his design team kept coming back for more each time with a slightly better model type 300 was also rejected which led to numerous major overhauls not least with the cockpit now enclosed and with a breathing apparatus for the pilot type 300 wasn't good enough but they were close a new and improved type 300 was thrashed out on the 1st of december 1934 and the air ministry decided that well they liked what they saw and they awarded a 10 000 pound contract for the first aircraft which sounds ridiculous today but money was worth more in the past always remember that over the next two years a series of small tweaks were made to the design with the number of guns increasing from 2 to 4 which would eventually increase to 8 because why not and a fine pitch propeller added to give the aircraft more power during takeoff on the 5th of march 1936 prototype k5054 took off for the first time from eastleigh aerodrome for its maiden voyage which at just eight minutes was less of a voyage and more of a quick spin around the block the flight had been a success and with a few further alterations the aircraft was handed over to the aeroplane and armament experimental establishment a and a e which would have the final say on the young spitfire the report delivered by the a and aee was broadly positive with one request that an undercarriage position indicated to be added so pilots could tell whether the landing gear was up or down on the 3rd of june 1936 the air ministry placed an order for the first 310 spitfires at a cost of roughly 1.395 million pounds which in today's money about 100 million and now it soon became clear that while the aircraft design was really sound the production facilities couldn't hope to produce the aircraft at a rate that sir robert mclean the director of vickers armstrong the larger company within which the supermarine division was a part of had proclaimed perhaps in a burst of excitement mclean had promised five aircraft a week starting from 15 months after the contract was signed as time progressed it became clear that this was absolutely impossible now remember while hitler had been making plenty of loud noises by this point world war ii hadn't yet begun biggest armstrong was busy producing several aircraft ranging from flying boats to bombers and this was not yet the manic production line that we would see after war was declared initially subcontractors were brought on board to speed up the process but figure's armed armstrong appeared reluctant to hand over too much power and or knowledge relating to the new aircraft and well this caused things to drag on and on the situation became so bad that the air ministry declared that once the contract had been completed no further spitfires would be built only the desperate intervention and probably a fair bit of groveling by vickers armstrong and supermarine bosses persuaded the air ministry to reverse course and order a further 210 spitfires by mid-1938 the first spitfire appeared and was flown for the first time on the 15th of may costs had increased slightly because of the delay with the final total for 310 aircraft standing at about 1.9 million pounds 133 million pounds today dan fabricated fuselage for each aircraft cost in the region of 2500 pounds about 170 000 pounds today and the rolls-royce merlin engine was 2 000 pounds about 135 000 pounds today a pair of wings worked out to be 1 800 pounds i'm going to stop with the conversions because it's tiresome and the guns cost 800 pounds and the propeller came in at 350 pounds which is all a lot more expensive today but before we get to the specs on the spitfire i do want to take a quick moment and thank the sponsor for this video squarespace now a couple of simple things maybe you've got an idea for a website or a business or i don't know a podcast that you want to start something like that well the second thing is the only way to figure out whether anyone is going to like that business like that podcast like that idea you've got is to get it out there to the world and an easy way to do that is with the squarespace website 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and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com forward slash mega projects you'll get 10 off your first purchase of a website or a domain it's good let's get back to it the spitfire was part of a new generation of fighter jets which began appearing in the 1930s the best and most feared of which was the german messerschmitt bf-109 an aircraft that the spitfire would soon lock horns with if the spitfire was a great aircraft the bf-109 was arguably better but it lacked the fuel capacity to be truly effective during combat over britain the bf-109 typically had only 10 minutes worth of combat time over britain before it had to return to home with aircraft design taking a huge leap forward the spitfire needed to be able to keep up its merlin engine provided it with 1470 horsepower slightly less than modern f1 engines by the way which are apparently extremely powerful which at the time was substantial enabling the aircraft to reach top speeds of 600 kilometers an hour 370 miles per hour but the real beauty of the spitfire lay in its complex airframe the skeleton of the aircraft was constructed with 19 formers frames along with four main fuselage longerons running the length of the structure to add further support on top of this was a duralumen skin an early aluminium alloy and the final result was a light yet rigid aircraft that quickly became a favorite to fly the spitfires had a semi-elliptical wing shape with a span of 11.23 meters the original four guns was bulked up to eight as we mentioned before with most using the 303 browning mach ii machine guns but the 20 millimeter hispano mark ii was also used you might think that with eight guns blazing it might be fairly straightforward to just go and bring down an enemy plane i mean eight guns is better than one but a report during the war found that an average of 4 500 rounds were needed to shoot down an enemy aircraft considering a single gun on a spitfire carried only 350 rounds maths was not exactly on their side this was partly why the larger hispanic mark ii rounds were trialled but with decidedly mixed results one major drawback the spitfire faced during its duels with the bf-109 was its lack of fuel injection this meant that while the bf-109 could go into a high-powered dive the spitfire could not the negative g-force essentially flooded the engine's carburetor causing it to stall certain remedies were tested with pilots even learning to do a half-roll before diving but it was a constant thorn in their side but good news it was one that was fixed with a simple piece of metal placed inside the fuel line which restricted the flow to the maximum that the engine could consume this simple disc was designed by beatrice schilling a technical officer working at the raf at the time the small edition was a godsend that came to be known as miss schilling's orifice and it was used until 1943 when a pressure carburetor was introduced to finally fix the problem and as if beatrice shilling wasn't already enough of a trailblazer and legend she was also a motorcycle fanatic became only the second woman to receive the motorsports gold star for lapping the brooklyn circuit in surrey at over 100 miles per hour she even refused to bury her fiance until he had managed to do the same this was a formidable woman and one whose role in the story of the spitfire we should not undervalue just after 11am on the 3rd of september 1939 radio sets across the nation crackled into life with the voice of then prime minister neville chamberlain his words that day have become iconic this morning the british ambassador in berlin handed the german government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from poland a state of war would exist between us i have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with germany and with that britain found itself at war with germany again though the spitfires would reach claim during the battle of britain they did not see much involvement in the early stages of the war with the air ministry choosing to primarily use the slower but sturdier hawker hurricanes in action over france but as the pendulum swung into germany's favor the spitfires quickly found themselves on the front lines of the frenetic battle of britain let me start by saying that there were in fact more hawker hurricanes operated during the battle of britain the fact that the spitfire is so fondly remembered probably has something to do with the higher victory loss ratio in comparison but also the two aircraft's roles were quite different as vast waves of nazi bombers headed for britain the hurricanes were tasked with attacking the bombers while the spitfires were pitted against their fighter escorts often the formidable messerschmitt bf-109 stories of epic dogfights over britain helped to establish the spitfire as britain's best-loved aircraft by a good distance the conflict that ran from july 1940 to october 1940 was the first battle that the world had ever known to be fought exclusively in the sky with an early confidence that boarded on arrogance the germans believed the raf could be swept aside quickly and efficiently not only did the germans have better planes but they also had a lot more of them but the lack of numbers was more than made up for with a technology that made its bow during the conflict radio detection finding also known as radar came to the aid of the british and they were able to more or less pinpoint the location of enemy fighters thanks to their radar stations that had been built along the coasts during the 1930s that must be said that the germans also had such technology but being the aggressors they didn't get to use it until the allies began attacking germany the germans focused much of their early efforts on airfields and other defensive points but quickly discovered that they would not have everything their own way and by the end of the four-month battle they had lost 1 700 aircraft along with 2662 men in total the raf lost 1 250 including 1017 fighters with 520 men losing their lives now the battle of britain has a special place in british history the stories of young british airmen with a pitiful number of flying hours under their belts climbing into the skies to defend the nation has become a legendary tale winston churchill himself famously said never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few in september 1940 the germans made a miscalculation believing the raf and much of the defensive structure to be on its last legs the luftwaffe was ordered to begin striking civilian targets in london while the attacks that began the blitz proved to be devastating for the city it gave britain's defenses some time to recover the blitz continued from september 1940 until may 1941 when hitler finally called off the bombing raids while it can certainly be said that this was in no small part down to the heroic defense it also allowed bombers to be redirected east in preparation for the invasion of the soviet union the spitfires hurricanes and other aircraft had put up a ferocious defense and they'd succeeded but the war wasn't yet won the spitfires in particular would go on to be used around the world sometimes not even by the raf with over a thousand spitfires used by the soviet air force to push the germans out of their homeland even the americans used plenty of these little speedy machines to give you an idea of its global success as many as 31 countries used spitfires either during world war ii or directly after from australia to burma from china to malta spitfires were time and time again called into action their role sometimes changed and they were occasionally used as fast flying photo reconnaissance planes but in the majority of major conflicts they were used in a combat capacity on d-day they patrolled the skies while also attacking airfields deep in german territory while they also took part in one of the last major engagements of world war ii helping to prevent a japanese breakout from burma in august 1945. [Music] the british people are fiercely proud of the nation's defense during the battle of britain and the blitz this can be no more encapsulated by the adoration felt towards the spitfire though only 60 of these treasured aircraft still remain in an airworthy state their legacy is still very much alive in total nearly 22 000 spitfires were built between 1938 and 1948 and while of course they pale in comparison to modern aircraft it's difficult to think of anything that has had the same kind of impact the interesting thing is they weren't necessarily the best aircraft during the war with both the messerschmitt bf-109 and the japanese zero planes having the edge over it at least in certain areas but it goes to show that the best aircraft doesn't necessarily equal victory through a combination of terrific aircraft heroic pilots and valiant ground staff including the speed demon beatrice schilling the spitfire was able to establish itself as the most famous aircraft to take part in world war ii ifs and buts can be a little dangerous but the battle of britain may have played out a bit differently had it not been for the supermarine spitfire [Music] so i really hope you enjoyed that video if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe please do support our fantastic sponsor squarespace who i'm linking to below also if you're liking this t-shirt this is a mega project's merch item which can be found at megamerch.com so please do check that out and as always thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 224,656

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Id: H-vaomx3R48

Length: 17min 29sec (1049 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2020