In the movie "Pearl Harbor", I don't know if you remember this scene, the highly skilled American pilot Leif volunteered to join the British Air Force, participated in the Battle of Great Britain, and became a brilliant ace pilot. The plane he flew was the famous Spitfire.
The protagonist Leif carries luggage and officially joins the British Air Force, and the fighter behind him is the famous Spitfire fighter
In fact, before Pearl Harbor, as many as 244 Americans had flown fighter jets against Germany in the Royal Air Force. Their squadrons of 71st, 121st and 133rd were known to the British as "Eagle Squadrons", and these American pilots were called "Yankee Hawks of the Royal Air Force". In 1940, although the RAF fought heroically, the constant attrition of the war also made the British Air Force almost collapse, and the replenishment of fighter pilots was stretched. But on the other side of the ocean, the United States was still neutral, and the number of American civilian pilots was large, so Churchill commissioned the American Clayton Knight to set up the "Knight Promotion Association" in New York. By the time the United States entered the war, the club had recruited about 6,700 Americans, most of whom had gone to britain after going to the Royal Canadian Air Force (American pilots once accounted for one-tenth of the total strength of the Canadian Air Force).
The Spitfire piloted by Leif shot down an Luftwaffe He111 tactical bomber
At this time, the United States is declaring neutrality, and it is "illegal" for Americans to enter the war. The Knight Promotion Association's clandestine recruitment campaign is closely monitored by the FBI, and the registered participants are at risk of losing their nationality. But because of the American policy of neutrality, direct participation in the war by soldiers abroad, as in the movie "Pearl Harbor", was absolutely forbidden in the U.S. military at that time. So this description in Pearl Harbor is not in line with historical facts. You might say that Chennault formed the Flying Tigers in China to recruit pilots in the U.S. military against the Japanese, but this was formed under the direct authorization of President Roosevelt.
The Flying Tigers P40 fighters, which fought against the Japanese army over China, caused huge losses to the Japanese and added a lot of color to the War of Resistance Against Japan
The recruitment standards set by Knight and others are far lower than the recruitment conditions of the US military, and generally normal people will not want to fight, so the origin of this group of people is probably understood. Most of them are gamblers who can't pay their debts, or criminals who have committed crimes. So the last to appear before the British was a rabble with American characteristics: the youngest of them was less than 16 years old, the oldest was nearly 40 years old, most of them had no military experience, no higher education, and more young men wanted to take risks. But the British found that personal problems were still secondary. Most of these Americans from diverse backgrounds called themselves flyers, but the British later discovered that they had at most flown light civilian aircraft, and it was common to misrepresent the type of aircraft and the number of flight hours.
Photo and crest of the Royal Air Force's Jan Ki-ying, most of them recruited by the poor. Not a member of the U.S. military
The helpless British had to arrange for them to learn from scratch, and by September 1940, the RAF had finally trained enough American pilots. On 19 September, 71st Squadron was formed in Church Fenton, the first RaF fighter squadron of American pilots (commanded by the British temporarily), and the first U.S. overseas volunteer air force in World War II. This is a historical detail that is easy to overlook: Chennault's U.S. Air Force for China was well-known, but its first personnel arrived in China in July 1941. On October 8, 1940, The 71st Squadron began official combat duty, with squadron number XR. On 24 October, the squadron received the first three old Buffalo fighters – the ROYALF was uneasy and wanted to pose with a few old aircraft. Who knew that the Americans were not fuel-efficient lamps, and soon these old-fashioned aircraft were reimbursed in a series of bizarre "landing accidents" - and finally the Citi soldiers got the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters as they wished. The brutal air combat produced a group of ace pilots among this group of people who had never received formal training, and by the time the U.S. military entered the war, they became the most experienced American pilots. On June 18, 1942, the U.S. Army's 8th Air Force Command was established in London. On 29 September 1942, the three "Eagle Squadrons" of the Royal Air Force were officially reorganized into the 4th Fighter Group of the US 8th Air Force. The 4th Fighter Group, which inherited the blood of the "Eagle Team", soon stood out among the American Aviation Corps, and the pilots of the 4th Group produced 37 aces in air combat, destroying a total of 1,016 enemy aircraft (including the first German jet fighters to shoot down), ranking first among air forces in the European theater.
Ace pilot James A. Gooderson personally shot down nearly 30 German planes
In 1936, a new fighter was born in Britain. At the same time, there is also a type of fighter in Germany, which is also developed from racing aircraft, one called "Spitfire" and one code named "Bf109". They are inherently doomed opponents, not only in the arena of racing airplanes, but also in future wars they constantly collide and fight. The British finally laughed to the end, and this fighter became one of Britain's most famous fighters in World War II - one of them was the Spitfire.
The Spitfire three-view, you can intuitively see some of its characteristics, unlike the oval wings of other aircraft
In the early 1930s, the British Ministry of Aviation decided to develop a fighter with a speed of at least 480 kilometers per hour, so Super Marlin, known for producing excellent racing aircraft, began to develop new aircraft according to the Ministry of Aviation. The company's designer, R· J. Michelle engineered a streamlined aircraft with a Merlin Greyback Falcon water-cooled piston engine produced by Rolls-Royce, the prototype F37/34 of the Spitfire. On 5 March 1936, Spitfire took off for the first time at Islar Airport in Southampton.
The early version of the Spitfire, which still uses a twin-propeller fixed-pitch propeller, the tail of the aircraft is still in the style of a racing aircraft
The Success of Spitfire's design was the use of a high-power piston engine and a good aerodynamic profile design, and it was the first British combat aircraft to successfully adopt an all-metal bearing skin. Unfortunately, Mitchell, who was suffering from cancer, died young at the age of 42 before he saw the aircraft in mass production, and the improvement and development of the Spitfire was completed by his assistant Josephine Smith. During Smith's tenure as chief designer, Spitfire completed the leap from prototype development to mass production. However, the name "Spitfire" was extremely disgusted by Mitchell in his lifetime, and he once said: "They will choose this stupid and murderous name!" ”
The Greyback Falcon engine is the most famous engine of World War II, and it is the heart of the Spitfire and Mustang
In order to ensure fatal damage in a standard 3-second point shot, the Spitfire was equipped with 8 machine guns. But its new structure, especially the revolutionary wing structure, caused the Ultra Marlin countless problems when it came to mass production. In contrast, due to the simple structure and easy to manufacture, the production of the Fire-Breathing Rival Hurricane is much higher. This led to the Fact that the main British fighters in the early part of World War II were not Spitfires but Hurricanes.
The Spitfire's elliptical wing design, but this complex structure led to lower production of the Spitfire in the early stages of the war, and the RAF's main force was still the Hurricane fighter
The Spitfire, which had just been equipped with troops, was not favored, and The Super Marlin was forced to make a series of improvements: taller pilots found the Spitfire cockpit's head space too cramped, so the protruding hatch replaced the original flat hatch and became a feature of all subsequent models of the Spitfire. After the problem of the machine gun being frozen at a high altitude was discovered, the heating device was also installed on the plane. Pilots who were accustomed to open cockpits felt that closed cockpits caused claustrophobia, so they always opened their hatches widely. In addition, these pilots were initially unfamiliar with retractable landing gear, and they often forgot to drop the wheels when landing, causing numerous accidents. Although the aircraft is equipped with a fault warning horn, because this horn will automatically sound when the aircraft shakes violently, the pilot always turns it off. But The Spitfire's biggest crisis came from its slow production, so much so that the Ministry of Aviation seriously considered canceling the model.
Spitfire used a large number of new structures, and its lack of interoperability with the hurricane's parts was limited by the capacity problems of the wings and high-power engines
With the advent of the war, all complaints stopped, and the British Air Force only urged Super Marin to do one thing and more delivery! On May 10, 1940, a squadron equipped with Spitfire was approved to participate in combat patrols over the Strait. On 23 May, the Spitfire encountered the enemies Bf109 and Bf110 for the first time— as a result, messerschmitt of both models lost two, while the 92nd Squadron lost three Spitfires. After the Battle of Britain began, the Spitfire MkI and Messerschmitt Bf 109E began a head-on duel.
From July 10 to October 30, 1940, the famous Battle of Britain broke out in history. For Britain, it was a life-and-death battle with the Germans for air supremacy, and the British all over the country invested all their strength in fighting fascism to the death, and fighter jets such as the Spitfire and Hurricane played the protagonist of the air battle. The British air defense system was most effective, and the ability to have advanced aircraft thwarted the Luftwaffe's attack.
On August 15, 1940, in the Battle of Britain, the British sent 974 fighters to engage 2,000 enemy aircraft, resulting in a small victory and a loss rate of up to 20%. In the 12 days from August 24, the Germans launched the so-called thousand-plane bombing in succession, but they still did not take advantage, and more than 380 aircraft were shot down by the Royal Air Force. After entering September, the focus shifted to the air defense operations in the capital London, where a large number of German He111 and Ju87 aircraft were shot down outside the defensive zone during nearly 50 days and nights of hard fighting, of which the Spitfire played an important role.
Spitfire shoots down an incoming German bomber
The performance of the two was very similar, but because the Bf 109 had to take on escort duties and was ordered not to leave the bombers, and the British had advantages such as radar and ground observation stations, the winner of the duel was Spitfire I – although the British also paid the price of 352 Spitfires. Shortly after the victory in the Battle of Britain, the Bf 109F fighter appeared, but the Spitfire's next major model, the MkV, also began to equip troops
Britain and France declared war on Germany, and the battle between Spitfire and Bf 109 began
The Spitfire MkV was the most prolific of all the Spitfires, a fighter armed with a 1,230-horsepower Merlin 45 or Merlin 46 engine on par with the Bf 109F, but as Germany began to invade the Soviet Union, the German threat of a renewed air offensive against Britain dissipated, and the development of the Spitfire temporarily stopped on the MkV.
On 12 February 1942, the German warships Scharnhorst, Gernessenau and Prinz Eugen departed from the French port of Brest across the English Channel to Wilhelmshaven in northern Germany. During the interception operation, the RAF encountered a large number of Fw190s for the first time. The Fw190 suffered a great loss for the British with its excellent performance, and the Spitfire MkV simply could not match it. By May, the Bf109G, which had enhanced its high-altitude performance, also appeared. At this time, the Spitfire MkVI also began to enter service, and these Spitfires were equipped with pressurized cockpits and increased high-altitude power. To accommodate the supercharger's intake cooling, two radiators were symmetrically mounted under the wings. This improvisational MkIX was a great success as the MkV, and it later became the second most productive model in the Spitfire series.
FW190 escorted the German ships across the English Channel back to The Port of Kiel, and the British Air Force could do nothing about them
The Spitfire met Waterloo, which lagged far behind the FW190, and the RAF called for an urgent development of a new model to counter the new German aircraft
On July 17, 1944, the new Spitfire MkIXB of Squadron 602 strafed a moving German military vehicle. The military vehicle, which was riding on German Field Marshal Ervin Rommel, overturned into a trench on the side of the road, and the marshal himself suffered serious head injuries. It was during the Battle of Normandy, and Rommel's wounding was a major blow to the Germans. It is also said that Rommel was involved in the assassination of Hitler, but was injured and could not catch up with the assassination plan, and if Rommel could have participated in the assassination plan, it might have been more successful. The famous field marshal did not escape Hitler's reckoning. He finally committed suicide by taking poison.
Field Marshal Rommel was in charge of the defense of the German Atlantic Line, commanding Army Group B
As the Germans were gradually defeated on the battlefield, the Spitfire's mission as an air superiority fighter came to an end, and they were used more for ground attacks. With the end of the war, the legend of the spitfire came to an end. To prevent the aviation industry from shutting down completely, spitfire production continued until 1948. The combined production of spitfires and its carrier-based sea spitfires is more than 20,000 aircraft. To this day, there are a handful of Spitfires that are collected by private and RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flying Units that can fly. Whenever the roar of the "Merlin" engine comes back to the ear, people will always remember the amazing work of Reginald Mitchell spitting fire.
There was also a batch of Spitfires that were aided to the Soviets, but the Soviets were not interested in such aircraft
After the war, a small number of Spitfires continued to be active on the battlefield, and in the Middle East battlefield, Spitfire was still engaged in unfinished battles with his old enemy Bf109.