That's great! My grandmother comes from the other side. She's gonna be 100 in August, and she's still sharp as a knife - remembers being bombed by the British, losing her hearing for weeks to the blast, being pulled out of rubble by German soldiers... It's fascinating hearing her stories of the wartime. She worked in a textile mill that made carpets that got converted into a munitions plant. If the allies had ever found out about it I wouldn't be here today. She lived in Bielefeld, which was a very anti-Nazi part of the country. Of course you couldn't really speak out about it at the time, but she has a story of Hitler's train riding through her town at full speed with all the windows shuttered because they knew stopping there would have been a bad time for them. Then they emigrated to Canada in '56 and here I am. Here's to the years ahead for both of them. :)
God Bless the RAF... thank you for saving all of us from Totalitarianism. The UK stood ALONE and refused to surrender to the Nazi menace. -A Yank in New Hampshire USA
Well we can clearly see that you watched too much propaganda xD. We have to give the credit to the soviets. The Germans got most of their casualties from the eastern front. Without the soviets, the war would of been way longer. Its the soviets that we owe our victory, not the RAF xD
Rare chances to see the people behind this aeroplane, for a change. They were responsible for more than half of the total number of Spitfires built during the war. The BBC used to make excellent programmes.
@soaringtractor Facts and Stats Spitfire could climb faster, roll better, dive further, go higher, better armanent [just] easier to fly low, after the MkXIV go faster and No P51 could fly above 41900f MkXIX 49500ft Combat stats Spitfire over 5000 kills with 100+ Sqns to count P51 3800+
One of the great engineering marvels of all time that came just in time to counter the german juggernaut. If it wasn't for R J Mitchell and his tirerless efforts to get his creation from the drawing board to reality, then the Battle of Britain would have unfolded much differently .Even though the Hawker Hurricane was a wonderful gun platform that was good at taking on the bombers, it was not an effective dog fighter as the Me-109. The RAF needed another fighter to compete with the best the germans had at the time. As Alex Henshaw stated, Mitchell was truly a genius, and it is remarkable to think how one man changed the outcome of that battle,….and the whole war frankly because of his creation. If the Germans had of won the Battle of Britain then who knows how WW2 might have unfolded. Thanks for uploading this wonderful documentary.
The last air fight flown with WWII aircrafts was over the skies of Tegucigalpa in 1969. I was 9 years old, and about 10am, standing in the front yard of my house I saw how 2 teams of 2 F 4U Corsairs shot down 3 P51 Mustangs .... Later that night, during the blackout, I realized I had seen 3 men killed ..... still remember the dark smoke coming out of one the P51 Mustangs when it crashed over the hills .... The white circles in the skies, the red tracer bullet trails ....
disgusting that they should not mention Joseph 'Mutt' Summers who was the first to test fly the Spitfire.They give the impression that Alex Henshaw was the test pilot - he was , but not the first
And not the Best either to that must go Jeffery Quill I have Morgan and Shacklady Spitfire a History and quill is mentioned many more times than Henshaw
Merlin engine mated to North American airframe= P-51 MUSTANG! BF-109 and even FW-190 were OUTMATCHED. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_Mustang
No! The Spitfire was supreme from medium to high altitude and the best pure fighter of the war. The best low-medium fighter was the Tempest V. The P51 was not so good until the Brits came along, strapped the Merlin engine on it and made it a good long range fighter which was the equal of the German Fw190 D and Bf 109 G series. But then, by the time the Mustangs got to grips with Jerry over the Reich in 1944, most of the good Jerry pilots were either dead or unfit to fly due to injury, mainly victims of allied air forces. Not only that, there were far more Mustangs to take on what was left of the Luftwaffe.
US23. The Spitfire Mk IX is unaffected by diving, that was partly solved in the Spitfire Mk I and II in 1940 and fully solved by 1941, also it could use full boost for as long as any fighter. The very reliable Rolls Royce Merlin engine was better than any US engines.
@@moonbasealpha9788 panzerfaust is upset because even the p51 an aircraft built for the British, didn't really work until a rolls Royce motor was fitted. Jealousy is a terrible thing.
a great deal of trivia regarding the women on the assembly line, might be interesting to an industrial engineer or management historian, but extremely boring, and of no interest to World War 2 history buffs
Michael Zimmerman Those women won the war as much as the pilots did! Plenty of WWII history buffs are women, engineers of various types, or just plain intelligent, so STFU.
@@hoatattis7283 don’t forget the Germans ran on 87 octane while the British used American 100 to 150 octane and still couldn’t protect France nor British airspace
The girl second from right at 10:23 is my Grandma. She’s 97 this year and remembers the film being made.
What a coincidence! Amazing to hear! Thank you for sharing this. She must be glad to see this footage again :)
Wow! What a coincidence it is!!
Dam what à legend
That's great!
My grandmother comes from the other side. She's gonna be 100 in August, and she's still sharp as a knife - remembers being bombed by the British, losing her hearing for weeks to the blast, being pulled out of rubble by German soldiers... It's fascinating hearing her stories of the wartime. She worked in a textile mill that made carpets that got converted into a munitions plant. If the allies had ever found out about it I wouldn't be here today.
She lived in Bielefeld, which was a very anti-Nazi part of the country. Of course you couldn't really speak out about it at the time, but she has a story of Hitler's train riding through her town at full speed with all the windows shuttered because they knew stopping there would have been a bad time for them.
Then they emigrated to Canada in '56 and here I am.
Here's to the years ahead for both of them. :)
God Bless the RAF... thank you for saving all of us from Totalitarianism. The UK stood ALONE and refused to surrender to the Nazi menace.
-A Yank in New Hampshire USA
why thank you good sir!
Well we can clearly see that you watched too much propaganda xD. We have to give the credit to the soviets. The Germans got most of their casualties from the eastern front. Without the soviets, the war would of been way longer. Its the soviets that we owe our victory, not the RAF xD
the raf saved us in the summer of 1940 the Soviets made the Nazis fubar
The SOVIET COLLECTIVIST MURDERERS only won with AMERICAN help. We should have let BOTH the Nazis and the Commies slaughter each other into oblivion.
Glad to hear the brilliant Alex Henshaw ....superb pilot, and a very great man. Thanks for posting this.
I'm sure the Spitfire's legendary manoeuvrability owed much to the 'woman's touch'.
Right on my doorstep! I live in Castle Bromwich and I am so proud that its the home of the Spitfire!
Fantastic . Thank you for posting
Excellent post; thank you.
Thank you for uploading this great documentary.
Maureen Lee you're welcome mate! Thanks for the kind comment!
PaperFun
Rare chances to see the people behind this aeroplane, for a change. They were responsible for more than half of the total number of Spitfires built during the war. The BBC used to make excellent programmes.
One of the finest propeller plane ever made. She is a thing of beauty but deadly at the same time.
Did you just say the mustang was better then the spitfire cause you are wrong
@soaringtractor nO IT NEVER DO THE mATHS
@soaringtractor Facts and Stats Spitfire could climb faster, roll better, dive further, go higher, better armanent [just] easier to fly low, after the MkXIV go faster and No P51 could fly above 41900f MkXIX 49500ft
Combat stats Spitfire over 5000 kills with 100+ Sqns to count P51 3800+
@soaringtractor Actually the Spits did escort the P51 until the Mustang used up its rear fuel. You know that it is in that book someone sent you.
soaringtractor did you just said the mustang is better 👏🤣🤣
Sweetest sound you can hear out here...
Dunkirk...
One of the great engineering marvels of all time that came just in time to counter the german juggernaut.
If it wasn't for R J Mitchell and his tirerless efforts to get his creation from the drawing board to reality, then the Battle of Britain would have unfolded much differently .Even though the Hawker Hurricane was a wonderful gun platform that was good at taking on the bombers, it was not an effective dog fighter as the Me-109. The RAF needed another fighter to compete with the best the germans had at the time.
As Alex Henshaw stated, Mitchell was truly a genius, and it is remarkable to think how one man changed the outcome of that battle,….and the whole war frankly because of his creation. If the Germans had of won the Battle of Britain then who knows how WW2 might have unfolded.
Thanks for uploading this wonderful documentary.
Rolls-Royce MERLIN! GO GO GO! Tally-Ho! Angels Six, Angels Six...
We all forget Joe Smith who went on with the Spitfire for the whole War Mitchell was gone in 1938?
Beautiful aircraft
War was fought by the Spitfires, but won by men. Don't forget that.
The men needed aircraft and the Spitfire was the best.fighter
Hurricanes,Moskitos ,etc
The last air fight flown with WWII aircrafts was over the skies of Tegucigalpa in 1969.
I was 9 years old, and about 10am, standing in the front yard of my house I saw how 2 teams of 2 F 4U Corsairs shot down 3 P51 Mustangs ....
Later that night, during the blackout, I realized I had seen 3 men killed ..... still remember the dark smoke coming out of one the P51 Mustangs when it crashed over the hills ....
The white circles in the skies, the red tracer bullet trails ....
The "futbol" war, wasn't it?
American aircraft against each other?? Who was fighting who
Hondurad / El Salvador.
Honduras flew the F4Us
A Honduras pilot, Capt Soto Cano shot down 4 P51s
Gino Tentori fukin ell i need to look into this... i feel naive
Gino Tentori while I’m sure it traumatized you I wish I could have been there myself as a “nerd” as you could say for history.
Thank you Birmingham
You're welcome
best plane ever!!
What year is this Doc?
Oh boy.... Bless the good lady but at 7:54 .... the way she said that. Love them Brits.
In my opinion the bf109 the p51 mustang and the spitfire were really cute aircraft
Where's the "Full" documentary? This isn't the whole thing.
Let's not forget the hurricane shot more bombers ,and there were more hurricanes than Spitfires ,they saved B.O.B
Great doco thank you PS i think the 1 thumbs down might be german
+scoobbbbbydo Couldn't have been an Allie for sure..or a mistake
or a jealous amurican!!
How much she cost anyone know
L'aereo più bello del mondo
disgusting that they should not mention Joseph 'Mutt' Summers who was the first to test fly the Spitfire.They give the impression that Alex Henshaw was the test pilot - he was , but not the first
And not the Best either to that must go Jeffery Quill I have Morgan and Shacklady Spitfire a History and quill is mentioned many more times than Henshaw
If you’ve ever watched The Dambusters film , Mutt Summers is the pilot sat alongside Barnes Wallis when they test the bomb from The Wellington
@@deanleng7403 Thanks good to know.
an Indian in India.
Merlin engine mated to North American airframe= P-51 MUSTANG! BF-109 and even FW-190 were OUTMATCHED.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_Mustang
Typhoon as well, yes? Mustang had the long range and high altitude advantage though, yes? Not as good down low in dogfights like Spits?
Tempest Mosquito Lancaster... All had merlins
No! The Spitfire was supreme from medium to high altitude and the best pure fighter of the war. The best low-medium fighter was the Tempest V. The P51 was not so good until the Brits came along, strapped the Merlin engine on it and made it a good long range fighter which was the equal of the German Fw190 D and Bf 109 G series. But then, by the time the Mustangs got to grips with Jerry over the Reich in 1944, most of the good Jerry pilots were either dead or unfit to fly due to injury, mainly victims of allied air forces. Not only that, there were far more Mustangs to take on what was left of the Luftwaffe.
Absolute twaddle! The MkXIV was better in all but range. Oh! There was only 950-odd MkXIV's made, the rest being other late marks.
And what engine was that then?
If you diving with this plane, fuel starvation happens.
Also if you go with full battle, oil and water goes heat very fast.
US23.
The Spitfire Mk IX is unaffected by diving, that was partly solved in the Spitfire Mk I and II in 1940 and fully solved by 1941, also it could use full boost for as long as any fighter.
The very reliable Rolls Royce Merlin engine was better than any US engines.
Do some reading!
soaringtractor get your facts straight, stop spamming exclamation marks and learn to use English Grammar
@@joenuts4099 He is American they do not know English Grammar
God’s plane!
moeilijk voor iemand die zich waant als een proffeioneel
A BBC documentary on the spitfire?
Oh this is gonna be biased.
Panzer Faust . Bollocks.
To get to RUclips you have to use the WWW, British so it is fair exchange, in fact no WWW and no RUclips.
soaringtractor can you shut up please?
@@moonbasealpha9788 panzerfaust is upset because even the p51 an aircraft built for the British, didn't really work until a rolls Royce motor was fitted. Jealousy is a terrible thing.
Hello Nazifan go back to that despised country Germany
a great deal of trivia regarding the women on the assembly line, might be interesting to an industrial engineer or management historian, but extremely boring, and of no interest to World War 2 history buffs
Of great interest to anyone interested in the war, and not just the fighting.
oh SHUT IT, you TROLL. How DARE YOU disgrace the memory of those dear ladies. You ought to be ashamed.
FAIR DINKUM! (as the Aussies say) Such lovely ladies... no wonder so many of my Yank Grandads fell in love with so many of them.
Michael Zimmerman
Those women won the war as much as the pilots did!
Plenty of WWII history buffs are women, engineers of various types, or just plain intelligent, so STFU.
Me109 a better fighter it’s a fact
gary: No equal to the Spit1 But with subsequent Marks it fell more and more behind and by the MkIX well and truly done
Yeah clearly... the spitfire was well out numbered by the 109 yet the Germans still got battered by the raf
@@stonenpebble your facts are wrong
@@hoatattis7283 spitfire couldn’t compete until the Mark 5 which was again outperformed by fw190. Spit Mark 9 was good but outperformed by me262
@@hoatattis7283 don’t forget the Germans ran on 87 octane while the British used American 100 to 150 octane and still couldn’t protect France nor British airspace