Day of the Flying Fox by Steve Pitt

Author:Steve Pitt
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781459721043
Publisher: Dundurn

After asking around, Charley found Ted, and the Fox brothers had a satisfying reunion. It had been only 26 months since they had lived under the same roof in Arkell, but it seemed as if a hundred years had passed. Now, thousands of kilometres from home and about to go to war, they realized how much they meant to each other.

It took a very trivial incident, though, to make Charley realize he was finally in the war. When he returned to the RAF station in Bournemouth, he went to eat in the mess and was served a plate of food. After he finished his meal, he was still hungry, so he went back for seconds. “Sorry, sir,” the orderly said. “There’s a war on. There are no seconds.” Even though there was rationing in Canada, there had never been a time when there were no seconds. In Britain, however, people had been living without seconds for more than three years.

While he was waiting in Bournemouth, Charley ran into a few other familiar faces. Andy Howden, Howie Steen, and Sandy Borland were schoolmates of Charley’s who had joined the RCAF after he had. They were all on the verge of being shipped to their squadrons across Britain, but they had time to pose for a quick picture that they called “Four Guys from Guelph.” Of those four, two would be dead within a year.

FASCINATING FACT

Supermarine Spitfire — Trophy Hunter to Hun Hunter

The Spitfire is possibly the most famous fighter airplane of all time. Lovely to look at yet deadly in combat, it arrived on the scene just as Britain stood alone against the mighty German Luftwaffe. The Spitfire is a true Thoroughbred. Its airframe is descended from a series of trophy-winning racing planes, and its supercharged 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce engine evolved from British race cars.

The Spitfire was the creation of Reginald Mitchell, an engineer who designed racing seaplanes for a company called Supermarine. From above the Spitfire’s wings resemble a surfboard — wide in the middle and pointed at each end. The reason for this was that the British needed a wing wide enough to hold eight machine guns and yet remain aerodynamic. This famous elliptical wing gives the Spitfire an unmistakable outline.

The Luftwaffe countered the Spitfire with improved versions of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and new fighters like the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, which sometimes gave the advantage to the Germans. Fortunately, each time the Nazis came up with something new, the British were able to improve the Spitfire so that it matched or exceeded the abilities of its opponents. More than 22,500 Spitfires were produced, and it was the only fighter that entered service at the beginning of Second World War that was still being manufactured several years after. The Spitfire began the war with a maximum airspeed of 540 kilometres per hour and was armed with eight .303 machine guns. It was eventually upgraded so that it could fly at just over 640 kilometres per hour, and later Spitfires were armed with up to four automatic 20 mm cannons.

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