Story of Spitfire PA944

[Nick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3SrjLlcUY&sns=em

In 1944 John Blyth of the USAAC crash landed his Spitfire at RAF Mount Farm after a photo-recon flight over Berlin. It was filmed by fellow pilot John Savage.
In 2005 Savages' grandchildren restored the footage and showed it to Blyth for the first time. His reaction is wonderful.

[Father Ennis]

Incredible !!!   Damn you now I got to make one !!!  I got an Airfix MK IX and most of the markings already,too. I just need to add some PRU blue to my next paint order.  Anybody know if the ID numbers were yellow like most all the U.S.aircraft or some other color ?

[rickshaw]

That was a damned good little documentary.  I wonder how much footage is still in private hands?  I know when I was in the Australian Army I was surprised at how much footage the Army held from WWII and afterwards which was never seen by the public in it's training film library.  I once did a projectionist course and it consisted basically of five days of watching training films.  We had to show them to each other to get practice in using the projectors and we could basically use any film in the local library and we had a master catalogue as well.   I'd love to get a hold of some of those films.

[Father Ennis]

Well,got my paints and resin stuff ordered now should be here by Friday !!!!!! 

[PR19_Kit]

Incredible !!!   Damn you now I got to make one !!!  I got an Airfix MK IX and most of the markings already,too. I just need to add some PRU blue to my next paint order.  Anybody know if the ID numbers were yellow like most all the U.S.aircraft or some other color ?

Yes, they were a sort of pale yellow.

There's a good Frieghtdog PRXI conversion kit for a Mk IX, with the deeper oil tank, one piece windshield, 'bowser wing' fuel pump fairings etc. Alternatively one of the Czech firms does a full injected kit of the PRXI instead. You can build a PRXI with or without a retractable tail wheel and both can be correct with the right serial number.

[Father Ennis]

Thanks,missed that last time I looked at his stuff.  I found another plane from the same group whose codes are white with a yellow spinner. I'm with you on pale yellow for PR944 from the brief time its there in color. I checked with the Wookstar and am now rethinking my."simple" conversion ,at least until I decide how I want to do this build and get some.more kits.



P.S.      I know you guys will get a laugh from this. I thought I had everything I needed but then realised I don't have an American fighter kit in my.collection to rod the stars and bars from ... !!!!! I got to get some ...

[NARSES2]

I wonder how much footage is still in private hands? 

I think that as that generation pass on their relatives are finding more and more photos and film in attics and trunks that haven't seen the light of day since they were shot. All of this will add to our knowledge, some of it may well change the way we think about WWII. Unfortunately we are losing the first hand memories. However all those of my relatives who served seem to have had memories which revolved around beer and women (the female ones seem to be beer and GI's !). Now a lot of this is simply the brain putting bad memories to the back of it's mind, whilst some of it is down to none of them rising any higher then sergeant and thus their war was very local, dangerous but local.