Colour footage of RAF Hornchurch and Spitfires

[Chock 17,769]

Got this wonderful genuine colour film footage recommended on my youtube feed. I would guess it was probably shot on a Bolex since it is pretty good quality. It depicts what would have been mostly either Mark V or Mark IX Spitfires of 64 Squadron although there are also some shots of a Tiger Moth which would probably have been their squadron hack. 

At this point in WW2, 64 Sqn would have been part of the general effort by the RAF to conduct nuisance raids over Northern France, and possibly low level Rhubarb fighter attacks on targets of opportunity, strafing trains, airfields and such. The idea behind these raids was to send relatively small formations of bombers, accompanied by a large amount of fighters. Being bombing raids, albeit small ones, these missions could not be ignored by the Luftwaffe, which would have to send up its fighters to meet them. The intention was that this would force the Germans to keep large numbers of their fighter squadrons in France rather than being able to send them to other theatres, also that there would be the opportunity to destroy these aeroplanes and, grim as the reality is, potentially kill experienced Luftwaffe pilots which the Germans would find difficult to replace. Low level Spitfire raids were not particularly popular with RAF fighter pilots because it put them in range of a lot of triple-A, and like most stationary-engined WW2 fighters, the Spitfire was quite vulnerable to ground fire, where a hit in its coolant system would almost certainly mean either a forced-landing or a bail-out over occupied France.

[FOD 23]

Great film - thanks for putting it on. 

[stans 702]

I find it fascinating to watch color film, not colorized film, of World War II.  Thanks for posting!

[Overload 91]

I think it was colorized, in the posters comments:

"Made using video colourizer and 8 hours of patience"

Eugene

[johnbow72 2,722]

Thanks Alan for posting this film up .

[Christopher Low 5,352]

Most of the Spitfires in that footage have three blade propellors, but I think that the Mk IX was the first version to use a four blade propellor. That being the case, presumably the aircraft in the footage would be Mk V or earlier?

[Fielder 3,663]

"....while Squadron Leader Spaniel roamed around, barking out orders..."

[Chock 17,769]

20 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Most of the Spitfires in that footage have three blade propellors, but I think that the Mk IX was the first version to use a four blade propellor. That being the case, presumably the aircraft in the footage would be Mk V or earlier?

Many Mark IXs were retrofitted/updated earlier Marks, so it's a bit difficult to say for sure, but yup, you are correct, as a general rule it would be fair to say that they'd be Mark Vs if they had a three-blade prop. It's largely down to the type of splines on the prop boss as to what could be fitted, which in turn was usually down to the Marlin variant which was fitted.

There are some other visual clues such as different (smaller) elevator horns on a Mark IX although good luck being able to spot that on the footage. But I do know that there were periods in 1941 where squadrons were flying a mix of types in various stages of upgrade, as evidenced by Johnny Johnson's excellent Wing Leader autobiography, where he recalls radioing Douglas Bader and asking him to ease off on a turn since his aeroplane cannot manage to keep up, with the phrase: 'steady on Douglas, we don't all have metal ailerons!'. In that same book, Johnson also recalls the Biggin Hill wing actually flying their newer cannon-armed Spits to an OTU and swapped them for the earlier variants which had been relegated to training roles, because the cannons were jamming on their newer Spit variants owing to an early issue with the feed mechanisms jamming as the wing flexed under high-G, so they were prepared to fly the older MG-equipped variants to avoid the frustration of getting in a firing position behind an enemy aeroplane only to find their guns would not fire, so we can't always go off the in-service dates of things either.