Where can I find details of a donated Spitfire?

Found it!!

Well, I think this is it, anyway…

http://www.spitfiresociety.demon.co.uk/present.htm

I had a link with a load of presentation Spitfires on it – and I can’t find it in my favourites now! :rolleyes:

I’ll see if it turns up in Google….

The other thing is that Sir Howard Ellis’s money may have paid for one of 485 Sqn’s Spitfires, not Waikato. Bill did fly a number of their Spits, and it was likely reported/rumoured etc round town through letters or such that he flew the Cambridge-donated Spit, but it may not have been his regular mount.

I have him down as flying these MkVB’s

P8022 OU-F

AB870 OU-Z

AB784 OU-N

W3406 OU-H

W3645 OU-S ‘Waikato’

W3652 OU-V

AA732 OU-H/ OU-X ‘Western Samoa’

AB799 OU-B

AD114 OU-G ‘Auckland II/ Auckland V”

BM229 OU-A

One note is AA732 OU-H/ OU-X ‘Western Samoa’ was also a fairly regular mount, and I wonder if this was while ‘Waikato’ was in repair because the latter was very damaged at one point and was repaired over a period of time.

Does anyone know why AA732 OU-H/ OU-X ‘Western Samoa’ and a few other aircraft in the Squadron would have had their code letters changed at some point? Would it be purely administrative, perhaps transferring from A Flight to B Flight or such? Seems a little odd.

Dave,

As a followup, the entry for W3645 in ‘Spitfire – The History’ reads:

W3645 1907 Joseph Smooha FF 31-7-41 6MU 3-8 485S 15-8 CB Ops 18-12 ASTH 121S 30-4-42 FTR Ops 31-5.

So it was with 485 Sqn for a while.

BR

Laurie.

I do not know the answer to this but I know a man who does.

I will run this by him.

Mark

Dave,

There is a footnote with the list of Presentaion aircraft in ‘Spitfire – The Story of a Famous Fighter’. This states that presentation details were sometimes transferred between aircraft ie; on change of squadron.

Could that be a possibility here?

Maybe the resident Spitfire expert, Mark12, can help out here.

BR,

Laurie.

Thanks Laurie, that’s odd because I got that serial from “Spitfire – The New Zealand Story’ by Gerald S. Morris, which is a very well researched tome. It has several combat reports in it written by Bill, and each one lists that serial. There are several photos of Bill in the Spitfire called Waikato. I don’t know if any show the serial though. I’ll have to look into this.

I do not think any of the Spits MkVB in 485 Sqn were donated by non-New Zealanders. I believe all the subscriptions came from Kiwis for the squadron, which is why they at home had such an attachment to the unit when it formed as opposed to other NZ Sqns in the RAF.

I knew that Bill flew Kk VB Spitfire W3645, OU-S ‘WAIKATO” as his personal mount for some time. This name is the district we live in, it’s a county. So I’d assumed it was paid for by money raised in the Waikato district. But, now it seems it was donated by Howard Ellis. How do I confirm who donated that particular Spitfire? Is there any record of who donated what?

Dave,

According to ‘Spitfire, The History’, and ‘Spitfire, The Story of a Famous Fighter’, W3645 was donated by Joseph Snooka of Johannesburg, South Africa and carried his name.

The latter publication has a list of presentation Spits but I can’t find Waikato in it. However, this list is not definitive.

There is a book on Presentation Spits but I don’t have the details. Perhaps someone else can help on that

Br

Laurie