Spitfire plate found

Thanks Mark for the suggestions, not a lot information from witnesses are survived unfortunately.

No register has surfaced during 50 years of research.

The key to finding the ID of the Spitfire is to know the precise location and then through local knowledge the date or as near to it as can be estimated…then scour the operational records books for Spitfire Squadrons operating in the theatre to identify likely candidates. Then work on the possibles until only one remains.

It can and has been done.

Mark

The key bit there is Mark 12’s response-
“Alas no link to an RAF serial from this data alone.” There might be register that could contribute somewhere but he does not appear to know of one. And if he doesn’t an answer is unlikely to be forthcoming.

Thanks for all you that make comments, what I like to know is the serial number of the spitfire from the serial number CBAF 19710 reported in the plate found. Do we have some registers of the spitfire to find thes information?

Steve 611 asks a question about Castle Bromwich records. A much missed member of the Spitfire Society in the ‘old days’ was Philip Insley. Philip was Chairman of the Eastern Region of the society and was a professional archivist and historian for one of the East Anglian councils if I remember correctly. HIS father was, I believe, the Manager of the Castle Bromwich main stores and saved a large amount of old stores and personnel records plus photographs of the production areas. Phillip inherited the collection and was always able to check information for me when I was editing the society’s journal.

Philip died suddenly possibly around 2002 – 2005. Although ‘we’ made strenuous efforts to find the archive through Eastern Region members we never did find out where it went although a family member apparently said that they had given it away! Maybe someone on this Forum can help further although in common with my friend Steve 611 I too am not connected with the society.

Might be talking out of my backside here but there might be something held in the Vickers records Library, believe its held at one of the Universities, but not sure which one or could be at Brooklands .

To Mark’s thought about inspector 145. We have lost so much about the small print having never collected it when the people were there. In my time in the Spitfire Society I suggested the creation of a “gin and tape recorder” fund. The basic idea was that the guys who had been there rarely talked- if you have been there you understand so we don’t have to and if you haven’t you won’t understand, so there I was when my engine failed at 20 000 feet……… On the other hand, if you got someone who HAD been there and he (in those days it was he) had a tape recorder and a bottle or two of something, then maybe you could get something extra on the record- everyone who was involved had a story to tell and sometimes the smallest detail can solve a story. It came to nothing, I regret. Are there really no records that offer who “inspector 145” was?

I have one like this but it’s aluminium

Vickers Armstrong Castle Bromwich inspector…number 145. Jim Bloggs.

Mark

Is the inspection stamp January 1945?

Moggy

Yes a port wing modification state plate for a Mk IX Spitfire built at the Castle Bromwich Aeroplane Factory.

The number and inspection stamp on the back of the plate is I believe the part number of the actual plate.

Alas no link to an RAF serial from this data alone.

Mark

Again; limited knowledge but the VACB stamp confirms Vickers Armstrong Castle Bromwich.

TYPE IX PORT could mean a port wing from a Mk.IX Spitfire?

That’s my stab at it. Let the experts tell us what it really means 🙂

Anon.

The initial piece of information I can offer is that this plate came from a component manufactured at the Vickers shadow factory at Castle Bromwich (Hence CBAF)

And that’s as far as my limited knowledge goes.

Moggy