Good info – thanks Dan. Any chance of a scan of that clipping?

Pasted in the logbook.

The MTO Spits in question were modified Spitfire Vbs that were given 4 blade props and lightened as much as possible to the point they had a single 50 cal in each wing, pointed wing tips, no radios, lightened fuel etc. Three of the Spits modified were BR114, BP985, BR234.

They apparently downed 2 Ju86P and lost one Spit in the process.

My first trip to England was in 1980 while in college. I hitch-hiked to Duxford and saw AR501 up close. The love affair started then and never left. While the Spit XII is my passion, it was a poster of this image that came home with me from the IWM. Framed, it hung on the wall of my room. When my oldest son was born, it ended up hanging over his bed. Now it hangs over the bed of my youngest son. Once the Spit grabs you, it doesn’t ever let go.

In hopes of giving some perspective. On this coming Thursday it will be ten years since two of my kids died in a car crash. The only good thing to come out of it was gaining a different take on the world afterwards.

Quit guessing, it won’t help. Quit panicking that folks will over react. Funny part is some of you are doing that very thing.

Bottom line is we can’t stop living for fear we might die. Sometimes bad things happen.

I know the baby Spit Is are supposed to be the nicest looking, but I have to admit that Seafire III is one beautiful bird.

I’m as picky as they come and I was all ready to rip into Red Tails. Then I realized what I was watching. It was John Wayne in “Flying Tigers”. It’s basically the same story. It was then I got it. It was for a kid to get the interest. I watched all those old black and white movies and never thought twice about how accurate it was. It fed my interest in WW2 aviation. It sent me to books where I actually learned things. But boy was it fun watching those gawd awful P40s shooting down model Japanese planes.

I have a little guy at home who is 6 now. He showed up kind of unexpectedly but he’s my son and I want to share my love of WW2 history with him. It was easier with my oldest son as my oldest was white. All the books I had were white pilots and it was easy. My little guy is black. He loves propellers. When Red Tails was finally available on TV we watched it and I had the remote handy to speed through it for the parts that were not ok for a little guy. I’d done the same thing with “Top Gun” for my oldest way back when. He loved “Top Gug” has he called it. Well my little guy loved those Mustangs in Red Tails and he loved the pilots. My son is also deaf and it was a fairly powerful moment when he pointed to one of the pilots on screen and signed that he and the pilot were ‘the same’.

This is who the movie was made for, not a bunch of old codgers with too much time on their hands to rivet count 🙂

One of me great memories of my childhood happened during a Little League Baseball game. I was playing first base and hear the sound of aircraft engines that sounded much different than the usual Cessnas and Pipers that flew from the local airfield. Looking up during a break in the action I saw a flight of 3 B-17s headed north to fight the fires. Forgot where I was for a moment and went back in time to “12 O’Clock High”. Interesting to note Mary Alice was probably one of them as I’m also from Minnesota.