Fuji, not quite.
Pilot’s Notes for several Spitfire mark numbers (certainly Mk II and Mk VI, and some editions of Mk IX) mention the use of the crowbar for removing the canopy if it jams during jettisonning. Several Pilot’s Notes (some editions of Mk IX, and some Griffon variants) also mention using the crowbar in the situation you mentioned. I don’t recall any of the Pilot’s Notes actually saying that the crowbar is specifically for this or that. It is just mentioned in relevant parts of the notes as a possible tool (referring to the use you mentioned it is invariably said that the pipe has to be broken “by hand or using the crowbar”, or something to that tune). Some Pilot’s Notes simply list the crowbar as one of the “emergency systems” without any reference to its actual use.
Coming back to the original question, it is noteworthy that vast majority of wartime Spitfire photos that I have seen, where the inside of the door is shown, show the crowbar in place. And vast majority of post-war photos (starting in the spring/summer 1945) show that the crowbar isn’t there. This would indicate that either a certain modification introduced at the time made it redundant, or (:)) that it was considered primarily as the pilot’s side arm, no longer required when the war was over.

The use at Kenley – was it on 18 August? I recall reading about the system in one of Alfred Price’s books, “The Hardest Day” I think.

JK664 is my best shot, but I am not 100%

Mark, yes it looks like JK-something to me, but all JK-serialled Spitfires delivered to Turkey were Mk VCs (this is clearly a Mk VB) delivered later (Turkish numbers in 57-range). A puzzle…

I can’t enlarge the thumbnails, like JDK

On my computer it is the difference between Netscape and Explorer. The site seems to have been created with only the MS product in mind.

Voytech, Daz meant Duxfordhawk edited his post, not yours. I got the same message as you did, but in the meantime he must have changed what he wrote.

Yes, but there was one reply from myself which seems to be missing, and I am confused if: 1) I have somehow removed it without knowing that I did that; 2) someone else removed it. It wasn’t anything important, but I would rather learn what happened before the same thing occurs with a more important post.

As for “windmill-type flying creatures do not deserve to be discussed on this noble forum” – err, I think Pumas and Hinds are fairly historical, aren’t they? They are certainly not modern, and nor is the film.

I remember the times before Mi-24 helicopters came to this earth, so they don’t seem that historical to me. The last time I photographed them was about eight months ago, and that was at an operational base rather than a musem. Having said that, I don’t have anything against this thread being here and not on the “Modern Military Aviation” nearby, although the reason I looked at this thread at all was that Hind only linked with the Hawker bi-plane for me.

Can someone tell me if it is my computer or something in this forum? I have received this notificaiton on my e-mail:
Hello VoyTech,

duxfordhawk has just replied to a thread you have subscribed to entitled – “Red Dawn” Hinds – in the Historic Aviation forum of Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forums.

Here is the message that has just been posted:
***************
I am thinking Puma too here’s is one
***************
but I can’t see this line anywhere in the thread. Not to mention that one of my posts is not shown here, either.

Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that these windmill-type flying creatures do not deserve to be discussed on this noble forum?

I have recently been working on a listing of all fatal losses of the Polish Air Force in WW2. Although much smaller than the USAAF, it neverthless provides some comparison as to the proportions. I don’t have my data at hand, but I would say that combat and non-combat losses were of the same order. So if one source quotes the number of men killed while flying from UK this might include both combat casualties and accidents. And when the other source quotes combat losses this probably includes both those killed, taken PoW, and posted missing.

For another project I have recently done a statistic breakdown of Polish Spitfire losses which provides some comparison of proportions (although of course it is hard to compare actual figures between bombers and fighters):
I have identifired a total of some 850 cases of aircraft destroyed or damaged in combat (of which 300 a/c were destroyed or lost compeltely), and the pilot’s fates were as follows:
135 killed
76 wounded (of whom about half were in aircraft considered destroyed)
61 PoW
14 rescued from the sea
26 missing, but evaded capture and returned