Devon Air Day

Dunkeswell airfield was planned and built in 1937/8 in response to the growing threat of the German Luftwaffe. Perhaps meant to be a fighter station to defend against bombers on route to Bristol and South Wales, this fell to Culmhead and so Dunkeswell came under Coastal Command, for whom its long runways and convenient location was ideal. The U-boat threat of 1941/2 wrought havoc on allied convoys from their bases in occupied north-west France. So it was in 1942 the Air Ministry sought help from their US allies requesting them to provide Consolidated Liberators with the new microwave radar, but it was not until July 1943 that they arrived at Dunkeswell in the shape of the 4th and 19th Squadrons of 479 Bomb Group USAAF. RAF Coastal Command guided operations and RAF personnel carried out the station's ground duties. Things did not start well and in the first few weeks three aircraft were lost along with most of their ten man crews, a fourth was lost on patrol in September.

In 1944 the RAF personnel departed from Dunkeswell which became the only US Navy base in Britain. It had three squadrons of B-24's, 18 in the air day in day out. Crews might get alternate days off if they were lucky, despite a chronic shortage of crews with exhausting 10-12 hour missions. During the run up to D-Day Dunkeswell as all its neighbours was stretched to its limits, with anti-submarine and surface shipping patrols more intensive than ever. During this period, as well as its B-24s, other types of aircraft at Dunkeswell included a detachment of Consolidated PBY-5As (called by the RAF and subsequently the US forces, the Catalina), a pair of Vultee Vengeance dive-bombers and one or more NA-3N trainers. Unusual visitors included six Supermarine Seafire fighters in RAF markings but fitted with American VHF radios.

With the fall of France and the liberation of Europe the U-boat menace declined but FAW7 continued with regular patrols until being rewarded by the surrender of a U-boat off the Scillies on May 9th, two days after the war's end. The airfield run-down began shortly after this with many of the gallant B-24s meeting the ignominious and ill-deserved fate of being scrapped on their own airfield. On August 6th 1945 Dunkeswell was handed back to the RAF as an unwanted expanse of well maintained grass and concrete, but fortunately the story didn't end there.

With the post war run-down of the armed forces, gradually the airfield returned to civilian use and became a centre for a gliding school, many of the buildings were used by commercial and industrial companies and agriculture took back large areas of the grassland. The airfield is still thriving, minus the gliders now based at North Hill, but it has a flourishing parachute school, flying training school and microlight sales and training, while the Clubhouse and Memorial Museum are popular venues for aviators and public visitors alike. Over sixty years on the Devon Air Day provides a unique opportunity to pay homage to the veterans still with us and to pay tribute to those who can no longer return to these 'broad sunlit uplands'.

The Supermarine Spitfire

The pale blue prototype Spitfire flew from Eastleigh on March 5th 1936, its maximum speed was 342 mph which immediately classed it as the fastest fighter aircraft in the world. Squadron service began when the first 1,030 hp Merlin-engined Mk.1s joined Nos 19 and 66 Squadrons in 1938. The Spitfire continued in production until 1947, by which time over 20,000 had been built in 24 different marks - the last RAF sorties being made by a PR aircraft in Malaya in 1954. The history of the Spitfire development is inextricably linked with that of the Rolls Royce Merlin and, later, with the Rolls Royce Griffon. It is a story of constant modification and improvement, sometimes to meet and sometimes to pose the new challenges of the air war.

The response to the arrival of the Focke Wulf 190 in 1941 is typical. Up to that point the Spitfire 5Bs of Fighter Command had just enough edge over their Me/Bf 109E adversaries, yet suddenly, here was this new aeroplane 20 to 30 mph faster at all altitudes, quicker in the climb and in the dive and generally more manoeuvrable. War is no respecter of reputations and the Spitfire had met its match. It took nine long and expensive months to even the balance with the introduction of the Spitfire Mk.9 with its improved Merlin 61 engine. Rolls Royce engineers had improved the best and made it better finding an extra 40% more power at critical high altitudes.

In 1944 with their 2,050 hp Griffon engine giving nearly twice the power of the original Merlin, Spitfire 14s accounted for over 300 flying bombs. They were also the first RAF aircraft to shoot down the jet-engined Me.262. By the time the last models left the production line the 'Spit' was nearly two tons heavier, 100 mph faster and operated 10,000 feet higher; it had served world-wide and had gone on to fly alongside the second genaeration jets like the Hunter and the Swift.

The North American Mustang must surely rate as one of the world's all-time greatest planes. The design was undertaken in the summer of 1940 in response to a request from the British Purchasing Commission and in just 117 days designer 'Dutch' Kundleberg got his prototype into the air using a set of Harvard wheels! The P-51 took full advantage of the lessons learned from the first generation of multi-gun high-performance monoplane fighjters. Even the Mustang 1 possessed an exceptionally fine airframe design, enabling it to pack as much as four times the internal fuel load, plus a hefty armament of 4 x .50 and 4 x .30 machine guns.

The RAF took delivery of 620 Mustang 1s powered with their original 1,050 hp Allison engines. Its low-altitude performance was more than adequate with a top speed of 340 mph ahead of the current Spitfires and Hurricanes. But the low-blown engines weakened its high-altitude capability and most of this initial batch were soon destined for photographic and Army Co-operation duties. The great leap forward came in 1942 when, in simultaneous development by Rolls Royce and North American, the high-blown Merlin engine produced an altogether different aeroplane. Speeds increased and the overall performance was improved; and when fitted with drop tanks the Allies were at last able to provide an effective fighter escort to the Eighth Air Force bombers on their long daylight raids into Germany. By 1944 the P-51D became one of the most formidable weapons in the Allied arsenal. In the European theatre alone 9,000 German aircraft were destroyed for the loss of only 2,500 of approx 5,000 Mustangs built. A handful of which were still in service in the 1960s.