PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING - Spitfire

[Air Ministry .]

[Dan McEntee]

   The movie with David Niven is a great movie, with lots of actual footage and even the model work used in the filming is pretty good for the time period. Once I get done with some out doors chores and get forced back inside by the oncoming rain, that may come off the shelf and into the DVD player tonight!
   Everyone have a safe Memorial Day Weekend!
     Type at you later,
      Dan McEntee

[John Park]

IF, the man in the first video was supposed to be Reggie Mitchell, he hated the name Spitfire and thought it damned silly....

Ever hear what Mitchell said to Jeffrey Quill when he was test-flying K5054, the Spitfire prototype? "Quill, if anybody ever tells you anything about aerodynamics that's so damned complicated you can't understand it, you can take it from me it's all b***s!"

[Dan McEntee]

IF, the man in the first video was supposed to be Reggie Mitchell, he hated the name Spitfire and thought it damned silly....

     Leslie Howard played R.J. Mitchell in the movie. He was killed during the war and it was believed that he was working for the British Secret Service at the time. David Niven was in the military at the time also and had to get special permission to be released long enough to make the movie. The British movie industry is probably no different than any other and takes "creative license" with any project. Still an entertaining movie.
 
     Have Safe Memorial Day Holiday!
    Dan McEntee

[John Park]

     Leslie Howard played R.J. Mitchell in the movie. He was killed during the war and it was believed that he was working for the British Secret Service at the time.

It's believed in some quarters that the DC3 in which Howard was flying from Lisbon to England was shot down by the Luftwaffe because a German spy at Portela airport mistook another passenger, a portly, cigar-smoking gentleman called Alfred Chenhalls, for Winston Churchill.  May be true, may just be another of those wartime stories... 
(By the way, David Niven's character in the film seems to have been a composite of at least three real pilots: Henri Biard, John 'Mutt' Summers and Jeffrey Quill.  Why pay three actors when you can make do with one?)

[john e. holliday]

The Spitfire to me was one beautiful air craft.  But really I liked them all.  Used to sit in front of Grandma's TV and watch the programs of the war.  My brothers were not old enough to serve and I didn't come into this world until after Pearl Harbor.  The on e plane that intrigged me was the P-47 as it looked it was going to drag it belly on take off and landing.  I also loved watching the movies with the likes of David Nivein, John Wayne and other movie stars.  Thanks for the videos.

[billbyles]

     Leslie Howard played R.J. Mitchell in the movie. He was killed during the war and it was believed that he was working for the British Secret Service at the time. David Niven was in the military at the time also and had to get special permission to be released long enough to make the movie. The British movie industry is probably no different than any other and takes "creative license" with any project. Still an entertaining movie.
 
     Have Safe Memorial Day Holiday!
    Dan McEntee

Hi Dan, Reginald Mitchell died of cancer before the war and never got to see how successful his Supermarine Spitfire became.

[billbyles]

   The movie with David Niven is a great movie, with lots of actual footage and even the model work used in the filming is pretty good for the time period. Once I get done with some out doors chores and get forced back inside by the oncoming rain, that may come off the shelf and into the DVD player tonight!
   Everyone have a safe Memorial Day Weekend!
     Type at you later,
      Dan McEntee

Hi Dan, I have that movie and drag it out every now and then.  It is a great movie with all the real (non-cgi) airplanes flying.

[Randy Powell]

I watched Pearl Harbor. Again.