European Aviation History

  No aircraft is more closely identified with the Battle of Britain than the Supermarine Spitfire. No matter that more Hurricanes flew in the Battle or that the Spitfire made major contributions in other campaigns of the Second World War. The Spitfire, with its unique elliptical wings, is quite simply THE symbol of the RAF -- of "the Few" -- in the Battle of Britain.  If the Me109 descended from gliders, the Spitfire's forefathers were racing aircraft designed to win trophies for speed. So, it is perhaps not surprising that the Spitfire was the fastest of the four fighters that figured prominently in the Battle of Britain with a maximum speed of 360 mph -- or (a very marginal) three mph faster than the Me109 and ten mph faster than the Me110. Yet it was not the Spitfire's speed that made it the fighter most feared by the Luftwaffe. It was her sheer mastery of the air. For those focused merely on the technical specifications, this statement is not comprehensib...

 At the start of the Battle of Britain, the German Luftwaffe thought they had the perfect weapon. It had been especially designed as a "destroyer" and its role was to be an offensive fighter. It had range, speed, forward and rearward firing guns, and it had already proved its value in the fight against Poland. It was the Me110: The Me110 had been designed by Messerschmitt to specifications from 1934. It had a speed of 350 mph at 22,000 feet, roughly the same top speed of a Spitfire and marginally faster than the Hurricane. It was armed with two forward-firing cannon and four forward-firing machine guns as well as an additional machine gun that faced backwards and was manned by a dedicated gunner. Serving an aggressive dictator, the Luftwaffe confidently ordered enough of these "Destroyers" (Zerstörer) to outfit a third of their fighter squadrons.  When war came in September 1939, the Luftwaffe's fighter force during the invasion of Poland was composed al...