Description

In the forefront of battle throughout the last year of WWII in north-west Europe, Spitfire ML 407 served with six squadrons of 2nd Tactical Air Force, which dominated the skies above British 2nd Army from Normandy, through Belgium, Holland and into Germany. Her Pilot on D-Day credits her with the first enemy aircraft shot down over the Second Front, which would make her final score 3¼ destroyed and one damaged.

“2nd TAF SPITFIRE”, in following the progress of this particular Spitfire, reveals the hard, dangerous and unglamorous work of pilots and airmen whose largely unsung efforts made final victory possible in 1945. A wealth of detail culled from contemporary official records is seasoned with the personal recollections of pilots and ground-crew who flew and maintained ML 407 during this period.

A twist of fate saved ML 407 from destruction by the Luftwaffe on New Year’s Day, 1945 and another, five years later, preserved her from the scrap yard. In 1950 she was selected by Vickers for conversion into a two-seat trainer and subsequently went on to her second “life”, with the Irish Air Corps, as Spitfire 162. 17 years later she was again “de-mobbed” and languished in store for a decade until the hard work and determination of Nick Grace ensured her third active incarnation as G-LFIX.

More than 40 years after her first test-flight, ML 407 was destined to once more in the colours she carried in 1944 and to meet again some of the pilots and airmen who knew her then.

This second edition of “2nd TAF SPITFIRE” contains new information and many more photographs, which have come to light as a result of the success of the first edition and as more personalities from ML 407’s past learned of her survival. It also covers the aeroplane’s latter-day status as the first Spitfire to be both owned and flown by a woman, namely Carolyn Grace, who took over when Nick died in 1988.