Discovery of an intact Spitfire after 76 years

A long-lost Second World War Spitfire flown by a pilot who was part of the “Great Escape” has been found almost entirely intact on a Norwegian mountain – 76 years after it was shot down by the Germans.

The discovery is the first time for more than 20 years that a substantially complete and previously unknown Spitfire from this period has been found anywhere in the world. Its pilot was captured and ultimately executed by the Nazis for taking part in the war’s most famous prisoner-of-war breakout, immortalised in the classic movie “The Great Escape”.

Of substantial historical importance, the find highlights a normally ignored aspect of the Second World War – the RAF’s ultra-secret aerial wartime espionage missions.

You can read more about this aircraft here.

A television documentary on the discovery and recovery of Spitfire AA810 will be broadcast, as part of the “Digging for Britain” archaeology series, on BBC4 at 9 pm today Wednesday 28 November.


 




XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>