SUPERMARINE SPITFIRE: Spitfire 944 - US Spitfire Pilot Lt Col John S. Blyth DFC recounts exploits

Video from the channel SOUTHAMPTON ON D-DAY about Supermarine Spitfire, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 9:51. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Interview with Lieutenant Colonel John S. Blyth, an American photo-reconnaissance pilot who flew the Supermarine Spitfire in World War II. Relatives of Jim Savage, who was his unit's flight surgeon, show him photographs and film shot by Savage during the war.

Blyth recounts that his unit traded the F-5 for the Spitfire, which had equal or greater range and better roll rate and climb. His Mark XI was a Mark IX conversion: the armament had been removed and leading-edge fuel tanks and two 36-inch focal-length cameras behind the pilot had been added. It was painted in PRU blue to blend in with the sky. Blyth flew unarmed and alone, made three or four passes over each target, and recalls the anti-aircraft fire along the Ruhr.

On his mission to Berlin he climbed to about 30,000 feet to photograph eight targets. He spent nearly half an hour over the city because he doubted one of the cameras was working, but the other was enough to cover them all, and the mission earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross. He also recounts the accident involving Spitfire PA944: the cable of his headset triggered the CO2 bottle of the landing gear's emergency system and left it locked up. After nearly an hour trying to get it down, and already low on fuel, he landed on the grass with the gear retracted, and Savage filmed the scene. The piece shows that footage and a fragment of the propeller that Blyth still keeps.