Thursday, September 24, 2009

SUNKEN SPITFIRE


During WWII a British pilot was patroling the Fiji area in his Spitfire fighter aircraft. As the Japanese were no where near Fiji and it appeared that they had no interest in ever coming here the pilot became bored and decided to do a little "barnstorming". For those of you unfamiliar with the term, barnstorming means flying low, fast and reckless. It is an expression from the late 1920's and early 1930's when pilots would put on air shows and entertain the hicks (audience of mostly farmers and ranchers) with flying feats of daring do. Usually they would swoop down, close to the ground, or barn as the case might be, and roar past the crowd at incredibly low altitudes.

Well, our Spitfire pilot was incredibly lucky AND incredibly unlucky. He was lucky because although he misjudged the altitude of a nearby coconut tree, clipped it with his wing, lost control of his aircraft and crashed into a nearby lagoon he survived and was able to walk (that is swim) away from the plane.

He was incredibly UNlucky because he survived and had to explain to his commanding officer how he had come to destroy one of His Majesty's warplanes. That would've been an interesting meeting to listen in on.

Nevertheless, here is a picture of what remains of the Spitfire. Most of it is gone, but the tail-rudder and stabilizer are somewhat distinguishable.

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