19. Duxford Airfield, UK

Duxford Airfield – the location of today’s film shoot – is located about an hour and a half north of London, along the M14 to Cambridge. In the Second World War, the squadrons stationed at Duxford protected the skies of the Midlands, East Anglia, and London from the Luftwaffe. Several units operated from Duxford, including Squadron 19, Auxiliary Squadron no. 611 (which flew Spitfires) and Squadron 242 (which flew Hurricanes), as well as foreign units operating under RAF fighter command, such as Squadron 310 (Czechoslovakian pilots) and Squadron 302 (Polish pilots). All would play a vital role in defending Britain, but most particularly during the summer and fall of 1940. Duxford’s contribution to the Battle of Britain is memorialized in the 1969 movie Battle of Britain, with squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes scrambling to intercept German planes. The filmmakers were even granted permission to blow up (for real) a WW1 era hangar building at Duxford for the Eagle Day scene!

Today Duxford is a branch of the Imperial War Museum, with an impressive collection of WW1 and WW2 aircraft, tanks, artillery, and even ships and mini-submarines. Hangar 4 houses the excellent Battle of Britain exhibit, which includes sandbagged emplacements, recovered German aircraft shot down over the UK, and my favorite, a sign that exhorted Britain’s to donate their aluminum cooking pots with the message “out of the frying pan, into the (spit)fire!” Behind the hangar in an inconspicuous low building is a recreation of the 1940s operation room, with a giant table top map of Southeast Britain, around which sat the enlisted women of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, who plotted the positions of British and Enemy fighters. Museum goers can listen to a three minute recorded reenactment of a bombing raid on the airfield, complete with radio chatter, anti-aircraft fire and earth-rattling explosions.

We spent the day filming in Hangar 2, which contains a large collection of flying aircraft, including a Spitfire Mark VB – which we used as a background for our interviews. Our first interview subject was Sebastian Cox, the head of the RAF’s Air Historical Branch in the Ministry of Defense. The Air Historical Branch keeps records, writes original – often classified – histories, and answers historical questions the RAF may have about its own operational history. We talked with Sebastian about the Burma Campaign, the immediate aftermath of the Japanese surrender, and the situation on the ground at Mingaladon Airfield in 1945. He told us about the units stationed at Mingaladon, the supply chain for Operation Zipper, and critically for our project what it means to say that an aircraft has “been struck off charge.” At present I can’t reprint excerpts from the interview – or post video clips from it – since the footage must first be approved by the Ministry of Defense (their condition for granting the interview). Our next interview subject was Jonathan Glancey, an architecture and design critic who in 2007 published a book called Spitfire: The Illustrated Biography. He waxed poetic about the Spitfire as a piece of industrial design, comparing it one point to a beautiful woman with graceful curves. Jonathan clearly loves Spitfires – he even wore Spitfire cuff links! At the end of the day, I had an opportunity to sit in the cockpit of the Spitfire – the highlight of the trip for me.