How It Could Have Been
The stomping of jackboots resound coldly on the streets outside. Hover-jets screech overhead in search of those who refuse to comply. In the distance a voice belts forth from a loudspeaker, telling you what you may and may not do. Your eyes dart back and forth sheepishly, suspicious of every person you see. You feel you can never know whom you trust, and you quiver in fear while knowing that whatever action you take next may bring an end to your pitifully insignificant life…
This hopeless scenario may have been a reality for you and me today — if it wasn’t for a certain unusual lady who decided to act generously several decades ago…
The Battle of Britain
In catching up on my history reading lately, I ran across Edward Bishop’s Their Finest Hour: The Story of the Battle of Britain 1940. Published in 1968, the book is a retelling of the Battle of Britain from a perspective rarely seen today. Bishop’s book provides some detail on the development of Britain’s Royal Air Force (RAF), the men who led it, and the aircraft they flew to defend England from an impending Nazi invasion.
In reading this tome, I ran across the curious story about the development of the Supermarine Spitfire. The Spitfire was a small, agile fighter plane, and it was the very backbone of British air fighter defense. Let’s put it this way: If it wasn’t for the Spitfire fighter plane, some historians think the Battle of Britain would have been lost. England would have fallen, and upon being occupied by an invading Nazi army, the British Isles would have become a stepping stone for a forthcoming invasion of America. That’s how bad it could have gotten.
To the rescue came the Spitfire. But what’s more interesting is how the Spitfire came into being…
A Growing Threat
In the years following World War I, England and her allies had grown complacent in watching Germany’s activities after its defeat. While special terms of the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from establishing its own air force, there was no restriction of the formation of “civilian” air leagues. In just a few years after the war, influential German families and business magnates gathered to share their interest of winged flight in the rarefied air of Wasserkuppe, one of several lush resort regions in Germany’s Rhön Mountains.
Originally, the expansive windy plateaus in the mountains served as a backdrop for rich families seeking playful respite. In the early 1920s, clubs were formed to show off small hand-held gliders built by children and aspiring young pilots. This seemingly harmless hobby soon grew into full-sized glider clubs. Later backed by Hitler’s newly established government, glider club memberships grew to 50,000 pilots by 1937. Wishing to grow beyond non-powered flight, the German Luftwaffe(air force) was quietly formed and began building its arsenal of leading-edge aircraft that easily outperformed the best of British and American technology.
Long before he became England’s prime minister, Winston Churchill railed in Parliament about the growing dangers of Hitler’s Germany. Fortunately for England, Churchill was not alone in his worries. During the “Golden Era of Flight,” England, France, America and many other countries enjoyed the joyously blossoming sport of air racing. Races took place worldwide, and formalized cup tournaments were established.
One such tournament, and the generosity of an eccentric Lady, provided the backdrop for the creation of England’s savior aircraft, the Supermarine Spitfire.
The Stage Is Set
The internationally coveted Coupe d’Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider (commonly called the “Schneider Trophy”) was one of the world’s many air race tournaments.
Held eleven times between 1913 and 1931, the race was meant to encourage technical advances in civil aviation with one caveat: that the contestant aircraft were all seaplanes. All manner of design competed, each of them sharing an ungainly undercarriage of sea pontoons that allowed the aircraft to take off from, and land on, the sea. By 1929, England had won the trophy at least two times, and vied to win it one more time. In winning this extra time, ownership of the prestigious trophy would remain permanently on England’s shores.
However, with the 1931 race already on a fast-approaching horizon, the Spitfire’s creator, Supermarine Aviation Works, ran aground of political support and funding to further improve its winning 1929 design.
In the midst of post-war complacency, Britain’s air ministry lost its former enthusiasm for supporting defense technologies. After pleading with the British ministry to support further development, the Spitfire’s creators walked away dejectedly. As time grew short, and at the upcoming threat of losing the trophy in 1931, an unlikely savior arose as the Spitfire’s rescuer.
Poppy Turned Lucy
Lucy, Lady Houston was a philanthropist, adventuress, and generous benefactor of early British aviation.
Born Fancy Lucy Radmall, daughter of a London box-maker, in 1857. By 1872 she was a professional dancer on the London stage known as “Poppy.” When she was 16 she eloped to Paris with Frederick Gretton, whom she never married. A year after Gretton’s death, she married and then divorced some years later. She again married, this time to George Frederick William Byron, 9th Baron Byron of Rochdale, and stayed with him until his death in 1917. She married yet again in 1924 to Sir Robert Paterson Houston. When he died less than 18 months later, he left her £5.5 million (roughly £300 million / $475 million in modern times) and thus made her one of the richest women in England.
The monies she inherited from this event allowed her to contribute greatly to British aviation. Luckily for Britain, and perhaps the rest of the world unoccupied by the Nazi advance, Lady Lucy was able to influence the development of the Spitfire fighter plane
One Tournament + One Lady = One Machine
Britain had won the Schneider Trophy in the 1927 and 1929 air races. However, when the British Government was faced with economic depression, amidst an uproar it withdrew its financial support for Britain’s race entry. Miraculously Lady Houston came forth with a private donation of £100,000, which secured the funding for the Spitfire’s design predecessor, dubbed the model S.6. On September 13, 1931, nearly half a million spectators gathered on the shores of the Solent (near Britain’s Isle of Wight). They not only witnessed the Supermarine S.6 seaplane win the race, but they also saw it break the world speed record.
The Supermarine S.6, predecessor to the Spitfire fighter plane. Courtesy of the Royal Air Force.
The invaluable lessons learned while designing the S.6 helped Supermarine create the sleek Spitfire fighter plane, later used by the RAF as the backbone fighter that many claim was the single largest factor that helped England survive the Battle of Britain.
How One Lady Saved the World
If not for Lady Lucy’s enthusiasm as a pilot and as a champion for England’s excellence in aviation design, the United Kingdom would not have developed the S.6′s successor: the Supermarine Spitfire.
The Spitfire, derived from the Supermarine model S.6, development of which was graciously funded by Lucy, Lady Houston. Courtesy of the Royal Air Force.
The Spitfire’s superior maneuverability and ruggedness were able to keep Germany’s top fighters at bay during the perilous Battle for Britain. If England had none of the mighty Spitfires, it may well have lost the battle. Some argue the loss of this battle would have opened up the British Isles as a launching pad for Germany’s invasion of America and the rest of the free western hemisphere.
It is no small thing to say this: If not for the generosity of Lucy, Lady Houston, we may well have had to contend with a world not much unlike this one told here:
The stomping of jackboots resound coldly on the streets outside. Hover-jets screech overhead in search of those who refuse to comply. In the distance a voice belts forth from a loudspeaker, telling you what you may and may not do. Your eyes dart back and forth sheepishly, suspicious of every person you see. You feel you can never know whom you trust, and you quiver in fear while knowing that whatever action you take next may bring an end to your pitifully insignificant life…
*****
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Reblogged this on Calgary Recreational and Ultralight Flying Club (CRUFC).