# Spitfire Into Battle



## MIflyer (May 15, 2020)

I have been reading a good book recently that came out in the UK in 1981, Spitfire Into Battle, by Group Captain Duncan Smith. He flew Spitfires during the BoB and came to Command 64 Squadron, the first unit equipped with the Spitfire Mk IX. 64 was assigned to fighter escort for the first 8th Air Force B-17 mission in the ETO, to strike the railroad marshaling yards in Roun. Told the B-17's would be bombing from 22,000 ft their reaction was that there was no way anyone was going to hit anything from that altitude. So they were astonished when the B-17's smothered the railyard in bombs from one end to the other. For the Dieppe operation 64 was again assigned to escort B-17's to hit the German airfield at Abbeville, and were pleased to see the bombing pattern was so effective that it not only put the airfield out of action for weeks but destroyed the fighter control center for the whole area.

Previously, RAF fighters would escort a few Blenheims on a token attack on some French target, intended to annoy the Luftwaffe enough to get them to come up in fight. The B-17's brought a whole new level of warfare with them.


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