Spitfire Ditching

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B

Barry friendly

Airman
17
5
Sep 12, 2019
This may be in the wrong spot, I'm not quite sure... Does anyone know if Supermarine Spitfire pilots carried a life raft, or just a Mae West (life jacket).
Cheers.
-Barry
 
They carried a inflatable dinghy. Recently read of the exploits of Duncan Smith, who had to bail out of a brand new Spit Mk VII of the coast of Italy when the Bowden cable to the main fuel tank valve snapped and he ran out of gas. Unfortunately he lost his dinghy and had only his life vest. A Walrus picked him up but then was shot up by a gaggle of 109's, 190s, Mc202's and a Re2001. But they made it back, leaking water and fuel.
 
Initially, only a "Mae West" was issued to RAF fighter pilots.
However, after the losses of pilots during the BoB, who bailed out into the English Channel, and were either drowned or died due to hypothermia, before rescue was possible, "K2" Type dinghies were eventually issued, starting I believe in early to mid 1941.
This was clipped to the "seat" of the parachute harness, between the cushion of the seat-type parachute pack, and the wearer, who effectively sat on the rather hard dinghy pack.
At around the same time, the original "Mae West" lifejacket design was improved, with loops to allow the pilot to support his hands and arms, and other "handles" to allow rescue crews to drag the survivor aboard a rescue launch or aircraft. Inflation was also changed, from manual, via a mouth tube, to CO2 bottle (although the tube was retained as back-up), and pockets incorporated for flares, basic survival rations and sea marker dye.
 
I read of a case where two USAF pilots were in a T-33A. The guy in the back accidentally set off his life raft, which inflated, causing him to pull out his mike cord. He battled the raft and finally grabbed the knife mounted on the canopy rail that is there for emergency escape, puncturing the raft.

The pilot in the front seat was unaware of all of this going on and first discovered something was awry when the talcum powder from inside the raft began coming into the front cockpit. He assumed it was smoke from an engine failure and did an emergency shut down.

When the guy in the back was able to see the instruments again he saw the engine gauges winding down. With his mike cord still pulled out he was unable to contact the guy in the front cockpit and punched out. The pilot in the front seat bellied the airplane into a field.


 
Yes, I've heard / read of a number of accounts where a seat-dinghy inflated in the cockpit, both RAF and USAAF, and those concerned used a knife ( and even a bayonet in at least one case ! ), to puncture the dinghy before it broke their neck against the canopy /cockpit roof..
Some WW2 pilots, having learned of this, took to carrying various types of knives, often tucked into the top of one of their flying boots, which sometimes could, and did, affect the magnetic compass !
Eventually, "survival knives" were issued, to combat this problem, and also provide a "universal" tool in the event of bail-out, one use of which, before the introduction of "Capewell" / "Koch "fasteners to parachute harness lift webs ( risers ) in the early 1950's, was to cut parachute rigging lines in an emergency, such as landing in water, or in a tree.
 
The T-33A has a knife with a very heavy handle and a very short stiff blade mounted on the canopy frame. On the P-80A they found that in the event of a crash the canopy might have to be battered open and for a while they issued each fighter with a baseball bat. Then they adopted the short red knife and mounted it where it could be reached easily; it's more of a battering ram than a knife. It really gets your attention when you are sitting there. On my ride in a USAF T-33A I noted that knife and wondered whathell it was and what it was for.
 
The T-bird photo in post 7 brought a memory . In 1960 at USAFA, the Geography instructor came in Monday morning and announced the test scores from Friday would not count because the cargo pod on the T-33 was lost some where in mid America over the weekend.
 
Heh! At my first assignment, Tinker AFB, one of the gentlemen I worked with was an ALC expert in oxygen systems. He was sent TDY in a T-33A and the baggage pod with his clothes and personal items fell off soon after takeoff and was never recovered.

And I was told that in the 60's at Thule AB they received a grounding order for their F-102's. They worked all night fitting a .50 cal in a baggage pod so they could at least send a T-33 up to confront the Soviets. The first T-33's built had two .50 cal installed in the lower postions as used on the F-80 but that was soon discontinued and the guns only fitted to AT-33 airplanes used for fighter style weapons training, as they did at MBAFB in the early 70's.
 
Barry friendly said:
This may be in the wrong spot, I'm not quite sure... Does anyone know if Supermarine Spitfire pilots carried a life raft, or just a Mae West (life jacket).
Cheers.
-Barry
Click to expand...
As of January 1942, and beyond, Spitfire pilots were issued the K Type dinghy, a one-man life raft. Three styles of raft cases were available, depending on the type of parachute you were using. Spitfire pilots would have had a seat parachute, so would have used the Type "A" case, with a center slot for the seat parachute's leg straps. The type "B" case replaced the back pad of the seat parachute harness and is often seen in use by USAAF P-47 pilots. The last type case, the "C", was designed to clip to the harness of a back, or quick-attachable chest parachute, using snap-hooks. In the photos below, the three types of dinghy packs can be seen and a U.S. Navy Spitfire pilot of VCS-7 in June 1944, utilizing an RAF seat parachute with type "A" pack for the K dinghy.
 
Examples of the "A" and "B" packs in use by P-47 pilots of the 56th FG with their seat parachutes. The third photo shows the "C" pack worn with a back parachute by a P-51 pilot.
 
I was told by a WWII USN pilot that the Navy was selling off surplus equipment at NAS Corpus Christi just after WWII. They a large number of aircraft they were taking bids on. As a first step they offered the survival kits out of the airplanes. A man bid on them; no one else was interested; they had all come to buy airplanes. The sole bidder won.

The other bidders said to each other, "Oh! That's right! Those survival kits have a nice life raft. No doubt he is going to sell those rafts to sportsmen and boaters. He'll make a nice profit out of those; wish I had thought of that."

Then the winning bidder went down the row of airplanes, pulled the survival kits out, - opened them - and removed not the life rafts but the tubes of morphine that were in each kit, leaving the rest of the kit on the ramp. The guy was a drug dealer! They grabbed him. No one had recalled the morphine in the kits.

If he had loaded all the kits into a truck and hauled them off, no one would have suspected a thing. He could have sold the life rafts to a surplus dealer and made off with the morphine, but he was too lazy for that.
 
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Being suddenly plunged into water that's 15°C (59°F) or less can lead to cold water shock, which causes hyperventilation and death by drowning in less than a minute. Since 15°C is about the temperature of the English Channel in June, a life raft and an rapidly inflating life vest would have been essential survival gear.
 
When my father was telling me about hitting an iceberg in his destroyer, I foolishly asked him why he couldn't swim to another ship.
 
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