The New Spitfire 9

We came south again and our life improved a hundred percent. We got the better Spitfires when we went south. And it was just a wonderful relief to feel that you were on an equal footing with the Germans. And they were called Spit 9’s, Spitfire 9’s and the first ones we got were the A- model which was a high altitude and you could get up to forty thousand feet and freeze to death with no trouble at all. There was no heat in the cockpits, no heat in the cockpits and oh they were cold. And at forty thousand feet it’s minus 50, 40, 50 centigrade you know, it’s really cold. And they gave us sort of submarine socks that pull up here and submarine shirts, sweaters that come down to here. But it was a wonderful feeling to have that and also we started using some long range tanks which would allow you to stay up longer.