A Spitfire that flew in WWII made its way home after 79 years.
In 1942 a Mark V Spitfire was flown by two squadrons of Polish servicemen who flew out of RAF Woodvale near Formby. After Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany thousands of Polish military personnel made their way to the UK.
In 1940, the Polish government exiled from their homeland and signed an agreement with the British government to form an independent Polish Army, Air Force, and Navy in the UK, under British operational command. It was under this agreement that the Polish servicemen flew out of RAF Woodvale and along with the Spitfire they made an invaluable contribution to the war effort.
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After surviving the war without ever being shot down the plane was retired in 1945 where it sat rotting away outside various airbases across the country. That was until it was restored by the Historic Aircraft Collection in the 1990s and sent to the Imperial War Museum in Cambridge where it still lives today.
Since 2011 the plane has been flown by former RAF pilot Dave Harvey who has a special connection with the plane. Speaking to the ECHO he said: "I used to walk past the plane every day when it was outside RAF Church Fenton in Yorkshire. I would look across at it and think I wish I could fly it one day and the fact that I ended up flying that particular machine is quite amazing."
After surviving dog flights and being passed from airbase to airbase the Spitfire finally returned back home to RAF Woodvale in 2021 for the first time since the war. Dave who served in the RAF for 36 years said: "I had to stop to refuel and it was surreal to take the plane back to where it flew from all those years ago.
"Inside the cockpit, some of the pilots who flew it during the war have signed their names into the plane so it is very humbling for me to climb in and fly it and see the names of those guys who flew it in 1942. The vast majority of the people who flew them in the war are sadly no longer with us and they can't tell their stories anymore.
"When I used to meet veterans in the 80s and 90s there were still plenty to talk to and because those guys aren't here anymore. I think it is important that the airplane can tell those stories for them."
In 2020 the Historic Aircraft Collection set up the Polish Heritage Flight as a mark of respect to those men and women who came to Britain to help aid the war effort. This year the organisations are hoping to get the Spitfire into the Southport Air Show so it can once again fly over the North West.
More information can be found on their Facebook Page here.
