Spitfire - Blueprint of an Icon

By Kieran Whitworth

Spitfire: Blueprint of an Icon is now available for purchase from the IWM Online shop and in store at all IWM locations. Buy Now

Few aircraft stir the imagination quite like the Spitfire. Ninety years after the first flight of the Supermarine Type 300, the sleek prototype that became one of Britain’s most enduring wartime icons, a new IWM book asks why this extraordinary machine still holds such power today. With the launch of Spitfire: Blueprint of an Icon, we spoke to IWM author Kieran Whitworth about first flights, famous myths, R. J. Mitchell’s legacy and what really makes the Spitfire iconic.

A Spitfire Mk I in flight.

Why did you write the book? Do we need ‘another’ book about the Spitfire?

There is always room for another Spitfire book! Seriously though, this year’s anniversary of that first flight was the main reason for writing it. For a number of years, the IWM retail team had been selling merchandise featuring a striking blueprint-style image of a Spitfire. There had always been a feeling that the design would make a great book cover, but it was never quite clear what that book would be. I liked the idea of using IWM’s photographs and first-hand oral testimonies to explore the history of the Spitfire through the accounts of people who were there, bringing the story of that first flight, and what happened afterwards, to life. It is a story many people know, but others may know less well, and I wanted to write it in a way that makes the development of the Spitfire feel immediate and vivid for a contemporary audience.

So, was it a case of you’ve read the book, now buy the t-shirt?

More like you’ve bought the T-shirt, now read the book! The blueprint design raised a key question: did the blueprint or ‘DNA’  of the Spitfire contribute to its wartime success and its status today as a symbol of wartime Britain? Read any recent book about the Spitfire and, within the first few pages, the word ‘icon’ usually appears. So, the Spitfire’s DNA, that first flight and the collections of IWM all began to coalesce around a further, simpler question: what makes the Spitfire iconic?

Before asking you what makes the Spitfire iconic, were there any other areas you wanted to cover in the book?

As I said, the first-hand accounts were key to bringing the story to life. I was fortunate to look through Jeffrey Quill’s account in the IWM collection. He was a name closely associated with the Spitfire as a test pilot and, more importantly, he was there on the day of that first flight in Eastleigh. He also knew R. J. Mitchell, the Chief Designer and Engineer at Supermarine in Southampton, and the ‘father’ of the Spitfire. There was also Harry Griffiths, a lab assistant at Supermarine and one of the many people who worked under Mitchell on the development of the Spitfire after joining the company in 1928. Griffiths' recollections really helped give the book insight into how R. J. Mitchell worked, because he recalled:

His biggest asset was the ability to get a very good team of people around him and to lead them very successfully … everyone talks about the designer of the Spitfire, and they talk immediately about Mitchell. No one man can do that. He has to have a team, and he had a team of aerodynamicists … and analysts and draughtsmen and designers ... But he actually led them. He was very much involved in design work all the way through, so that you would see him in the drawing office … at somebody’s drawing board where there was a decision to be made and he would listen to everyone. He was a good listener. He would listen to everyone’s ideas, weigh them up and then say, this is what you do. And walk away and that is what they did. So, he was a leader.

These accounts really helped me understand how the Spitfire evolved, as well as the character of R. J. Mitchell and his role in leading the team who designed and built the icon.

Were there any other connections to R. J. Mitchell in the book?

I really wanted to get some insight from relatives of R. J. Mitchell if I could, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon a contact who knew his great-nephew, Julian Mitchell. Julian is himself an active advocate for the Spitfire and Chairman of Operation Spitfire 4 Schools, which promotes STEM learning in schools in Staffordshire, through the story of the Spitfire. He very kindly agreed to write a foreword to the book, so, with some trepidation, I sent him the manuscript, hoping he would be happy with my work. Thankfully, he has provided a wonderful foreword, and he joined me recently at the Duxford Battle of Britain Air Show. It was his first visit to Duxford, and I was thrilled that he was able to see so many Spitfires in the air.

What other stories do you cover in the book?