Who Got The First Spitfire Victory?

so here it is the definitive answer to the question who shut down the first enemy aircraft in the spit now it's important to make the distinction enemy aircraft because the answer to the question who shut down the first airplane in the Spitfire is a little different ultimately our answer really comes down to a couple of squadrons a solicitor fruit farmer and a bet a 10 to 15 minute window of time and three shut up yunkers all on an October afternoon in 1939 in fact it's a really good who' done it with different groups still championing their own candidates for the honor of being the first BR cream boy to give the enemy a bloody nose though not the first German aircraft shot down by British aircraft nor the first technically shot down on land a Spitfire pilot did claim the first enemy aircraft over the British Isles so what happened exactly in the early afternoon of the 16th of October 1939 the Scottish capital and the surrounding communities of the fth of fth were witnessed to the first l Baff raid over Britain despite air activity having been high during the preceding days and that very morning everyone was totally taken by surprise lasting less than an hour and for some consisting of a short 10 to 20 second sighting the impact on the memory was lasting during that afternoon British ships in the F of fourth were attacked by 12 never seen before German aircraft much to the surprise and anger of the Navy the Raiders managed to penetrate Scottish defenses sidest stepping the efforts of the Air Force by the end of the day four German aircraft had been claimed by the British and two ARA Fighters by the lufer in reality just two of the Raiders were shot down by Spitfires a third Crash Landing in Germany with nothing more than a few holes entering the British aircraft the Navy suffered the most with 35 casualties across three ships which themselves suffered no lasting damage this was far from the aim that Germany had when they launched the raid that morning the Lu Rafer had failed to attack its main target HMS Hood not because she wasn't president at the scene but because of a personal order from the fura himself the battle of the fth of fourth as it later became known can be seen as a net British Victory it also had huge propaganda value then and even today while the Germans involved were almost all veterans of the Condor Legion the Spitfire pilots who met them could be described as weekend enthusiasts indeed some of them had only converted to the new Fighter the month before looking back now you might get away with saying that this is a perfect example of the young Plucky yet amateur Englishman jeweling with and beating the tonic professional enemy the only problem with that is that this Squadron was largely manned by local Scots what's interesting and indeed what was remarked upon at the time was that the first German to fall to the RF was not shot down by a regular nor a volunteer Reserve pilot it was the auxiliary air force that claimed first blood with a healthy rivalry with the rest of the service this must have done wonders for the morale the two squadrons in question were 603 City of Edinburgh flying out of RF townhouse and 602 city of Glasgow relocated to RF drem days before the raid they faced four waves of yuna's ju88 from first staffle kg30 led by halman h Paula and his Deputy obon Sigman stro both men would be PS by the end of the day each escaping a near watery grave in the fourth the question that confused contempories and took until March 1943 to receive an official decision was who shot down which man and who fell first the two names most closely related to this encounter are flight left tenant grumpy Pinkerton of 602 Squadron and flight left tenant paty gford of 60 three Squadron flying officer Archie mckel pinkerton's number two gets less press in reality the success the RF saw was largely due to a team effort by both squadrons made possible mostly down to the ineffective gun harmonization each Spitfire was subjected to had it not been for this last point this entire discussion might have been concluded earlier in the day by one of the men even before the others got Airborne One staffle kg30 took off from the base on the iso silk at noon having received intelligence from higho 111 from kg 26 returning across the North Sea Recon flights have been sent out that morning to continue the chase of the battle cruiser HMS Hood which had been cited days before there's actually a lot of events to this day that I won't be covering in this video but if you'd like a full analysis of the battle of the fth of fourth please let me know in the comments and I'll definitely make that video for you the Hine call reported that conditions were good over the fth of fourth at least for their purposes and that the British ship had indeed been cited so too had Spitfires which had attacked and so very nearly down the aircraft in fact this had been flight liutenant Pinkerton and his section who were the first RF aircraft to engage the enemy during the second world war but as he noted in his diary they were unsuccessful the presence of Spitfires in Scotland must have been of concern for polo and his Crews for one thing the German chief of intelligence major beo Schmid had confidently told po personally days before there's no fear of our bombers running into British Fighters up there this seems remarkable given the fact that successful German photo reconnaissance had been carried out over RAF bases along the fth of fourth that week another cause for concern this raid would be unescorted relying entirely on surprise and a lucky Escape back across the North Sea in short order this part of Scotland would become known as SE suicide corner by the German Cruise arriving over the target at around 1430 hours it almost looked as if po would get away with it indeed he probably would have done had he not been both incredibly Brave as well as Reckless the ju88 would attack in waves of three aircraft each wave arriving at slightly different times and subject to the navigational prowess of their individual leaders the plan was to Transit across the Scottish Countryside and arrive to the west of the target area before launching the attack although this would result in the ju88 attacking into wind thus slowing their ground speed it would also put the sun to their backs and a clear exit route towards the Open Sea but polar messed up rather than crossing the Scottish Coast around barck upon Tweed as over L and stro did po hit dumbar and then flew along the southern coast of the F of fourth this took him over RF drem and the suburbs of Ed edur itself amazingly Po and his two wingmen managed to arrive over the fourth Bridge without being intercepted where was the RAF despite power supply issues to one local rdf station RF fighter command were more than aware of the growing threat both 602 and 603 squadrons were airborne and looking for enemy contacts however at the time it was one of the busiest pieces of sky in Britain many near fatal incidents of Friendly Fire were amazingly avoided in the chaos and absence of iff equipment aircraft recognition in this new war was still in its infancy meanwhile kg30 began their attacks looking into the distance po finally saw the ship he had traveled nearly 500 miles to destroy a perfect Sitting Duck in the docks at rosye with minimal air defenses the Germans could have simply knocked this important vessel out of action for months if not for the war yet with a fur's order delivered by telephone that morning by yes himself po knew he could not attack civilian casualties were in almost certainty following the compelling plea from the American president Franklin Rosevelt France and the UK had committed themselves to not attacking any landbased German targets the fear was that civilians would be caught up in the bombing and this was to be avoided at all costs after pounding polish towns to dust Germany later also agreed to the arrangement this later Aces to political pressure would have a direct impact on this spitfire's first combat with the Enemy therefore the lufafa gazee fell on the Royal Navy and its bases of operations then largely in Far Away Scotland this being said it was the royal Air Force that was to launch the first attack more on this in another video I made linked above so not allowed to Target HMS Hood instead po launched an attack on HMS Southampton a legitimate Naval Target in the estery it was a tricky maneuver to pull off not only had po mishandled his approach by arriving from the East there was also the tall fourth bridge to avoid during the pullout amazingly trains would be driven across the bridge throughout the air rate slowing down and allowing the passengers a grand stand view of the proceedings however HMS Southampton was only hit by a single bomb a dud that ended up going through the side of the ship and only sinking the Admiral's personal boat more just where the bomb emerged howman Paula instead of heading directly back along the fth of fourth as his wingman did began to circle the target this act of Bravery ensured that the following waves would immediately identify the new targets but it also significantly increased his chances of meeting the enemy let's not forget that nine out of the 12 Raiders pulled off a near perfect attack attack without a scratch just about when the first wave arrived at the Target the second wave led by over light and stro flew across the nose of 603 squadrons The yellow section stro had made a better route across the North Sea and crossed the coast as planned at baric upon Tweed this meant that upon approaching the target to the south of Edinburgh he had to make his final turn Northeast over the three M Reservoir just as he arrived at this Landmark yellow section were taking off from RF turn housee it's Southwest of Edinburgh and south of the fourth Bridge flight Lieutenant denholm spotted him and gave Chase meanwhile red section and 603 Squadron led by flight leftenant gford and blue section of 602 Squadron led by flight leftenant Pinkerton were also Airborne the former taking off mere minutes before having circled the British ships below for what must have been a good quarter of an hour halman POA made good his Escape picking his way East through clouds however he was not alone blue section 602 Squadron had flown north towards the fourth Bridge after hearing about the attack they did not immediately sight the enemy instead nearly shooting down a flight of Navy SE skewers then flying officer Mela saw a lone j8 through the cloud blue section gave Chase but lost blue three flying officer web in the same Cloud so Pinkerton and Mela pursued the enemy along the North Coast of the fourth firing whenever he popped out of cloud it was po soon in order to keep his course East po was forced to break into Open Sky and soon came under Fire from Mela and in particular Pinkerton who got in the final burst heavily damaged po crashed into the sea off the aisle of May a sure Observer noted the time as 1455 while Pinkerton later stated in his combat report the attack was delivered at 1500 hours but hman po was not the first ju88 shot down that day having crossed paths with yellow section over the reservoir stro and his wingman broke up their formation as did the Spitfires turning Northeast stro flew low over Edinburgh pursued by Pilot officer Morton not the 12 spit Vice he claimed later however the British Fighters were Keen not to open fire over the city and it wasn't until they were clear that pilot officer Morton closed in and got the ju88 engine smoking over wford aboard the German aircraft stro later reported that the Gunner was dead and in knew he was done for he flew towards the water hoping to deny the British an intact example of the new bomber that should have decided the matter this is when red section arrived flight liutenant gford first flying close to positively identify the aircraft as an enemy open fire he then made way for another Spitfire probably flying officer morm who gave the ju88 another burst emptying his guns and turning for home at this point the fight was over Port Satan where flight leftenant gford delivered the coua grass upon this last burst stro flopped into the chilly Waters of the fourth the time given was 1445 stro was rescued along with two other crew members by the fishing crew of day spring so relieved to have been dragged from the water stroke presented the skipper John Dixon with his gold signal ring as a souvenir it remains in the family to this day while number 602 and 603 were praised by both air viice marshall and doubting for having drawn First Blood it is flight leftenant gford and flight leftenant Pinkerton who were usually singled out as the victors in reality it was a team effort in all likelihood had 63's red section not arrived over wford and join pilot officer Morton stropes ju88 would probably have crashed anyway nevertheless the modest gford solicitor mere weeks before was able to win his bet flight leftenant gford had indeed a officially down the first EA for the Squadron and as it turned out for the RAF as a whole gford would make a further two claims that month before joining number three Squadron as its new Co on the 19th of November 1939 this involved him converting to the hurricane 10 days later his own DFC came through for these actions over the fth of fourth 7 months to the day of his legendary feat the 16th of May Squadron leader gford was shot down by me 111's over France he was 30 years old flight leftenant Pinkerton who was still a fruit farmer weeks before this action was also awarded the DFC and returned to his farm after the war but what about the other ju88 the one that crash landed in Germany pilot officer Robertson who had joined flight leftenant gford in Downing the first German aircraft over Britain joined forces with pilot officer Morton taking off again at 1540 and 1600 hours respectively to intercept another Raider low over of Rosy they chased this Raider out to sea with a stationary starboard engine given the level of damage and the clearly labeled Crash Landing it seems the most likely candidate for the third ju88 lost that day but of course this was not the first aircraft ever shut down by a Spitfire it was the second the first was a hurricane one shot down by flying officer Breen and pilot officer freeorn these BLS were pretty much hung out to drve by their leader sailor malan more on this in a video on screen now but as I haven't actually recorded that video yet is an equally interesting one on screen now