Wigan Album

When it was made public that that Spitfire was going to be recovered I told my Aunty. She said "That is one of mine, I made that." That is what she did - she made Spitfires at the Castle Bromwich works (now Jaguar works). She said the sheds were covered in cammy paint, and there was one runway near their shop whereby they could see the aircraft leaving either being ferried or collected directly by combat pilots, according to her it was easy to mark out the Polish flyers as they went off hell for leather; very resolute in what they were doing. She is very proud of having built the Spitfire, and proud of the night they all stayed at their assembly lines when 'Gerry' was circling looking for them, they could hear bombs dropping. The cammy paint is still on the roof in parts of the now Jaguar plant....fields and trees. Any road, that is one of 'her spitfires' - she 'built that'. She is now 86 years old. The metal sculpture on the C/Bromwich traffic island - Spitfire Island, the spitfire in star burst formation is a wonderful tribute to the people who flew it and the workers who built it. I suppose it is strange to be told of something which you made, what happened it, where, outcome for the pilot, that reappears as aviation recovery archaeology, something which you touched all those years ago.

Eric.
I presume that Mark Gaskell is the same Mark Gaskell who wanted infomation about the Kynock armaments factory that was situated on Bradley Lane standish, better known as the Bradley MOS.If it is the same person then those .303 bullets found at the crash site , I presume are the reason that Mark was seeking info on the Bradley MOS works.I am pretty sure that the three bullets were made at Bradley during the 2nd WW. a bit of a coincident wouldn't you think, crashed within a couple of miles from the factory that made the .303 machine gun bullets that the Spitfire was armed with.

Brian. I don't know about Mark asking about the munition works and the bullets, but knowing Mark and how thorough he is, it will be him. He lives at Orrell and if you look at www.rafmillom.co.uk you will see some of the things he gets up to. Eric Turner.