TE308

Interpetations of TE308's colour schemes

## History

TE308 was ordered on 19th April 1944, from Vickers Armstrongs Ltd against Contract No. B.981687/39. C.23 (c). Built at the Castle Bromwich factory as an HF.IXe it was fitted with a Merlin 70 as part of the batch TE292-315, emerging in the spring of 1945, and delivered to #39 MU (Maintenance Unit) RAF (Royal Air Force) Colerne on June 9th, 1945.  TE308 finished out the end of the World War Two as a single seat model Mk IXe never seeing combat in RAF storage.

It then stayed in storage for the next five years until January of 1950. It was then sent to #29 Maintenance Unit High Ercall Shropshire. After being sent to #29 MU it was then sold to Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd as non-effective on July 19, 1950.

### Conversion to Type 509 (Two seat) configuration

After the end of the World War Two on September 1945, there wasn't a demand for Spitfires. As a result of looking for new uses, a program of converting a number of existing Spitfires into two cockpit armed trainer versions for sale to foreign governments around the world.

Plans called for nine to be built for Holland, ten for India, and one for Egypt. There are rumors that TE308 was the aircraft converted for Egypt, but the sale fell through.

The conversion plans called for the front cockpit to be moved forward 13 1/2 inches. Rear seat instruments were fitted and the back seat was provided with a large bubble canopy. Only part of the wing guns were retained and fuel space was added in the wings to replace one lower fuselage tank that was removed. The student was to fly in the front cockpit while the instructor supervised in the rear one. In total, 20 Spitfires were converted from the single seat to the two-seat trainer.

### Life in the Irish Air Corps

Once TE308 was converted to Type 509 configuration at a Southampton factory, she was sent to the Irish Air Corps (IAC) with five others on July 10, 1951. Delivered on July 30th, she was already painted the standard "Irish" green, and took the number **IAC 163**. Flying a variety of missions, sometimes carrying bomb racks, TE308 only suffered one forced landing during this time. Retired in the fall of 1961, she continued to be flown by the IAC for instructional use and ground running practice.

### Later life

On March 4, 1968 she was decommissioned and sold to collector Tony Samuelson and Spitfire Productions Ltd.. Tony purchased a total of five Spitfires and one Hurricane. This, according to some, would make Tony owner of the worlds seventy-eighth largest air force. On April 4, 1968 the TE308 was officially registered as **G-AWGB** and flown from Ireland to the UK on May 8, 1968.

An overhaul was carried out at Baldonnel by Simpsons Aeroservices Ltd, the engine installed at that time being noted as Merlin 66 No.157821, and the Spitfire left Ireland on delivery to the UK on 8th May 1968. The crew on the delivery flight were Flt Lt J A Armstrong and Cpl P M Sargeant of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and the route was Baldonnel-Speke-Elstree. The following day the aircraft was flown to Henlow, having been leased to Spitfire Productions Ltd for use in the film The Battle of Britain.

### Film Work

Further overhaul work was performed at Henlow by Simpson’s Aeroservices Ltd and the aircraft was eventually delivered to the film unit on location at RAF Debden on 27th May, the pilot being Sqdn Ldr Spinks. The film unit had suffered an accident to HF.IXc G-ASSD at North Weald and as a result the wooden propeller from ‘WGB’ was fitted to ‘SSD’, while a metal propeller from a Hispano Ha.1112M-1L was installed on ‘WGB’ at Debden. This propeller was still fitted in 1986, although it was planned to replace it with a Hoffman unit.

With the film schedule well behind due to the atrocious summer weather of 1968, the film unit moved to the South of France, and on 10th August ‘WGB’, along with nine other Spitfires and three Ha.1112M-1L’s, left the UK, routing Duxford-Cambridge-LeTouquet-Dinard-Bordeaux-Montpellier. Arriving on 12th August they remained until their return to Duxford on 22nd August.

With the filming over ‘WGB’ was flown to Bovingdon for storage, being there in November 1968, but was then flown to Elstree via Leavesden, where Simpsons Aeroservices Ltd removed the Merlin 66 in favour of Merlin 76 No.V188797, the aircraft finally being placed in store in the Samuelson Film Services hangar at Elstree.

### In the Americas

G-AWGB was advertised for sale by Tony Samuelson, along with Spitfire Tr.9’s G-AVAV, IAC 161 and 162 and Hawker Hurricane IIB G-AWLW, the entire collection being purchased by Sir W J D Roberts in April 1970; ‘WGB’. ‘VAV’ and ‘WLW’ flew to Shoreham Sussex shortly afterwards. Sir William did not intend keeping all of the collection and ‘WGB’ was soon sold. On 16th July 1970 to Canadian businessman Don Plumb and shipped out on 11th September arriving in Toronto on 9th October. The aircraft was refurbished at Windsor, Ontario and re-registered **CF-RAF** to be flown by Plumb and his partner, Jerry Billings.

Initially flown in two-seat configuration the aircraft was later modified at Field Aviation by the removal of the rear cockpit instruments, control column and canopy, the resulting hole being reskinned and the aircraft reverting to something like a conventional single-seater. The fact that the forward cockpit was some 13 ½ inches further forward than normal, gave the aircraft a rather unusual appearance from certain angles. The aircraft was coded ‘RA-F’ and flew as TE308, the registration being amended to **C-FRAF**, until Plumb was killed in the crash of his P51-D Mustang in 1975.

The Spitfire was sold by Plumb’s widow to Thomas Watson Jnr of the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum, Owl’s Head, Maine and re-registered **N92477**. The engine was regularly ground-run, but was flown very little whilst in his ownership. On 7th October 1979, Woodson K Woods of Scottsdale, Arizona bought TE308, re-registering it once again as **N308WK**. “Woody” Woods had the aircraft restored to two-seat configuration and repainted as ‘WK-C’ and it was exhibited at the Carefree Aviation Museum near Phoenix, Arizona until 1983.

Bill Greenwood purchased TE308 in 1983 and based it at Aspen, Colorado some 8000ft above sea level, where Earl Ketchen flew it at several air shows until he was killed whilst performing aerobatics in Don Davis’s Mustang. Greenwood continued to display the aircraft on the North American display circuit for 25 years, until it was hit on the ground, by Hurricane XII 5708 (N96RW), at Galvaston on 26 April 2008. Following restoration at Fort Collins in Colorado, TE308 was purchased by Warbird Experiences at Biggin Hill, regaining it's 'Battle of Britain' film registry, returning to flight on August 7 2020 painted as Spitfire VIII **A58-606** W-ZP.

## Use of TE308 in the film

‘WGB’ was mainly used as a camera aircraft, flow from the rear seat with a camera occupying the front cockpit. In this configuration the aircraft was flown with film markings ‘CD-F’, ‘CD-J’, ‘DO-L’, ‘AI-E’, ‘CD-K’, ‘EI-J’, ‘DO-K’, ‘DO-S’ and ‘DO-H’. Due to its second cockpit ‘WGB’ featured in the far distance in all formation shots, where its presence is not so obvious. All through-the-windscreen shots used in the film were taken with ‘WGB’.

## Notes

1. ↑ Originally HF.IXe
2. ↑ It is interesting to note that all Spitfires were built as single seat originally, including this one.
3. ↑ Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd still had many trained employees and production facilities after the war. The world was moving to the Jet age and new avenues were always being explored for the continued use of their aircraft.
4. ↑ This is difficult to prove as only a few pictures of the aircraft exist at this time, and none clearly show the Egyptian identification.
5. ↑ TE308 is unique among two seat Spitfires, as it was the only one to start life as a low back aircraft, due to high back examples being simpler to modify.
6. ↑ A58-606 was the personal aircraft of Squadron Leader Bruce Watson, CO of 457 'Grey Nurse' Squadron, RAAF.

## Sources

1. ↑ http://www.warbirdregistry.org/spitregistry/spitfire-te308.html
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.sonsofdamien.co.uk/TE308.htm
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 http://www.airport-data.com/articles/view/Spitfire-MK9-TE308-History-N308WK:58.html
4. ↑ Aeroplane - November 2020. Page 15
5. ↑ Aeroplane - June 2019. Page 8
6. ↑ Aeroplane - October 2020. Page 8
7. ↑ Aeroplane - November 2020. Page 17