How labour unrest nearly lost us the Battle of Britain

‘The nation had the lion’s heart. I had the luck to give the roar,’ Winston Churchill said of his role in achieving victory in the second world war. The idea that the British people were united, steadfast and resolute in the face of adversity is one of the enduring themes of our island story, still cherished more than 60 years after the war ended.

A central figure in this narrative of wartime glory is the Spitfire fighter, which became a much-loved symbol of national defiance through its heroic exploits in the Battle of Britain in 1940. Yet the Spitfire saga is no tale of unbroken success. The early years of the aircraft were traumatic, beset by production problems and political doubts. As I discovered when researching in the official archives, the severe difficulties in manufacturing the plane undermine the fable of a determined people all pulling in the same direction. It is an episode never properly told before, partly because it does not fit the romantic Churchillian myth.

The Spitfire was undoubtedly the greatest British fighter plane ever built, adored by its pilots for its speed, grace and manoeuvrability. When it first flew on 5 March 1936, it marked a revolutionary advance for the RAF, whose fleets were then still largely made up of fabric-covered biplanes. The Air Ministry, headed by the tough Yorkshireman Lord Swinton as Secretary of State for Air, was so impressed that it immediately ordered 310 of the planes from its designer, the Supermarine company based at Southampton. But then the trouble started. Because the Spitfire was such a technologically advanced aircraft, the Supermarine staff initially found it difficult to build. Nor did the company have the capacity for a major government order.