Memories of an Air Race (1936)

On 14 and 15 February 1936 I was just short of my seventh birthday, which is on 20 February. I remember vividly the aircraft which took part in the air race which, travelling north, had a landing break at the ‘miadam’ airstrip at Ahmedabad, India. I watched in the excited crowd along with my parents. We lived only a few hundred yards away from the airstrip, at No. 1 Camp, Ahmedabad. There our airmail letter post came into the ‘miadam’ airstrip by bi-plane flying over our two storey house (in India called a ‘bungalow’).

By the end of 1936 I was back in England having had an urgent appendicitis/peritonitis operation in India which had debilitated me. By October 1938 I was at the Junior (Moss Close) part of Queen Mary’s Grammar School for Boys, Walsall, Staffs.

Immediately behind our house in India a British Army camp stirred with activity, with bugle calls at regular intervals, but not near enough to be a nuisance. A rehearsing military band which occasionally marched past on the ‘miadam’ was a pleasant diversion. This explains our address of No. 1 Camp.

Our Bungalow in Ahmedabad, India 1936

I recall seeing landing there, at the air race, two beautifully sleek and very striking ultra-modern looking, small, single-winged aircraft (arriving after the old bi-planes). These I now know were unmarked prototypes of the Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighters of the kind which defended Britain from the Nazis in WWII. These had not, by February 1936, been fully commissioned by the RAF.

RAF Hawker Hurricane

One ‘plane was coloured a beautiful metallic-looking light green and the other a pure silver. They came in, lying last at Ahmedabad being heavily handicapped on account of their acknowledged high speed.

A newly arrived German family, with a boy there of my own age with whom I played only once, lived next to the airstrip. I now wonder whether the father was a spy on the lookout who was reporting whatever he saw straight back to his masters in Nazi Germany. My father had some suspicions of the sort.

Extract from Flight Magazine of September 1935:

The Viceroy's Trophy Race

COMPETITORS in the Viceroy's Challenge Trophy air race, which will take place on February 14 and 15 next year, will have to fly approximately 1,500 miles, starting from Madras at 8 a.m. (Indian standard time) on the first day. The course will be finished at Delhi, with compulsory stops at Hyderabad, Bombay, Ahmedabad and Jodhpur. Pilots and passengers will spend the first night at Bombay, which they will reach via Hyderabad (Deccan). On the second day the pilots will land at Ahmedabad and Jodhpur on their way to Delhi. Handicap times will be worked out so that all machines should reach Bombay before 7 p.m. (I.S.T.) on the first day and reach Delhi before 7 p.m. on the next day. At the compulsory stops machines will be flagged in as having arrived from the mo- ment the pilot hands in his race card to the control official. Each pilot must then remain on the ground for a period of twenty minutes, during which time he may refuel and, if necessary, make minor adjustments to his aircraft. This will not be counted as flying time. At Bombay and Delhi, of course, a finishing line will be crossed. Landing between the controls will not disqualify the pilots, but the time will be counted as flying time.

Flt. Lt. G. L. Gandy, Deputy DC.A., R. S Lane, Chief Aircraft Inspector, and Flt. Lt L. W. Cannon have been appointed official handicappers, the work being carried out in the usual way. Eighty miles an hour is the minimum handicapped speed, and the entrance fee for each machine is Rs.100.”

It is not well known that the Spitfire got its name as the ‘Supermarine Spitfire’ because its earliest prototype was a seaplane which set up the Schneider Trophy speed records in 1929 and 1931. The land version of the ‘plane was therefore called “Supermarine”.

R.J.Mitchell, a ‘Potteries’ born man, from Congleton, near Stoke on Trent, was the designer of these aircraft which were ultimately developed further to counter the very fast German Messerschmitt 109 used in the Spanish Civil War. He really should have received a decoration for his brilliant work, but sadly it has not been properly recognised. R.J. Mitchell’s brother lived at Woore (no pun intended) not far from Stoke.

The Spitfire had even closer connections with the Midlands because it was assembled at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, where eventually over 22,000 were made by the end of hostilities. Many villages and towns in the Midlands raised the cost of a Spitfire by raffles, events, jumble sales etc. My own wife's father, George Henry Evans, as Headmaster of the Woore Infant and Junior School, organised successfully such funding in his own village.

RAF Supermarine