The British shipped Spits to Burma and to Singapore in late '41-early '42 just as the US was shipping P-40's and other aircraft. Many were never uncrated and were either burned or fell into Japanese hands. Thanks to the lack of spare parts, the Japanese rarely did anything except test fly and evaluate the captured allied models. To find a cache of perhaps 60 early model Spitfires is remarkable! That should keep restorers busy for a decade or so.

Wouldn't it be incredible to get 30 or 40 flyable for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 2015? A "big wing" flyover would be something very, very special.

 

I understand that the Spitfire was a warplane, that is an engine of destruction. That said, the Spit was, in my opinion, one of the most esthetically beautiful aircraft of WW II. That eliptical wing and balanced, streamlined look was breathtaking. A P-47 looked powerful, a P-38, curious, an FW-190, menacing, but a Spitfire was/is a beautiful piece of aircraft design.

 

You may be aware of this but others may not. The AVG pilots had bought into the racial bias that all Japanese were terrified of Tigersharks so they wanted to call themselves the "Flying Tigers". They had meant the fish kind of tiger but then other folks who heard the name assumed they meant the striped cat since they were in the CBI theater and the rest is history. The pilots of the AVG averaged a huge number of hours in fighters (Over 700 hours if I remember correctly) and thus were an elite unit that would only rarely be matched throughout the war.

The P-51 Mustang was probably the most esthetically beautiful American figther. It is interesting that both the Spit and the Mustang were powered by the legendary Merlin engine. The best inline engine of WW II.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21483187

It would have been very nice but alas......