World Notes Britain

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Winston Churchill paid that celebrated tribute to the Royal Air Force fighter pilots who won the 48-day Battle of Britain in 1940, thus thwarting plans for a Nazi invasion of England. The backbone of the R.A.F. was the agile Spitfire, the speedy (364 m.p.h.), quick-turning, British-built fighter plane that literally flew circles around enemy aircraft.

In Britain this week, World War II veterans, collectors and other fans of the Spitfire are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first test flight of the renowned British fighter. Over the years, the aircraft that Germany once dismissed as a "toy" has become the subject of legend and film. Composer William Walton sought to capture the plane's speed and deadliness in a composition called Spitfire Prelude and Fugue. That work was part of the score for a 1942 movie on the life of Reginald Mitchell, the plane's designer. The film's title: The First of the Few. Among the scheduled festivities this week: four restored Spitfires will fly in formation from London to Eastleigh, where the plane was built by Vickers Supermarine and initially flown on March 5, 1936.