Supermarine Spitfire Mk.I/II Special Edition: Wingleader Photo Archive Number 26

Since launching this series, a lot of people have asked us if we were going to include the Spitfire Mk.II. Unfortunately, although we could probably have scraped enough images together, not a lot happened with the Mk.II in terms of development, so it would have been a pretty dull book! It then occurred to us that our very first book on the Spitfire Mk.I only covered up to the end of the Battle of Britain, so maybe we could revisit the Mk.I as well in a new Mk.II book, but with more emphasis on the late 1940/early 1941 period.

Also at this time, our old friend Richard Alexander was deep into researching early Spitfires for his superb Kotare model kit range, so we asked him if he’d consider producing a ‘Spitfire Mk.I/II Special’ to feature all the new Mk.I information that he had unearthed whilst covering the Mk.II in our usual style.

And so, this unique book was born!

We’ve tried wherever possible to include new photos and not to retread aspects that are already covered in our original Spitfire Mk.I book (WPA1), so this book should be seen as an essential companion to the first volume. We’ve included an extensive ‘detail’ section at the end of the book for all those modellers who want to understand the subtle differences between the early Spitfires, we’re sure you’ll find it of great interest!

Also included as an extra treat in this ‘Special’ are port and starboard profile side views with undercarriage down to show the colours of the doors and the wheel wells, many thanks to Kotare’s profile artist Ronny Bar for doing these specials for us.

‍This book contains approx 120 original wartime/pre-war photos and 6 in-depth colour profiles showing both sides of the fuselage with the undercarriage down for door details