The 'Russian Spitfire' - Spitfire Mk.IX, PT879

Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk.IX, PT879, G-PTIX is the only known surviving rebuilt airworthy Spitfire to have been used by the Soviet Air Force during the Second World War.
PT879 was made at the Vickers Armstrong factory at Castle Bromwich as construction number CBAF IX.2922. She was then flown to 39 Maintenance Unit (MU), at RAF Colerne, Wiltshire on 24th August 1944. From there she went to 52 MU at RAF Cardiff for packing on 8th September and then was transferred to and shipped from Salford aboard SS Samaritan (S256) with 20 other Spitfires, sailing on 20th October for 'Hazmat' (which was one of the shipping location codes for the USSR) Murmansk, as part of convoy JW 61, which consisted of 30 ships, arriving on 28th October. 3 other ships in the convoy contained a further 77 Spitfires. After unloading and delivery to the Russian Air Force PT879 was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 767th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment (767th IAP PVO) , 122nd Division. The squadron flew from Molochny and Rosta airfields in the Murmansk region from this time until the end of the war. In the spring of 1945, after only 18 and a half hours of flying time, PT879 collided with another Spitfire during training. The other Spitfires wing sliced off the tail of PT879, but her pilot, 22 year old Lieutenant Grigoriy Vasilievich Semonov, was able to parachute to safety and he went on to survive the war.The airframe was later recovered complete from the Tundra by a local farmer.
In 1998 her remains were located purchased and brought out of Russia by Peter Monk. The aircraft then returned to the UK and was acquired by display pilot Angie Soper. It was added to the UK Civil register as G-BYDE. The complete although crashed aircraft included the fuselage, large sections of the wings, the Merlin 66 engine, parts of the hub and propellor and filled a 20 foot container. In 2001 Peter Teichman bought the aircraft wreck for his Hangar 11 collection, re registered the project as G-PTIX and its rebuild to flying status was begun by Peter Monk's Biggin Hill Heritage Hangar. A huge number of her original parts were used in restoration of the airframe, with more than 500 from the original aircraft used within her renovated fuselage. The wings also comprise the core components of the original wings. A new merlin 66 engine was fitted and her first post restoration flight was on 28th October 2020 at Biggin Hill, with pilot Peter Kynsey at the controls.
It's one of 1328 Spitfires that were gifted to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), as part of over 4 million tonnes of weapons and supplies, due to the Anglo-Soviet Agreement of 12th July 1941, shortly after the beginning of the German invasion of the USSR. In accordance with the Anglo-Soviet Military Supplies Agreement of June 27, 1942, military aid sent from Britain to the Soviet Union during the war was entirely free of charge.
Between November 1942 when the first Mk.V Spitfire was shipped to Russia and June 1945 when the last Mk.IX Spitfires were shipped to Murmansk via the North Atlantic convoys, 1185 Spitfire IXs were imported into the Soviet Union, of which 1183 were LF IXs and two HF IXs.
In September 1944 Soviet tests of the Spitfires showed that the Mk.IX with its powerful and high-altitude engine had a much higher service ceiling than all of their own production fighters. Even the LF confidently climbed to 12,500 m, while the HF climbed to 13,100 m, which was 2,450 m more than the Yak-9U and 2,350 m more than the La-7. The Spitfire IX surpassed these aircraft both in climb rate and in armament. The equipment on the English aircraft was also far better.
From the summer of 1944, the LF IXc and LF IXe went to the 26th and 27th Guards regiments near Leningrad, the 16th and 177th regiments in the Moscow area, the 767th near Murmansk and many others. By the end of 1944, there were 297 Spitfire IXs in the Soviet air defense system. There is practically no information about any combat use of Mk. IX Spitfires in the Soviet Union. Only one combat episode is noted. On March 8, 1945, near Leningrad, pilots V. Rybin and A. Fedotov (from the 11th and 102nd Guards Regiments), in Spitfire LF IX's, intercepted and shot down a German Ju88 reconnaissance aircraft flying at high altitude. The downed plane belonged to one of the latest modifications (S or T), which had power-boosting devices on the motors. For other types of fighters, this Junkers was invulnerable.
One of the aircraft depots near Leningrad converted a Spitfire IX to a 2 seat trainer - the Spitfire IX UTI. A number of Mk.IXs were also navalised for catapult launch from ships, in particular in the Black Sea Fleet Air Force.
Although the Soviet Spitfires did not make a significant difference at the battle fronts, by the end of the war and in the early post-war years, they were indispensable for high-altitude air defence.
Filmed at the Shuttleworth Vintage Airshow 2021
Video and Audio content is
Copyright © High Flight