Battle of Britian Film (1969)
 

I dont know if this is the right place to post this, but anyways here goes.

I recently bought the Film Battle of Britian (1969 version), which is a brilliant film!
Out of Interest, A question I would like to know?
In order to film such aerial combats, wouldnt large areas of airspace need to be cornered off, so if it was filmed over the South Coast of England would airports such as Heathrow, Gatwick, Bournemouth, Southampton, etc be affected ?

I looked on Wikipedia and stated a few aerial shots where over rural Spain but most where over Southern England.

Malaysian28

Most of the airfield filming was at Duxford and North Weald, and some at Lympne?

Not sure where all the aerial stuff was filmed but you can certainly identify The Severn Sisters, Beachy Head and Eastbourne in some of the scenes.

I would be fairly sure that in 69 controlled airspace in the sth of england was nowhere near as extensive as it is now for obvious reasons. I know for a fact that quite a bit was filmed out of hawkinge which is right on the coast anyway - loads of open FIR. Apparently the weather was quite poor which caused major problems. Believe Group Captain Hamish Mahaddie (WW2 bomber pilot/pathfinder) was responsible for getting all the airframes and pilots in the right place at the right time - quite a challenge I'm led to believe.

thanks for the info everyone, cleared up a few things.
Yeah I didnt think that Heathrow and like where that busy back then.:ugh:

I Hope it's OK to mention the magazine ( nothing to do with me ) but the mag' Flypast ' has covered the story of filming ' Battle of Britain ' quite extensively over recent issues.

Hamish Mahaddie initially reckoned he could source all necessary aircraft in the UK, but this proved optimistic.

The Spanish Air Force were extremely helpful with their ( Merlin powered ) HE111's, and a lot of the filming was done over Spain.

Incidentaly I recently met a chap who was involved in the filming, and operated a replica Hurricane, fitted with Jaguar engine for taxi-only use.

He reckons he got quite a long flight at an altitude of 8' out of it !

That 'aircraft', which looks very authentic, is now on display at Tangmere.

An article in October 2009 edition of Aeroplane Monthly details some newly discovered photos from the film. Well worth reading.

Unfortunately no new shots of Section Officer Harvey in night ops battle kit :(


Susannah York Film Actress - MirrorPrintStore

Ah yes, Hawkinge rather than Lympne! Now a housing estate by the looks of it...

If you head north about five miles up the A260 towards Canterbury you come to Denton and the Jackdaw Inn, where Section Officer Harvey and Sqn Ldr Harvey have their first spat... does a nice meal there.

B O B Film
 

After the film was released a paper back book appeared that covered why and how the film was made.
I have a copy somewhere but it should be possible to find a copy from ABEBOOKS.
The RAF provided a large number of pilots for the fighters (suitably tail wheel checked).
The Spanish airforce also provided pilots for the H111 and Bouchons,with some Americans who had bought some for themselves.
This really got the warbird movement going when it prooved possible to reactivate "gate guardians" for use.
The main problem (as usual) was the lack of flying Hurricanes, PZ865,and LF363 were there again (having already done Angels one five,and Reach for the sky)Also a Canadian built machine came across (and then went to Scotland).
The camera ship (Mitchell) languished at Biggin for years,and it would be good if someone put together an article on the organising and operating of the "fighter force",under the auspices of one "G Elliot" i think.
One of the "full size Hurricane copies" has recently come to Cornwall,it looks pretty realistic from 20 feet.
A bunch of full size Hurricane models were made for "burning",and you can see the plywood panels quite clearly once the fabric has burnt away.
Your quite correct that the English weather played its hand in disrupting filming and extra scenes had to be be reshot in Spain.
Must have been a wonderful time to see all those merlins being serviced again.
PC

I do remember, tho, that I was driving through Brentwood, I believe, when I heard a noise, looked up, and was astonished to see a Heinkel 111 [CASA] flying over. Quick double take, realised it was to do with the making of the film, but I was unaware that any had flown to U.K. for the making of the film.

I was on a course at Rolls Royce Small Engine Division at Leavesden in '69 when the airfield was "strafed" by a bunch of 109s which were then attacked and hotly pusued by three Spitfires. Unlike today's airshow dogfights, this scrap looked very realistic. It doesn't appear in the movie, and Leavesden in '69 looked nothing like it did in 1940 so I guess it was a practice run for a proposed scene.

At Bovingdon we assembled 4 Mosquitoes for the Mirisch Pictures movie Mosquito Squadron. On the second day practically the entire force of Battle of Britain turned up! To see the BoB aircraft and the Mosquitoes together was quite a sight!
A divorce later and somehow all my slides got burned!

We moved the Mosquito Squadron to West Raynham for some peace and quiet and the North Norfolk coast at Holkham/Langham.

IIRC, for the UK filming, two main controlled airspace areas were set aside, a small one being for some of the white cliffs and over the channel for the shots out of Hawkinge, but the main area was actually in Cambidgeshire, hence the main base of ops being Duxford. I believe at least one RAF Canberra crew got a shock when they strayed into the NOTAM area and came out of cloud into the middle of a gaggle of 109’s :cool:
So, not really the south of England in the traditional sense, and therefore didn’t interfere with Heathrow, Gatwick etc at all.
The three airfields used were Duxford, North Weald and the sadly now gone Hawkinge which still was pretty much as it had been during 1940 having never had tarmac runways constructed.

The summer of 1968 in the UK was bad weather wise and so to get he filming in the can in time, one or maybe a couple (can’t remember exactly) of the Spits were ferried to Spain to enable the aerial filming to be completed.

Around that time as a Flt Sgt in a local ATC squadron we had a Wing parade at Bovingdon with a load of BofB aircraft on the airfield, including the Mitchell camera plane.

Was pretty spectacular.

On the 15th. May 1968 I was detailed to take the AOC 19Gp from St Mawgan to Manston for his inspection of 22Sqdn Det at Manston
It must have been one of the few good days as I remember we sat on the grass under the wing having a picnic lunch with the in flight rations !
Suddenly the air was filled with the sound of Merlins and into the circuit came the 109's for a stream landing followed by the two Heinkel's and the B25. They had arrived from Jersey for customs clearance before departing for Duxford via the White Cliffs for some air to air shots. Still have the b/w pics.

Might be worth doing a search on this forum as a couple of years ago one of the BoBfilm Spit pilots was talking about it and had several amusing anecdotes.
(Despite being quite computer literate I and the Pprune Search Engine do not get on at all well).

This website about Duxford has some good information about the making of the film.

battleofbritain

It is worth buying the 2 disc special edition DVD set because that has extra interviews and a documentary film about the making of the original movie.

EGGP

Thanks for all the interesting info everyone.

Malaysian28.

The summer of 1968 in the UK was bad weather wise and so to get he filming in the can in time, one or maybe a couple (can’t remember exactly) of the Spits were ferried to Spain to enable the aerial filming to be completed.

Latterly Southern France for the good weather methinks, via Cambridge.

A single Spitfire, MH415/G-AVDJ, was ferried out to Tablada, via Luton for aerial work in Spain at the very start of filming.

PeterA

From what I remember about the book of the film (I have it around somewhere) much of the aircraft sourcing was done by the great John Blake.

If anyone is interested play.com sell a blu-ray version and the quality is outstanding. I sold my original on ebay and now show this version off as a demo to those who are interested in HD and blu-ray. Many asked if the film was a recent release, and when told it is 40 years old they were shocked!!