Spitfire Mk I R6690 PR-Q or PR-A

[Peter Cook]

Profile artwork for Spitfire R6690, flown by F/O John Dundas of 609 Squadron is shown as PR-Q in Alfred Price's Spitfire Mark I/II Aces 1939–41, 1996, Pg. 4, and as PR-A in Simon Parry's Battle of Britain Combat Archive, 2016, Vo. 3, Pg. 406. In Spitfire, the History, Morgan and Shacklady also list R6690 as PR-A, Which is correct?

[Chris Goss]

R6637 lost 9 Jul 40 was coded PR-Q. I have R6690 as PR-A damaged 13 Aug 40 and then lost 15 Sep 40

[Stig Jarlevik]

Back in 2007 Air Britain in their Aeromilitaria magazine published all that they knew about the Spitfire Mk Is

Since I have no idea how common it was for an aircraft to be repainted within the unit itself, take the information
for what it is.

R6690 is only listed with 609Sq as PR-X after delivery to the unit on 7 June 1940.
Since it was damaged on 13 Aug 1940 (Dundas) and shot down 15 Sep 1940 (Gaunt) you have three month
to have it repainted. Did that happen?

Cheers
Stig

PS: Chris was faster than me. Aeromilitaria also has R6637 as PR-Q but only PR-X for R6690

[Chris Goss]

My info is based on the diary of a 609 groundcrewman who not only logged the serials but the codes

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

My info is based on the diary of a 609 groundcrewman who not only logged the serials but the codes

Very good of him
The X might be a result of a sloppy written letter in the ORB?

Cheers
Stig

[Chris Goss]

ORB did not record codes just serials

[Stig Jarlevik]

Originally Posted by Chris Goss

ORB did not record codes just serials

OK Chris
Since the compilers of the list must have got the code from somewhere, and none of them were in the
guessing business it seems some handwritten note must have been wrongly interpreted, unless the
aircraft was repainted. How common was that?

Cheers
Stig

[AndyMa]

There are all sorts of reasons for an aircraft to be recoded.
Some squadrons used different codes for different flights (eg first 13 letters for A Flt, second half of alphabet for B Flt). So a transfer between flights might trigger a code change.

Also, if an aircraft was damaged and taken out of the battle for a short period, a replacement aircraft might be delivered and take up the code, resulting in the original aircraft needing to be recoded when it re-entered service.

[Stig Jarlevik]

Thanks Andy

Yes of course there are reasons.
But did it happen in this case?

Cheers
Stig

[Peter Cook]

Thank you all for the input, I am with Chris on PR-A, especially as the profile artist for the BOB Combat Archive is Mark Postlethwaite, who is pretty meticulous with his research.