6 Spitfire Adaptations – Images of the Spitfire during WWII

1. Spitfires were used as reconnaissance aircraft, as here, where a camera is being loaded before a mission.

2. Later marks of Spitfire were sometimes given specially designed wings – Bs, Cs, or Es – capable of mounting cannon.

3. The Seafire Mark III was a Spitfire specially adapted for naval service on aircraft-carriers.

4. Spitfires saw service in all theatres. The photo shows No 138 Fighter Squadron on deployment to the Cocos Islands.

5. RAF mechanics train Yugoslav partisans in the maintenance of Spitfires.

6. The Mark XIV Spitfire, a faster, higher-climbing plane with a 5-blade Rotol propeller and Griffon 65 engine introduced late in the war, was the first Allied aircraft to bring down one of the new German jet-fighters.