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Riveting video! Thanks, John.
20,000 made altogether. To get some perspective on production ability, Evansville, IN built over 7,000 P-47’s - and there were numerous other places that built THAT fighter. At the end of the war we pushed thousands of them into the sea.
I note no mention of the, I believe, Mark VI Spitfire. It was a first attempt to build a high-altitude fighter, and it was a dog. The ONLY remaining example is, I believe in the Smithsonian - somewhere (probably the ?Silver Hill, MD location). Since no one had built a pressurized fighter before, this model had grommets around all the cables, making them hard to move. The canopy was extra thick, so the pilot got in, then the canopy was lowere onto the aircraft - and bolted in place. If the pilot needed to bail out, he had a hatchet to bash his way through the thick canopy, then attempt to jump out what hole there was. Needless-to-say, it was not much liked by the pilots.
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My Chinook had a hatchet in it. Those funny Boeing guys…
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Probably meant to “repel boarders”.
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Maybe, but as my personal weapon I packed a sawed-off M79 grenade launcher. Horseshoes and hand grenades, remember?
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Yeah, I often went out on patrol with an M-79 - with a shotgun shell in the breach. We had a mama-san make a vest from a jungle top that carried about 65 rounds. You would wear it instead of the flak jacket.