Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Spitfire: The People’s Plane

Before a plane could save a country, the people had to build it. This is the story of a beautiful and deadly icon of resistance, built and flown against extraordinary odds.

World Service,11 episodes

Episodes

ListGrid

Phoenix
The story of the people who built the plane that won a war
09 May 2020,18 mins
Crowdfunding
Communities across Britain are enlisted to raise funds for Spitfires
16 May 2020,18 mins
Makeshift factories
Amid the smouldering ruins of the Spitfire factory, a new strategy emerges
23 May 2020,17 mins
Makeshift wedding
Spitfire production is getting back on track, but the search for locations continues
30 May 2020,18 mins
Women take control
The new Spitfires need to be flown to RAF bases desperate for reinforcements
06 Jun 2020,18 mins
The Shilling factor
The fastest woman in Britain is called in to solve a dangerous problem
13 Jun 2020,17 mins
New planes, new rules
Ramping up production requires another new factory - but it nearly costs Britain dearly
20 Jun 2020,18 mins
Faster and higher
The plane's designers try to respond to Germany's latest fighter developments
27 Jun 2020,18 mins
Teenage pilots
How does it feel to fly a Spitfire?
04 Jul 2020,18 mins
Scramble
A day that changed the course of World War Two
11 Jul 2020,18 mins
Introducing Spitfire: The People’s Plane
Tuppence Middleton meets the heroes who built the plane that turned back the Nazis.
05 May 2020,3 mins