At the age of 96, he may well be the sole remaining survivor of the bombing attack that took took place on the Supermarine factory in Woolston.

Philip Pearce was born in May of 1922 and lived in Butts Road, Sholing with his parents and younger brother, Dennis.

His father worked in the Thorneycroft factory in Woolston as a Shipwright and his brother worked there as a Machinist.

Mr Pearce left school at the age of 14 and took up an apprenticeship in the Supermarine factory as a Sheet Metal Worker. As with most apprentices he was given all sorts of menial jobs during the first year or two - a general dogsbody.

The seaplane that won the Schneider Trophy race had been designed and built at the factory and production had switched to another Seaplane called The Walrus.

Around this period, a ship came into the docks from Germany called The Bremen. A seaplane bringing the mail from abroad would be catapulted from this ship and it used to tie up at the jetty by the factory for refuelling and sometimes to be serviced. So, the Germans were well aware of what was produced in the factory and its specific location.

A gentleman by the name of R J Mitchell joined the team and designed the Spitfire, so when the war started, production concentrated on building the iconic fighter plane.

As with many factories during war time, a lot of women were employed at Woolston. They manufactured the parts to build the planes and one of their jobs was to form the panel shapes by placing them over jigs supplied by the tool room. Next, they had to drill hundreds of holes for the rivets and scribe the panel which was handed to Mr Pearce so he could cut off the surplus metal.

All the components to make the Spitfire were sent to part of the Briggs Motor plant at Swaythling and the plane was assembled there and given its test flight at what is now Southampton Airport.

The bombing took place in September 1940 - not long after Mr Pearce had celebrated his 18th birthday. He remembers hearing the sirens blaring, the ground shaking and the deafening sound of explosions.

His work bench was on a balcony that ran around the sides of the building with access to the exits by way of a staircase. After getting half way down the stairs he saw a large press which offered more protection, so he quickly crawled under it - there was no way he could risk leaving the building with the bombing already underway.

Another worker slid under the press and, during a lull in the attack, the pair plucked up the courage to make a dash for the shelters. These were built above ground on the edge of Peartree Common next to the railway line. To get to there they had to leave the relative safety of the bench and cross a road before going through a tunnel under the railway.

Upon exiting the factory, they were shocked to see the railway tunnel had received a direct hit and all that was left was a heap of rubble. They later learned that many co-workers who were in the shelters had been killed – so fate had meant they had survived.

Now in the open they quickly searched for some form of shelter but could only find a small section of beach alongside the river between the factory and the next building, so they laid down there.

They soon heard an aircraft and, upon looking up, saw a German bomber flying very low over the river. Suddenly the shingle on the beach began flying up around them and they could see a rear gunner as he was strafing the area. It was nothing short of a miracle that they escaped unharmed for the second time that day.

It all happened so fast and the plane soon flew on down the river and out into the Solent. The aircraft was so low that if the Itchen Bridge had been built, the pilot would have had to have flown under it.

Later the factory was destroyed during a bombing raid - Mr Pearce was not there that time.

The Government was quick to respond and any small building in the area capable of producing parts for the plane was soon commandeered. Sewards garage in Winchester Road, the Hampshire Laundry, Furniture Stores and Winchester Bus Station were some of the places.

Mr Pearce, along with a group of workers, were taken to Winchester Bus Station daily in the back of a Pitters lorry in order to carry on their work.

Sites in Reading, Hungerford and Newbury were also used, and Salisbury Bus Station was where wings and fuselages were built.

Due to the damage sustained at the Supermarine factory, production had to be moved and large trailers called Queen Mary’s were brought in and loaded with machinery, plane parts and work benches - including the one which saved Mr Pearce and his friend. These were then taken to Castle Bromwich in the Midlands and the building of the Spitfire continued there.

All that remains of the factory now is the slip way and is a Grade 2 listed structure for its historical interest with the work done by R J Mitchell.

After serving his National Service Mr Pearce had several jobs involving his trade and finished his time working at Follands, which then became AST Hamble, making drop fuel tanks for the Gnat Jet Pilot training aircraft.

When he retired in 1986 at the age of 64 he had been involved in aircraft all his working life.