FOR those in the south of an age who remember watching the dogfights between Fighter Command’s pilots and the crews of the Luftwaffe over southern Hampshire, the vital interest in the outcome was heightened by knowing that one of the Royal Air Force’s planes was made in Southampton.

That plane was the Spitfire – built at the Supermarine Aviation Works at Woolston on the River Itchen and designed by a man whose untimely death would cruelly rob him of the chance to see his creation in its finest hour as it twisted and turned in the skies to protect the homeland during the Battle of Britain.

The Spitfire was the culmination of Supermarine’s chief designer Reginald J Mitchell life’s work in Southampton.

Born near Stoke-on-Trent in May 1895, young Reginald found a passion for aviation. As a schoolboy – at a time when aviation was in its infancy – he made model aeroplanes out of bamboo and paper and watched in awe as their wooden propellers were turned by a twisted rubber loop.

After engineering study and jobs in the Stoke area, he joined Supermarine at Southampton in 1917 and soon established a name for himself as an excellent designer after advancing up the ranks of the company within a few years.

The Mitchell-designed S.6 seaplane, which won the Schneider Trophy in 1931 and later broke the world air speed record, was a culmination of Mitchell’s quest to “perfect the design of the racing seaplane” – a design that would lend inspiration to Mitchell in 1931 when the Air Ministry were seeking a new aircraft design to replace the Gloster Gauntlet.

With Supermarine’s first offering, the Supermarine Type 224, proving a disappointment, Mitchell and his team began work in earnest on a new aircraft, designated Type 300. Originally rejected by the Air Ministry, it continued to undergo a series of modifications that eventually resulted in the Ministry issuing a contract and grant for the development of the aircraft in 1934.

By this time Mitchell was not only living and breathing his new aircraft – working in the day at the Supermarine Works in Woolston before returning to his Portswood home to make further modifications to his aircraft drawings – he was also fighting his own personal cancer battle.

With unwavering determination, Mitchell continued to immerse himself in his work and by 1936, the prototype Spitfire, serial number K5054, was nearly ready – thanks to his flair, tenacity and, not least, his courage.

When he watched the prototype K5054’s first flight on March 5, 1936 it was destined to be one of the few times he saw his creation in flight. He died 15 months later, at noon on June 11, 1937, aged 42.

Buried at South Stoneham Cemetery with his wife Florence who died in 1946, a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the family home, Haxeldene, in Portswood, Southampton, by his son the late Dr Gordon Mitchell, at the time of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Britain in September 1990.

At the same time, a statue of Reginald Mitchell was dedicated by The Duke of Gloucester at the Southampton Hall of Aviation – now Solent Sky Museum - as a permanent tribute to this great adopted son of Southampton.