Reginald Mitchell, against doctors orders, continued to work on the Spitfire until his death from cancer.
There's an excellent film about him called "Spitfire", aka "The First of the Few" (1942) starring David Niven and Leslie Howard (who also starred in "Gone with the Wind"), and directed by Howard.
Tragically, on June 1, 1943 Leslie Howard and 13 other crew and passengers died in the interception far at sea in the Bay of Biscay of a KLM Lisbon-to-Bristol DC-3 airliner by 8 Ju-88-C-6's of Kampfgeschwader 40. It may be that the intercept was the result of Howard's accompanying business manager's resemblance to Winston Churchill together with Churchills known presence at Gibraltar, or of Joseph Goebbels animosity towards Howard's anti-Nazi activities which resulted in the Iberian lecture tour he was returning from. Enigma intercepts revealed that the flight's passenger list had been sent to Berlin the prior evening, but (as with the Coventry bombing) no protective action was taken lest the Enigma secret be revealed.
Another 8 Ju88's of the same group got their noses bloodied (3 kills claimed) when attacking a well armed Sunderland flying boat flying a search at the same location the following day. Speculation is that Churchills presence was suspected on any northbound aircraft in the area, or that the LW sought to prevent any rescue of survivors from the DC-3 lost the day before. That particular KG was normally charged with eliminating long range air threats to U boats transiting to and from the French coast, so the Sunderland would have been a normal target, tho the airliner would normally have been at most, a target of opportunity.
Incidently, the same DC-3 had been attacked by 6 Ju88's 9 days earlier,*at the same location*, but the Dutch pilot had flown as low as 50 feet before successfully climbing into clouds and evading! Emulate that, goon drivers!
More on this interesting topic at
http://www.n461.com/howard.html
