The Spitfire was the iconic plane that helped Britain win WWII. Now as the nation remembers the defeat of Hitler 80 years ago, HARRY HOWARD finds out first-hand what made it so formidable

UK Daily Mail ^ | 05/08/2025 | HARRY HOWARD, HISTORY EDITOR and AMOGH GEORGE

[Cronos]

Well they fought the battle of Britain with the help of Canadians, Australians, Indians, and New Zealanders

[nagant]

ultimately Texas oil was critical for the war.
~~~~~

Unfortunately shoddy practices blew up the Texas City dock, refinery, and most of Texas City. Port Arthur stepped up and filled the void.

[ansel12]

1947?

[bobbo666]

Like the Mosquito it was made of wood. Not the scarce aluminum, wood. And, that meant all the skilled Brit cabinet makers could get a job making warplanes.

Great examples of making do with what you have.

[DesertRhino]

All true. And the Finns had massive success with the Brewster Buffalo. The eastern front was different than anywhere else. Lot’s of low altitude fights and some planes found their task there that seemed second rate in any other theater.

[DesertRhino]

“Unfortunately shoddy practices blew up the Texas City dock, refinery, and most of Texas City.”

That was post war 1947, Liberty ship filled with fertilizer caught on fire. Went off with 2.7 Kilotons.

Port Arthur was critical for us in WWII.

[Paal Gulli]

"The Hawker Hurricane was overall a better plane and more rugged."

I don't know from better but it was more important to the effort because it was cheaper to build so the slimey limeys built more of them. Plus it was a wooden airframe with a fabric skin, which was faster and cheaper to repair bullet holes in than a monocoque aluminum airframe. Which meant faster turn-around if/when they got shot up.

[Paal Gulli]

"Please pardon my curiosity, but what was the fuel and what island was the source?"

He's exaggerating, but not entirely.

At the start of the war, the RAF ran on 87 octane avgas and their fighters were slower than the ME109.

In 1930, 100/130 avgas was roughly hundred times (100x) more expensive to make than 87 avgas, too expensive for anybody but air racing pilots to use. In 1937 Sunoco figured out how to do it cost-effectively (the Houdry process) and started manufacturing it in secret.

Jimmy Doolittle had left active duty after WWI and was working for Shell Oil as a racing pilot and head of their aviation fuel program. He was the most recognizable name among the very small group that were SCREAMING at the top of their lungs that the US needed to solve the 100/130 riddle in the interest of national security. His foresight played a YUGE role in America's preparedness for WWII (a bit like Kelly Johnson in that respect).

During the battle of Britain, the US gave the RAF a limited supply of 100/130 to test and it worked so well they switched to it entirely afterwards. Not only did it make the fighters 25-40 knots faster (depending who you believe) at 10,000 feet, the (tetraethyl) lead built up in the engines so much slower than with 87 octane that it doubled the rebuild interval.

Literally one day the Nazis thought they could toy with Spitfires and destroy them at will, and the next day they couldn't catch them. It also made the RAF's bombers faster (not so much, but a little) and doubled the rebuild interval.

It made so much difference in performance that Merlin started building updated engines with higher compression and bigger turbochargers because the old engines couldn't extract all the power from the 100/130.

There were three places the 100/130 was manufactured, Houston, Baton Rouge and Trinidad (which is, as promised, a Caribbean island).

So it wasn't the only fuel the Spitfire could run on, and Trinidad wasn't the only place where it was made. But it was a secret weapon that gave the RAF and later the Army Air Corps a YUGE advantage over the Luftwaffe, who had their own high octane fuels but couldn't manufacture them in the quantities the US could.

[Paal Gulli]

The reason the first 100/130 island refinery was on Trinidad is that the British built it and built it in (what at that time was) a British holding. It also was the only of the three original 100/130 refineries that wasn’t American-controlled.

There had been refineries on both Aruba and Curaçao since about 1920, but at that time the “ABC Islands” (Aruba, Bonaire & Curaçao) were Dutch. I can’t see the British financing the construction of a refinery on a Dutch island.

Like everything to do with war material, as the war grew nearer (and especially after Pearl Harbor), the manufacture got spread around so once America got in the war I expect anybody with a cracking tower in their back yard was manufacturing mogas and/or 100/130.

[bert]

Thanks for that report.