Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Ixc - Flying Dray - Tadeusz Szumowski
Airfix 17001A

This Supermarine Spitfire Mk.IXc kit in 1:24 scale includes all the parts you need to replicate the beer-carrying Spitfires, the ‘Flying Drays’. Build your own morale-boosting Second World War aircraft and create a lasting tribute to the heroes of war.

We've also added in some additional resin parts, essential for enhancing the story of your model. These include two beer barrels with lids, two nose cones, two bomb racks and a slipper tank.

And every kit comes with an Airfix pint glass, so you can raise your own morale while modelling.

History

Over the years, various photographs and stories from pilotsmemoirs have emerged about Spitfires that carried beer barrels. Publications mention a special ‘Depth Charge Modification XXX’. After the D-Day landings, squadrons based at the forward airfields in northern France would send a pilot back across the Channel in a Spitfire to collect some beer or ale in barrels strapped under the wings on modified bomb racks.

Obviously, such sorties would have been deemed highly irregular by the RAF’s higher command, so the flights would not have been recorded as such in the pilot’s logbooks. Which leaves little official proof as to the exact details of these ad hoc deliveries.

Recurring details relating to these escapades frequently turn up in various secondary sources. One example is the involvement of The Henty and Constable Brewery in Chichester and the nearby RAF Ford. To raise spirits, the story was also propagandised by the newspapers of the time, accompanied by some clearly staged photographs.

So, it’s difficult to determine the full and accurate story or whether the pilots claiming involvement in such missions were instead guilty of not letting the truth to get in the way of a good story.

In the summer of 1944, after the D-Day landings, British troops pressing into Normandy faced fierce resistance—and a dry pint glass. Supplies were tight, and morale was vital. So, in one of the war’s most unexpected missions, Spitfire pilots took to the skies, not just with ammunition, but with beer.

Ingenious airmen modified drop tanks and strapped barrels beneath their wings, delivering much-needed refreshment to parched troops across the Channel. Some called it “Operation Cheers." These weren’t official missions. They were flights of morale. Spitfires, symbols of British grit, became airborne drays for a brief, glorious period.