The Last Spitfire

''Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." Thus, 19 years ago, Winston Churchill hailed the pilots of the R.A.F.'s Spitfires and Hurricanes, which day after nightmare day in the summer and autumn of 1940 rose up to defy the waves of German bombers boring in on Britain. And ever since the war, on the third Sunday in September, Britain has commemorated The Few with an R.A.F. flypast over London. Traditionally, one Spitfire and one Hurricane have led the way for a formation of the modern jets that have replaced them.

Last week, regretfully judged too old and unsafe for future Septembers, the proud old fighters purred peacefully over London for the last time. Hardly had Spitfire Sugar Love 574 passed out of sight of the nostalgic crowd on the Horse Guards Parade when its engine began to cough and sputter. Losing altitude rapidly, the pilot, Air Vice Marshal Harold John Maguire, spotted a green and empty sports field and prepared to belly-land on it. As the Oxo and Old Hollingtonian cricket teams, which had just retired to the pavilion for their half-time tea, watched in amazement, the stricken Spitfire shot in, flaps down and wheels up, narrowly missed an oak tree, flattened on the grass and skidded 60 yards to a stop in the outfield.

Climbing out of his cockpit with a reassuring wave to the old Hurricane circling overhead, Pilot Maguire apologized to the cricketers for damaging their wicket, and joined them at tea in the pavilion. Tea concluded, the game was resumed. Pushed off the playing field, its propeller, undercarriage and one wing broken, Spitfire Sugar Love rested at last on the sidelines--a silent spectator of the way of life it had helped to preserve.

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