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Britain
10,000 Spitfires head for Germany
2006-06-04
The last time they flew across the Channel, they were 32 feet long, with Rolls-Royce engines and wings bristling with 20mm cannons.

Now they measure all of 18 inches, have no engine and not so much as a peashooter - but their "pilots" still risk being thrown into German captivity.

The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that a "big wing" of more than 10,000 inflatable Spitfires will this week cross into Germany and, when the World Cup starts on Friday, they could face the kind of frosty reception encountered by their wartime counterparts.

England football fans have been warned of arrest by the British Home Secretary, threatened with "zero tolerance" by a German police chief, and told not to mention the war by the creator of Basil Fawlty himself. Some have responded by packing inflatable Spitfires by the thousand into their camper vans to sell throughout Germany and finance their World Cup trips.

Alf Ancell, 31, who designed the Spitfires, admitted he had found plenty of fans willing to sell the planes in Germany. . . .
Posted by:Mike

#3  Has that ringing sound in your ears stopped, yet? :)
Posted by: flyover   2006-06-04 22:49  

#2  Your German friend probably has the same reaction my dad did when I built that 1:48 Tiger I tank.
Posted by: Mike   2006-06-04 22:47  

#1  Perhaps Germans would not object if instead of Spittfires the English brought replicas of gas chambers. Seeems that the Germans don't know the concept of freedom of expession.

BTW I have German friends whose son has decorated his room with scaled models of Allied planes, or to be more precise Allied bombers
Posted by: JFM   2006-06-04 15:53  

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