Spitfire Mk IX Abandoned Since 1946 — Found in a Sicilian Wine Cave After 79 Years Flying Again

The pilot walked away. The aircraft didn’t. The
Spitfire came down wheels-up on a farm track east
of Rivolto in the spring of 1945 with battle damage
sustained over the Po Valley — the war in Italy was
in its last weeks and no one was coming back for a
single damaged fighter. Local farmers from Rivolto
pushed the aircraft by hand into the large natural
wine cave they had excavated into the basalt rock
face at the edge of their property, sealed the
entrance with dry-stone walling, and called it
protection. The cave was forgotten. It stayed sealed
under the Friulian basalt for 79 years until
construction workers expanding the estate wine
cellar demolished the dry-stone wall in 2026 and
found MK356 inside — every surface coated in 79
years of calcium tartrate precipitated from the
old wine and fine volcanic mineral dust, the Dark
Green and Ocean Grey camouflage intact beneath
the white-cream mineral crust, the No. 43 Squadron
“FT-A” codes still readable under the deposit.
The Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 turned by hand on the
first day at Vigna di Valle.

The Supermarine Spitfire LF Mk.IXe was powered by
the Rolls-Royce Merlin 66 — a two-stage two-speed
supercharged V-12 liquid-cooled engine producing
1,720 horsepower, optimised for performance below
21,000 feet and widely regarded as the finest
mark of Spitfire produced during the war in terms
of all-round combat capability — and armed with
two 20mm Hispano Mk.II cannon and two Browning M2
.50-calibre machine guns in the elliptical wings.
No. 43 Squadron RAF, the Fighting Cocks, 324 Wing,
Desert Air Force, flew the Spitfire Mk.IX from
Nettuno, Italy in 1944 and 1945 in the air
superiority and ground attack roles over the
Italian theatre as Allied forces pushed north
through the Gothic Line and into the Po Valley.
The Merlin 66 — a V-12 whose two-stage supercharger
gave it a critical altitude advantage over the
single-stage Merlin 45 of the Spitfire Mk.V that
had been outclassed by the Fw 190 over the Channel
in 1941 — restored parity at medium and high
altitude and defined the Spitfire’s combat
effectiveness for the remainder of the war. The
elliptical wing of the Spitfire, designed by
R.J. Mitchell’s team at Supermarine to accommodate
the thinnest possible wing profile while
maintaining structural integrity and housing
the full cannon armament, remains one of the
most aerodynamically elegant solutions in the
entire history of fighter aircraft design.

This video was created with the assistance of
Artificial Intelligence for educational and
entertainment purposes. All historical references
are based on real events and aircraft.

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