This Nova Scotian's dad flew a Spitfire during WW II. He just went to Poland to see it

When Brian Mann was a little kid growing up in Cape Breton, N.S., he'd sometimes rummage through a drawer in the family kitchen and pull out the flying goggles his father wore during the Second World War.

Mann would head outside, put on the goggles and imagine flying the Spitfire his father flew for the Royal Canadian Air Force.

"All I saw was clouds and sky," said Mann, 72. "And even then I'd think to myself, 'This is what he looked at through these goggles. This is what it looked like.' And that was as close as I could ever get to his Spitfire."

Mann never got to fulfil his childhood dream of flying Ed Mann's Spitfire. But, at a museum in Poland in June, he got to sit in the cockpit.

"It was very emotional to see it and it's something that was more than we had anticipated because you really can't get ready for it," said Mann. "It all comes back to you that this is the actual plane that my father flew."

Around 20,000 Spitfires were made during the Second World War, but only a couple hundred remain. Only a few dozen are considered airworthy.

Getting to Poland to see Ed Mann's Spitfire capped a two-decade effort by his family to see the plane. Mann died in 1996, never knowing his plane had survived the war. His family only learned of its existence in 2005.

Previous trips were delayed by health issues and a death in the family, while plans to go to Poland in May 2020 were scuttled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

How the plane ended up in Poland

Ed Mann's Spitfire — named Florence after his wife — has had a colourful life after the war. It appeared in the 1969 film Battle of Britain in scenes where pilots climbed in and out of Spitfires.

Brian Mann and his father attended the film at a theatre when it came out, unaware that Ed Mann's Spitfire was on the screen in front of them.

Following the film, the Spitfire was used as a mobile display aircraft for the Royal Air Force.

In 1977, it was traded with Poland in something called Operation Fair Exchange. Aviation enthusiasts viewed the swap as anything but fair because a DH9A, a First World War plane that was the only one of its kind, was sent to Britain in return.

From there, it made its way to the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow and was repainted to appear as an aircraft flown by a Polish unit of the Royal Air Force.

This is where Mann and five family members came face to face with the plane. Officials arranged for a private viewing that lasted almost two hours.

Heather MacDonald was one of the family members on the trip. She's Brian Mann's younger sister.

"To sit on the wing and place my hands where dad had had his, that was something else," she said.

She thinks her father would have been proud that his children were interested in his plane and cared enough to make the journey to see it.

Also present at the viewing were some of the people who played a role in letting the Mann family know about Florence's whereabouts. That included Franek Grabowski, a Polish freelance researcher and journalist.

It was Grabowski's observation that the markings on the plane showed it had not been flown by Poles. That sparked the search effort that ultimately led to the Manns.

"It was like meeting old family because we had been corresponding for so many years [with them] before finally getting over there," said MacDonald.

Brian Mann said while this was the first trip for family members to see the plane, it's a piece of family history that future generations will visit.

"With dad's plane, that means it won't be forgotten," he said. "It will always be there."