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CO of 32 Squadron. His personal spitfire at that time was MJ730 GZ-?
The tradition of using a question mark to denote the squadron commander’s personal aircraft was established by Wing Commander George Silvester DFC. Spitfires were transferred to 32 Squadron in Kolomaki, Greece, on October 9th 1944 and he chose MJ730 as his personal aircraft. He told his ground crew that there was a question mark over which letter they should paint on his aircraft since as the commanding officer he was neither a member of A flight nor B flight. For fun, they painted a temporary question mark (in whitewash apparently) in place of an identification letter. Silvester enjoyed the joke, and from then until well into the fifties all subsequent COs used a question mark to denote their personal aircraft. The aircraft became known as “The CO’s Query”.
The aircraft is fully restored to flying condition and is owned by The Military Aviation Museum, Virginia Beach
