Thanks guys, much appreciated.
Kitnut617 - according to the book when the spitfire in question landed at Tom Neils airfield with engine trouble the serials were already obscured by the sky tail band, once stripped back to silver they never went back on, although it did get some squadron codes when it was taken over by the c/o of a Polish squadron. This seems to be born out by all the photographs I could find during research.
Hope this helps
Mog
>^-.-^<