Darwin World War II hero's RAAF spitfire wreckage discovered in Litchfield National Park

While the ensuing battle has for decades been marked in folklore, the whereabouts of Duncan's shot-down plane has, until now, remained a mystery.

The spitfire A58-2 Duncan was flying caught fire, engulfing the cabin in flames and sending the aircraft plummeting towards the ground in a spiral dive.

Desperate to escape, the rip cord to release his aircraft canopy failed, leaving Duncan scrambling to force it off and struggle out of the aircraft to parachute to the ground.

But his battle was only just beginning.

Duncan was stranded with severe burns in tough Top End terrain, alone and with minimal supplies, and it would be another five days before he was rescued.

Seventy-six years since that fateful flight, Colin Duncan's grandson has visited the wreckage of his grandfather's plane for the first time.

As he walked through the untouched debris of the spitfire's final resting place, Duncan Williams was left shocked.

"It's a genuine time capsule," he said.

"I didn't expect it. I don't know what I was expecting really.

"It's surreal."

Mr Williams said he was amazed his grandfather managed to escape alive.

On viewing the wreckage, he remarked on how the spitfire hit the ground with such force it left only a mangled mess of metal.

"He was very lucky to get out alive," Mr Williams said.

"Here we've got the cannons. You can see the angle the plane hit the ground.

"No-one hammered that in with a sledge hammer. That's the force of the plane hitting.

The remote location in Litchfield National Park, about 110 kilometres south of Darwin, means the spitfire has remained undiscovered until recently.

And with the crash site immensely difficult to reach and only accessible by helicopter, the plan is to preserve the wreckage at its final resting place.

'This is our Pearl Harbour'

The RAAF has handed ownership of the wreckage to the Northern Territory Government in the hope it will help tell the story of Darwin's role in World War II.

According to RAAF Air Commodore John Meier, the new find in the Top End outback is testament to the Darwin's often forgotten place in modern wartime history.

"We only had a few spitfires in Australia, and this one is of major significance because it was lost in the battle of Darwin," he said.

"If you compare it to Pearl Harbour, that everyone knows about, this is our Pearl Harbour, and it's not particularly well known by the Australian population."

Colin Duncan continued flying spitfires in the war, and later played cricket for Victoria as well as running a successful building company.

He died in 1992 from cancer, leaving behind his wife and two daughters.

Source | ABC