Spitfire P8171 at Leeming airfield.
On 17th June 1941 this 41 Squadron aircraft overshot a landing at Leeming at 15.00hrs and a wheel struck a rut off in landing area which broke
the port undercarriage. The undercarriage is believed to have then collapsed and the aircraft skidded to a halt.
Pilot - Sgt Herbert Leonard Thorne RAFVR (1164397).
Herbert Thorne was only at 41 Squadron very briefly, he arrived on 9th June 1941 and was posted out to 602 Squadron on 5th July 1941. He
received a commission on 1st May 1942 (121518) and survived the War. He was Mentioned in Despatches in 1944, and then again in 1946. He
died in Redditch in 2008. My thanks to 41 Squadron historian Steve Brew for these additional details.
Spitfire P8171 was built to contract B.981687/39 by Vickers Armstrong's Ltd. at Castle Bromwich and after testing it was delivered to
9 MU at Cosford on 13th March 1941. On 30th March 1941 it was taken on charge by 41 Squadron at Catterick, it sustained Cat.M(c) damage as
a result of the incident recorded above but this incident does not appear on the aircraft's record card so must have been considered too
minor to record. It was almost certainly repaired on site or taken the few miles down the road back to Catterick for repair and returned to
the unit only to be transferred to 145 Squadron also at Catterick on 30th July 1941. On 10th September 1941 it was transferred to 19 Squadron
at Matlaske, Norfolk where it suffered a Cat.B/FA accident in November 1941. On 31st December 1941 it was taken to AST Ltd. at Exeter for
repair and after a lengthy repair and period of storage it was taken on charge by 61 OTU on 16th October 1942 at Rednal. Here the aircraft's
history gets somewhat vague, the aircraft was flown to Vickers Armstrong's Ltd. at Castle Bromwich on 4th November 1942 but the reason for
this is unknown. It next appears as having sustained Cat.B/FA damage on 27th March 1943 but again no details are known. The next entry states
it was taken to Scottish Aviation Ltd at Prestwick on 20th July 1944 but this cannot be correct as it cannot have sat in a damaged state for
over a year. It was probably not repaired following this unidentified damage. This aircraft and a number of other aircraft in the same
production batch of this Spitfire were struck off charge on 16th August 1944 but this must simply be just a date when the book-keeping was
carried out rather than the date it was deemed un-repairable.