Spitfire BL995 near South Milford.
On the night of 28th / 29th April 1942 this 133 Squadron aircraft was patrolling the York area around midnight when it was possibly damaged by a German Dornier Do217 bomber on its way to bomb York. Details are sketchy but it is believed the damage caused the Spitfire to go out of control leaving the pilot with little option but to bale out. The pilot survived the landing and the aircraft crashed near the village of South Milford. I also believe that the pilot of this aircraft returned fire and damaged the Do217 which was able to fly off.
Spitfire BL995 was built to contract B.981687/39 by Vickers Armstrong's Ltd. at Castle Bromwich and was flown to 12 MU at Kirkbride on 26th February 1942. On 10th March 1942 it was taken on charge by 601 Squadron at Acaster Malbis who then moved to Digby on 25th March 1942. The aircraft was transferred to 133 Squadron at Kirton in Lindsey on 13th April 1942. As a result of the crash on 29th April 1942 Cat.E2/FB damage was the assessment and it was written off.
The pilot of BL995 was not one P/O Eyre Osbourne Ievers RAFVR (81827), he is quoted as being its pilot in some more modern publications. P/O Ievers was the Commanding Officer of 15 B.D.S. based at Ulleskelf and was killed in York on this date while working on an unexploded bomb in Clifton, York as part of the enemy attack on the city. P/O Ievers is buried at Kirkby Wharfe, near Tadcaster, he was thirty eight years old.
Pilot - P/O Eric Doorly RAFVR (101458), of Hawaii, USA.
Eric Doorly (pictured above in perhaps the world's worst photograph) was granted a commission as P/O on probation on 27th June 1941 in the RAFVR, however this notification in the London Gazette was cancelled a week later. I do not know why this occurred. On 6th September 1942 he was shot down in Spitfire BS276 but was able to evade capture and after crossing the Pyrenees into Spain. He returned to the USA and joined in the USAAF to return to the UK. He later flew with the 406th Fighter Sqn, 371st Fighter Group, USAAF.
Air historian Mr Albert Pritchard was friendly with the land owner's father where Spitfire BL995 crashed and he arranged for myself, Ken Reast and Eric Barton
to visit the area of the crash site in September 2010. The field had been ploughed which made a surface search hard but a few small peices of the aircraft were found in the general area of the crash. As such we have not located the exact crash location but simply part of it. The crash site of this Spitfire was located in 2008 by a team headed by Mr Max Elliott who found and probably recovered other peices.
