Spitfire X4818 near Goole.
During the morning of 14th July 1943 at least two Spitfires belonging to 53 Operational Training Unit were carrying out an air to air gunnery practice over the Humber area. The lead aircraft was being flown by an instructor and a trainee pilot was flying the following aircraft. At 10.45hrs the trainee accidently fired at and badly damaged the lead Spitfire resulting in the instructor having to bale out. The aircraft crashed on farmland just over a mile south of Goole but the pilot drifted away and landed in the River Ouse and sadly drowned. The trainee should not have removed the guard on the firing button on the control column. The aircraft buried itself in farmland and was not recovered at the time. In the 1990s a recovery took place and part of what was recovered was housed at a nearby farm at least until 2007.
Pilot - Acting S/Ldr Allan Everitt Johnson RAF (41425), aged 22. Buried Kirton-in-Lindsey Cemetery, Lincolnshire.
Eric Barton and Albert Pritchard were given permission from the landowner to do a basic field walk at the crash site in September 2007 which found a handful of tiny pieces of the aircraft. They also visited and photographed the collection of recovered wreckage held locally. The photograph shown above is of the general area of the crash site. The photograph shown below is of the collection at the farm, a photograph of a shattered Merlin engine that was in Eric's photograph album under the same aircraft identity.
After his field walk at the crash site in 2007 Eric retained a few small pieces of the aeroplane as shown in this photograph. These have since passed to me to rehome. One items contains a reasonably good example of a Spitfire part number.
Allan Johnson was granted a commission in the RAF to the rank of Acting P/O on probation on 14th December 1938 and was then graded as P/O on probation on 3rd September 1939 and confirmed as P/O on 6th October 1939. He was posted to 46 Squadron on 22nd December 1939 and flew with them throughout the next year including through the Battle of Britain. He claimed two enemy aircraft as destroyed and was credited with a share of the destruction of another enemy aircraft. He was promoted to F/O (war subs) on 3rd December 1940 and F/Lt (war subs) on 3rd December 1941. He later flew with 234 Squadron in the UK and later in North Africa until February 1943 and at the time of his death he was the chief flying instructor at 53 OTU. He must have been in the rank of Acting S/Ldr at the time of his death because there is no mention of this promotion in the London Gazette.
