In the early morning of the 28th of February 1942 two Spitfires took off from their forward operating base at Thornaby for a convoy patrol off Whitby. There was low cloud and it was a very cold morning. On the return leg of the flight this aircraft suffered engine failure so the pilot force-landed the aircraft without injury to himself in snow, the aircraft sustained Cat AC damage. The location of this landing is given as "One mile North West of Helmsley, on an army camp". As it stands the location of where this occured is currently unknown. The pilot was rescued some hours later un-harmed. In his autobiography, the pilot gives some information about this incident. He crashed close to the top of a steep bank and some distance from a road, he could see a road some way in the distance which is probably the Helmsley to Sutton Bank road. There is a suggestion from locals that an aircraft - a Halifax made a landing on the old Rievaulx cricket Pitch, which was at the top of Rievaulx Bank. I have yet to find documentary evidence for thie Halifax landing. The location would fit with that of the Spitfires however but the mention of the Army Camp here adds confusion. The army were stationed in the woods of Duncombe Park and had a tank repair unit at Carlton Park. I have no information of their having a camp near Rievaulx. The Halifax incident needs proving one way or the other. The Spitfire was removed from the site and repaired and returned to service.
The aircraft was built to contract B19713/39 by Vickers Supermarine Ltd at Eastleigh and delivered to the RAF in August 1941 and after acceptance issued to 92 Sqdn at Digby in October 1941. It was later transferred to 122 Sqdn at Scorton on 12th February 1942. In the incident above it sustained Cat A(c)/FA damage. The location of its repair is not known, it may have been RIW but was possibly returned to Scorton for repair as the airraft was issued to 167 Sqdn who were stationed at Scorton from 6th April 1942. It's history is a little more vague beyond this point, the aircraft moved on to 165 Sqdn then 118 Sqdn and it's final operational unit was 64 Sqdn. The aircraft was transferred to 1653 HCU at Chedburgh for fighter affiliation duties then to 1668 HCU at Bottesford for similar duties before returning to 1653 HCU, now at North Luffenham. It's final unit was 1688 Flight at Feltwell from where it became instructional airframe 5842M on 6th March 1946. The aircraft may have carried the name "Caledonian Society" for part of its service life.
Pilot - P/O William Thomas Edward Rolls DFM RAF (116492), ok.
P/O Rolls served in the Battle of Britain with 72 Sqdn. He was later awarded the DFC. His NCO service number was 745542. He died in July 1988 after first writing the book "Spitfire Attack, published in the 1980s and re-published in June 2005 it details his RAF career.