Date:	Tuesday 19 March 1946
Time:	afternoon
Type:	Supermarine Spitfire Mk XIV
Owner/operator:	1 FPP RAF
Registration:	NH695
MSN:	EA.
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Button Oak, Pound Green, near Upper Arley, Worcestershire, England -   United Kingdom
Phase:	En route
Nature:	Ferry/positioning
Departure airport:	RAF Hamble, Hampshire
Destination airport:	RAF High Ercall, Shropshire
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
Spitfire Mk XIV NH695. Built by Vickers Armstrongs (Supermarine) at Eastleigh, Southampton, Hampshire with Griffon G65 engine. Delivered to the RAF at 39 MU 1-5-44. Issued to 610 (County of Chester) Squadron 26-5-44. De Havilland 4-7-44 for propeller fitment. To 350 (Belgian) Squadron 19-7-44. Cat AC damaged on ops 11-2-45. Airwork Service Training Hamble for repairs. To 1 FPP (Ferry Pilot Pool,) RAF but being flown by an ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) pilot.

Written off (destroyed) 19-3-46 when the engine failed and the aircraft hit a tree on a ferry flight. The Spitfire was being flown at well below the authorised altitude for the sortie, and struck the tops of trees at a height of 20 feet. The Spitfire disintegrated, and the wreckage fell to the ground. The pilot was killed. Formally Struck Off Charge 29-5-46 as FACE (Flying Accident Cat. E)

Pilot:
First Officer Rosamund King Everard-Steenkamp (South African pilot, aged 32) ATA - killed in a flying accident 19-3-46. R.I.P. Buried at Maidenhead (All Saint’s) Cemetery, Maidenhead, Berkshire

According to her biography on the CWGC Website:

"First Officer Rosamund King Everard-Steenkamp was born on a farm near Carolina in north-eastern South Africa in South Africa in 1907 to Bertha, an artist and farmer, and Charles Joseph Everard, a storekeeper and farmer. Educated in England and Paris, she became a flying instructor during the 1930s.

Rosamund married her husband, Hermanus Nicolaas Fourie Steenkamp, in South Africa in 1940. He was one of her learner pilots from her days serving as a flying instructor for Witwatersrand Technical College.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Rosamund joined the South African Air Force (SAAF), where she served chiefly as a pilot flying military passengers and cargo between South Africa and the fighting front in North Africa. Her husband sadly died of Typhoid in December 1942; she returned to bury him on his farm, before heading back to duty to fly the Cairo route for the SAAF.

In 1944, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), where she flew a variety of aircraft and important passengers across the UK. During her time in the ATA, it is believed she became the first woman to fly a jet aircraft.

In 1946, she was killed in a flying accident whilst at the controls of a Supermarine Spitfire that crashed at Button Oak, Upper Arley, Worcestershire. She is buried at Maidenhead (All Saint’s) Cemetery in Berkshire, alongside a number of other ATA pilots".

In a sadly ironic "twist in the tale", the flight was to have been Rosamund Everard-Steenkamp's last flight before she was to have been discharged from the service. The loss of this Spitfire, and its pilot also appears to have been the last fatal accident of involving an ATA pilot. Furthermore, the flight was to have been Spitfire NH695's last flight - it was being flown from Hamble to RAF High Ercall to be scrapped by the (then resident) 29 MU.

During the 1980s, aviation enthusiasts belonging to Midland Aviation Group recovered small items of surface wreckage from Spitfire NH695 at Pound Green, Upper Arley. The reported crash location of Button Oak is a small village in the English county of Shropshire, England. It is three miles northeast of Bewdley on the Shropshire/Worcestershire border, at approximate coordinates: 52.39907°N 2.36423°W.

1. Halley, James (1999). Broken Wings – Post-War Royal Air Force Accidents. Tunbridge Wells: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd. p.34. ISBN 0-85130-290-4.
2. Royal Air Force Aircraft NA100 - NZ999 (James J Halley, Air Britain, 1992 p 56)
3. Final Landings: A Summary of RAF Aircraft and Combat Losses 1946 to 1949 by Colin Cummings p.98
4. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AVIA 5/28/W2335: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C6578181
5. "RAF Write-offs 1946": Air Britain Aeromilitaria 1979 p.98: https://air-britain.com/pdfs/aeromilitaria/Aeromilitaria_1979.pdf
6. http://www.halesowennews.co.uk/news/worcestershire/14377684.Tragic_Bewdley_Spitfire_crash_remembered_70_years_on/
7. http://www.aviationarchaeology.org.uk/marg/crashes1946-49.htm
8. https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=1373628
9. https://allspitfirepilots.org/aircraft/NH695
10. CWGC: https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2436464/rosamund-king-everard-steenkamp/
11. http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?21591-460319-Unaccounted-Airwoman-amp-Airmen-19-03-1946&p=126255#post126255
12. http://ariadne-portal.dcu.gr/page/13752896
13. https://peakwreckhunters.blogspot.com/2008/11/spitfire-mkxiv-nh695.html
14. http://wrecksiteuk.blogspot.com/2008/07/spitfire-mk14e.html
15. http://www.raf-lichfield.co.uk/ATA%20Casualties.htm
16. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/spitfire/p080.html
17. https://www.lifewithart.com/artists/rosamund-everard.html
18. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56138421/rosamund-king-everard-steenkamp
19. https://nl-nl.facebook.com/virtual.eggsa/posts/1798947303598316
20. http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol035ss.html
21. http://thehistorybucket.blogspot.com/2020/02/even-woman-can-do-it.html
22. http://www.aviationarchaeology.org.uk/marg/crashes1946-49.htm
23. https://foundation.cwgc.org/blog/we-tell-their-stories-commonwealth-casualties-from-around-the-world/
24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosamund_Everard-Steenkamp
25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_Oak
26. https://www.facebook.com/wingleaderbooks/posts/3792900164162230/

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
26-Nov-2012 11:18	angels one five	Added
01-Feb-2013 12:23	Nepa	Updated [Aircraft type, Operator, Departure airport, Destination airport, Narrative]
10-Mar-2013 20:24	angels one five	Updated [Aircraft type]
12-Feb-2014 21:15	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Location]
05-Apr-2015 09:29	Gloug	Updated [Operator, Location, Departure airport, Destination airport, Source, Narrative]
23-Mar-2016 09:27	gerard57	Updated [Source]
19-Nov-2018 20:09	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Operator]
20-Sep-2019 23:08	angels one five	Updated [Narrative]
06-Nov-2019 01:16	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Time, Operator, Source, Narrative]
06-Nov-2019 20:25	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Location, Narrative]
13-Nov-2019 10:00	Anon.	Updated [Operator, Operator]
22-Jun-2021 22:42	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Operator, Source, Narrative]
22-Jun-2021 22:44	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Source]
23-Jun-2021 10:30	Anon.	Updated [Operator, Narrative, Operator]
23-Jun-2021 20:13	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
23-Jun-2021 20:14	Dr. John Smith	Updated [Narrative]
16-Jul-2021 04:51	angels one five	Updated [Operator, Narrative]
08-Jul-2023 16:29	Dr. John Smith	Updated [[Operator, Narrative]]
27-Aug-2023 10:16	Nepa	Updated [[[Operator, Narrative]]]
17-Sep-2023 15:21	Dr. John Smith	Updated [[[[Operator, Narrative]]]]