Supermarine Spitfire IIa
RAF Serial: P7533
57 OTU
Pilot: Sgt. Douglas Couper Goudie (survived)
Date: 14th October 1942
Place: Birkenhead Park, Wirral

Spitfire IIa, P7533, was on a test flight from Hawarden, North Wales, to Birkenhead to test a new
engine when it crashed into Birkenhead Park on October 14th, 1942.

Sgt. Douglas Couper Goudie, an American who had joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, bailed out over Liverpool after vibration made the aircraft uncontrollable. The vibration was most probably caused by the separation of a propeller blade.

Eyewitness Bobby Boyd recalled that “[he] and many others who saw the aircraft crash ran to the park to see a smoldering hole in the ground.”

After two years of planning by Doug Darroch, the excavation was undertaken with the cooperation
of Wirral Borough Council and the Merseyside Archaeological Team. The recovered items will be put
on display at the Warplane Wreck Investigation Group Museum at Fort Perch Rock, New Brighton.