A COMMEMORATIVE headstone dedicated to the memory of a WWII Spitfire pilot has been erected in a North Yorkshire churchyard after a long campaign by a US academic.

Flying Officer Arthur Peter Pease, 22, was killed on September 15, 1940 over the Kentish countryside during the Battle of Britain and was later buried with full military honours in his family plot in Middleton Tyas churchyard, near Richmond.

On the 74th anniversary of D-Day, Wednesday, June 6, a dedication to Pease was made by Professor John Oakley, who is writing a book about Pease and three of his RAF comrades, and was attended by village residents, local historians and members of the Pease family.

Professor Oakley, from South Carolina, has been researching Pease for the last four years after discovering his story by chance and deeming his heroism deserved greater recognition – and he has commissioned the large bronze plaque on a headstone just outside the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels.

Prof Oakley said: “On this 74th anniversary of D-Day, we are looking forward as we look back, and a hero is remembered.

“Peter Pease grew up in Richmond and spent time at Middleton Lodge, Middleton Tyas, where his grandparents live. Most people not from around here know of him from Richard Hillary’s book, The Last Enemy, but I was not content.

“Four years ago, I began my hunt for the real Arthur Peter Pease.”

The eldest son of Sir Arthur Richard Pease, had he lived, he would have become the third Baronet Pease of Hummersknott.

He excelled at both Eton and Cambridge, was fluent in French and German and had his sights on being a diplomat and eventually Foreign Secretary.

He was commissioned into the RAF Voluntary Reserve in 1938, joined 603 Squadron in July 1940 and had been in several dogfights before his Spitfire was shot down near Kingswood, in Kent.

Prof Oakley said: “Peter fought with such fury that on his second mission of the day at 3pm over Kent, he began an attack head-on with a bomber.

“Another was behind him but he refused to change course – he had almost kamikaze dedication. He broke away but was then hit by cannon fire.”

Prof Oakley is currently writing a book about Peter Pease, his fiancee Diana Maxwell Woosnam and on his friends and fellow pilots, Richard Hillary, Colin Pinckney and Billy Fiske, an American who won bobsleigh gold in the Winter Olympics.