Date:	Monday 8 July 1940
Time:	day
Type:	Miles Master Mk I
Owner/operator:	CFS RAF
Registration:	N7539
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 2 / Occupants: 2
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	near RAF Upavon, Wiltshire -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Approach
Nature:	Training
Departure airport:	RAF Upavon, Wiltshire
Destination airport:	RAF Upavon, Wiltshire

Narrative:
Miles Master Mk.I N7539, CFS (Central Flying School) RAF: Written off (destroyed) 8 July 1940. Dual instructional flight for an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot. The Master dived into the ground on the landing approach to Upavon. Sgt Edgar Francis John L'Estrange, Central Flying School instructor, and Second Officer Elsie Joy Davison, Air Transport Auxiliary, both killed in a flying accident.
R.I.P.

Crew of Master N7539:
Second Officer Elsie Joy Davison, Air Transport Auxiliary (aged 30) - killed in active service 8 July 1940, commemorated at Arnos Vale Crematorium, Bristol
Sergeant Edgar Francis John L'Estrange RAF VR (Service Number 745060) - killed on active service 8 July 1940, buried at Upavon Cemetery, Upavon, Wiltshire

Elsie Joy Davison was fascinated by flight as a child, gained her flying certificate at the age of 20, and by 23 was a ‘well known flyer’. Born in Toronto, she emigrated to England and in the 1930s became the first woman director of an aircraft company in the UK, running Utility Airways with her husband Frank Davison.

When war broke out, women fliers demanded a part in the war effort and for the first time won the right to fly at equal pay and with the same aircraft as male pilots.

Davison was one of these first women pilots – known as ‘Atagirls’ - admitted to the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) which during wartime was based at Whitchurch Aerodrome in Bristol. Though women only flew non-combat missions, they still risked their lives. Shortly before her death, Davison wrote in a letter to a cousin that her work was ‘extremely dangerous now, and I don’t know whether I will come out of it’.

Davison decided to join the women's section of the Air Transport Auxiliary on 1 July 1940. The ATA was tasked with transporting newly produced aircraft from the factories to their respective Royal Air Force bases. She went to Central Flying School in Upavon and was assigned an experienced instructor named Sergeant Francis L'Estrange.

Davison and L'Estrange took flight on 8 July 1940 in a Miles Master but on their return to base, the aircraft made a spiral dive and crashed into the ground to the shock of spectators who did not believe anything was wrong until the crash. Both Davison and L'Estrange died during this instruction flight, making Davison the country's first aviatrix to die during World War II. Contemporary sources speculated that carbon monoxide had leaked into the cockpit and rendered both pilots unconscious prior to the crash but no official reason for the crash was ever given.

Joy Davison was cremated at Arnos Vale Cemetery, in Bristol and is commemorated in the Commonwealth War Graves section there.

1. Wheeler, Jo (26 July 2018). The Hurricane Girls: The inspirational true story of the women who dared to fly. Penguin UK. ISBN 9780241354643
2. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 81/2366: https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16471878
3. U.K. Woman Pilot Dies". The Gazette. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. 15 July 1940
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Joy_Davison#Air_Transport_Auxiliary_service_and_death
5. http://www.raf-lichfield.co.uk/ATA%20Casualties.htm
6. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2710482/edgar-francis-john-l-estrange/
7. https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2450523/elsie-joy-davison/
8. Portrait of Pilot dated 1933 (National Portrait Gallery): https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw53407/Elsie-Joy-Davison-ne-Muntz?LinkID=mp55034&role=sit&rNo=0
9. https://www.ata-ferry-pilots.org/index.php/category-blog-1940/171-davison-elsie-joy
10. https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Elsie_Joy_Davison
11. Arnos Vale website: https://arnosvale.org.uk/
12. https://eugenebyrne.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/remembering-elsie/
13. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Muntz-261
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Upavon#Second_World_War

Joy Muntz Davison. First ATA airwoman to die in WW2 RIP #IWD #ArnosValeCem https://t.co/noUPRtOhXv

— Charles Booth (@frothelhorse) March 8, 2016

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
27-Nov-2012 12:38	angels one five	Added
03-Dec-2012 04:17	Ricardo	Updated [Source, Narrative]
06-Nov-2014 20:53	Anon.	Updated [Narrative]
20-Nov-2018 15:56	Nepa	Updated [Operator, Operator]