In Johnnie Johnson's autobiography he describes how he was made Group Captain and attached to 125 Wing of the 2nd TAF in late March '45 (very late in the war, I know):
"A dozen Spitfire 14s wheeled over Eindhoven as Varley and I drove on to the airfield. When the fighters taxied past the jeep we could see that most pilots had fired their guns, and I soon learnt that these boys of 130 Squadron had just knocked down seven Focke-Wulfs." They definitely saw action.
In fact, the XIIs were designed and had some success catching the tip-and-run FW190 raiders over England in '42-43, so they certainly saw action. In fact, Eric Brown said that the XII was his favourite Spit to fly out of all of them.
There's more detail on the operation use of XIVs in Pierre Clostermann's book, I think, and possibly on the XIIs as well, but I haven't got it to hand right now.
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