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SHOT DOWN, WOUNDED – AND CAPTURED
SHOT DOWN, WOUNDED – AND CAPTURED
On the 19th August 1942, Dwayne Linton and 411 Squadron provided air cover for an Allied assault on the heavily defended German-occupied French port of Dieppe. The raid was a disaster: of the 5,000 mostly Canadian troops who landed, only 2,000 returned; the remaining 3,000 were killed, wounded or captured.
After shooting down a Messerschmitt Bf 109, Dwayne Linton was attacked by two Focke-Wulf FW 190s. His plane caught fire and exploded in mid-air. He parachuted into the sea, wounded – and with his face and hands burnt. After hours in a life-raft, he was captured by the Germans as he drifted ashore on the French coast.
After shooting down a Messerschmitt Bf 109, Dwayne Linton was attacked by two Focke-Wulf FW 190s. His plane caught fire and exploded in mid-air. He parachuted into the sea, wounded – and with his face and hands burnt. After hours in a life-raft, he was captured by the Germans as he drifted ashore on the French coast.
Dwayne Linton’s Royal Canadian Air Force Pilot’s Flying Log Book records his transfer, with 411 Squadron, RCAF, from RAF Digby, Lincolnshire, to RAF West Malling, Kent, shortly before the commencement of the Dieppe Raid, which took place on the 19th August 1942. This page also records the hood of Dwayne’s Spitfire being shot off by enemy fire at 25,000 feet.
Dwayne Linton (left) with two fellow pilots of 411 Squadron RCAF, shortly before the Dieppe Raid. (Photo courtesy of the Copyright Services of Library and Archives, Canada)
Dwayne Linton, (centre row, third from right, in sunglasses) with fellow 411 Squadron pilots.
411 Squadron personnel were equipped with bicycles to make it easier to travel round their aerodrome. Dwayne Linton is seventh from the right, wearing a lifejacket. (Above two photographs courtesy of Joe of www.flyingforyourlife.com, plus Derek Blatchford and John McClenaghan, authors of '411 City of York Squadron, 50 Years of History, 1941-1991')
This is the last wartime entry in Dwayne Linton’s Flying Log Book, recording his being shot down over Dieppe and being made a prisoner of the Germans. It was actually written at the end of the war when Dwayne Linton was re-united with his log book in the UK after over two years in captivity as a POW.
Dwayne Linton’s Spitfire exploded in mid-air above Dieppe when hit by gunfire from two Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. His fellow pilots did not see him parachute safely from his aircraft and assumed that he had been killed in the explosion. He was thus reported as ‘Missing’ to his brother, Theron Linton.
