6 Group Unavailable
401 City of Westmount Squadron RCAF (Mors cellerima hostibus) RAF Lympne. On the morning of August 19, 1942 Pilot Officer Donald Robert Morrison DFC DFM (RCAF), flying Spitfire IX aircraft BS 119 YO-A was part of an escort flight for a group of US B-17 bombers on an mission to bomb Abbeville airfield in France, a main German fighter base. After the B-17's had successfully completed their bombing and were safely over the Channel on their way back to England, the escorting fighters made their way to Dieppe, France where Operation Jubilee was in full swing. The skies above Dieppe were filled with dueling aircraft and Morrison quickly found himself engaged with a German Focke-Wulf 190. He attacked with cannon-fire from close range and the German fighter exploded. Unfortunately, this resulted in Morrison having to fly through the flaming debris which damaged his own aircraft and resulted in him having to bale over the English Channel off the coast of Dieppe. He was quickly rescued by a British High Speed Launch and taken safely back to the UK. During this trip Morrison manned machine guns aboard the Launch and at one point jumped into the water to save a seaman who had fallen overboard
Promoted to Flight Lieutenant, Morrison continued to fly with 401 squadron and would later be shot down again in Spitfire BS 202. He would survive but his badly injured left leg would have to be amputated. Flight Lieutenant Morrison would later be part of the Wounded Prisoner Exchange between the Allies and the Germans in October 1943 and returned to the UK
The Greatest Air Battle, Dieppe,19th August 1942 by Norman Franks, pages 101-2,171,235,244
Aces High, A Tribute to the Most Notable Fighter Pilots of the British and Commonwealth Forces in WWII by Christopher Shores and Clive Williams, pages 452-3
Spitfire, The Canadians by Robert Bracken, pages 26-30
Don Morrison