Newell Orton

Newell Orton was born on 25 August 1915 in Warwick, England, where he attended Coten End School and Leamington Technical College before learning to fly at the local Leamington Flying Club — a civilian foundation that put him ahead of many of his contemporaries when he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in 1935 and took a short service commission in 1937. Posted to No. 73 Squadron in France on the outbreak of war, he flew Hawker Hurricanes throughout the Phoney War and the Battle of France, building a combat record that would make him the squadron’s second ace after Edgar Kain. On 15 May 1940 his aircraft was set alight in a melee over the French countryside and he bailed out with serious burns, yet by that point he had already been credited with at least fifteen enemy aircraft destroyed; he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross on 17 May 1940 and, while still recovering from his wounds, a Bar to the DFC on 16 July 1940 — the first Bar awarded to a No. 73 Squadron pilot in the war. After a spell instructing at No. 59 Operational Training Unit he was given command of No. 54 Squadron at Hornchurch in July 1941, flying Spitfire VBs on the Circus offensive over occupied France. On 17 September 1941, during Circus 95, his Spitfire VB (serial W3772) was shot down by a Bf 109 near Le Touquet; he was twenty-six years old and is believed to have destroyed one more enemy aircraft in that final engagement. Squadron Leader Orton has no known grave and is commemorated on Panel 28 of the Runnymede Memorial, Surrey; he is credited with a total of seventeen enemy aircraft destroyed, eight probables, and four damaged, and was survived by his wife, Helen Jean Orton of Echt, Aberdeenshire.