Lloyd Vernon Chadburn

Lloyd Vernon Chadburn was born on 21 August 1919 in Montreal, Quebec, and grew up in Oshawa and Aurora, Ontario, working as a bank clerk and factory hand before enlisting in the Royal Canadian Air Force in Toronto on 16 April 1940. After initial rejection, he re-mustered as a pilot and received his wings in October 1940, going on to serve with No. 402, No. 412, and No. 416 Squadrons RCAF, flying Spitfires, and becoming at twenty-one the youngest squadron leader in the RCAF and the first graduate of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan to command a Fighter Command squadron. Flying Spitfires over the Dieppe raid on 19 August 1942, he led No. 416 Squadron in engagements that destroyed three enemy aircraft without loss, an action that earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross; successive tours of sustained offensive operations over occupied Europe brought him a DSO and a Bar to the DSO, the first RCAF officer to be awarded that decoration twice, and the French government made him a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur and awarded him the Croix de Guerre avec Palme. By June 1944 he was commanding 127 (RCAF) Wing as a Wing Commander, flying Spitfire IXs in support of the Normandy landings. On 13 June 1944, just days after D-Day, he was killed when his Spitfire IX (serial MJ824) collided with a second Spitfire flown by Flight Lieutenant Frank Joel Clark of No. 421 Squadron near Bénouville, France; he was twenty-four years old. He is buried at Ranville War Cemetery, Calvados, France, grave V. F. 2.