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The Airmen's Stories - F/O A S Linney

 

Anthony Stuart Linney of Hemsworth, Yorkshire was born in July 1914, he joined the RAF on a short service commission and began his initial training course on 28th December 1938.

With his training completed he was posted to 229 Squadron on 4th October 1939 when it reformed at Digby.

 

 Above: 229 Squadron - L to R:

P/O RAL Duvivier, F/O RR Smith, F/O VM Bright, Sgt. RR Mitchell , F/O M Ravenhill, P/O RE Bary,

F/O AS Linney, F/O RC Brown, Sgt. SW Merryweather

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The squadron sent a flight to France in May 1940, from the 18th to the 24th. On the 23rd Linney damaged a Me109 in the Merville area. His combat report reads:

23 May 1940

I was circling Merville at 10,000 ft. when I saw 4 Me109s also orbiting. I managed to get behind one which dived, I followed giving 3 bursts, 2 of which were out of range, at 2,000 ft. I gave another long burst and pulled out of the dive as I was about to be attacked from the beam. The E/A was left in an almost vertical dive.

I then climbed to 9,000 ft. and received a burst of cannon in my port wing, the a/c started a spiral dive, I left it at about 8,000 ft. and landed by parachute about 250 yds, from Merville aerodrome. In the opinion of the personnel there the a/c which I attacked could not possibly have pulled out of its dive in time.

The 109s were silver and black with black crosses on the fuselage.

Subsidiary report.

When at 2,000 ft. above the ground French troops fired at me or my parachute but hit neither. On reaching the aerodrome I found an Ensign on fire, it had been dived on by 3 109s just after landing, they had also punctured the tanks of a Savoia which had to be left there. There were about 15 Hurricanes dispersed most of which were u/s, all having had the RT, reflector sights and instrument panels removed, several were badly shot about and some had no tail units.

There was a great deal of equipment, parachutes, ammunition, fuel, food, clothing around the field. I eventually got a machine running and landed at Hawkinge about 1800 hrs, being fired at by French AA twice about 15 miles south of Dunkirk.

A Linney P/O

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The squadron moved to Wittering on 26th June. Over Dunkirk on the 29th Linney was shot down in Hurricane N2521 and baled out, returning safely to the squadron.

He made his last sortie with 229 on 18th September 1940, an uneventful one with no contact made with the enemy.

He was posted away in October and in July 1941 was serving with the MSFU at Speke. After completing his catapult training Linney was posted to Canada as a back-up pilot to replace any pilot fired off on a voyage from the UK and killed or injured. He remained at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia for nine months as CO of the MSFU Pool.

He married Perenna Isobel Charlton in April 1942 in Westminster.

Linney was made an OBE (gazetted 2nd June 1943) and was released from the RAF in 1945 as a Wing Commander.

He died in 1983.

 

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