Choloy, France

Details:

18 June 1953 - F/O GD Foxton

Comments by Ren L'Ecuyer:

F/O GD Foxton was a member of 427 Squadron at 3 (F) Wing, Zweibrucken Germany. He died when his F-86 (Sabre #19422) dove in on fire near Pirmasens, West Germany.

Comments by Bob Smith:

The full story on Pilot GD Foxton was that the pilots were flying early in the morning, about 5:00 am. When they returned for landing about 7:00 am on June 18, the Tower Controller had indicated to Foxton he was too high for landing and directed him to go around and come in again. Foxton went straight over the west edge of Zwiebrucken and turned west which placed him over the French German border. Hence his crash location. Dr. Charles Lamont and I attended the crash site. We retrieved what we could of the body and took it too the American Base, I believe Lanstuhl, for laboratory testing. The Medical report indicated a lack of Oxygen. The story around the station at that time was Oxygen Failure. I belive that Pirmasens is located east of Zwiebrucken? Ren, I don't know how technical you want to be or how useful this is but I was surprised with the reported location, and the word "Fire" as there wasn't evidence of that that day. But then again I guess this is not as important as his death. Both the Commanding Officer and the Operations Officers were at the site.