Date of birth:

November 7th, 1911 (Béthisy Saint Pierre, France)

Date of death:

April 10th, 1942 (Lost at sea, near Calais, France)

Service number:

30501

Nationality:

French (1870-present, Republic)

In 1939, he was sent to Graulhet (Tarn) to run an elementary flight school, then to Toulouse as a cadet aviation officer.

On June 24, 1940, Staff Sergeant Choron embarked at Port-Vendres on the Apapa which, via Gibraltar, took him to England at the beginning of July 1940. Enlisted in the Free French Air Forces (FAFL), he then had nearly 2,000 flight hours and was seconded to the Royal Air Force.

In August and September 1940, he trained particularly on Hurricane at Operational Training Unit n ° 6 (OTU n ° 6).

In mid-September, he was assigned to RAF 64 Squadron and began his war missions on Spitfire. He was the first French fighter pilot to take part in the Battle of Britain. On November 1, 1940, he destroyed a Heinkel 115 and increased patrols.

On March 13, 1941, Second Lieutenant Choron was appointed Companion of the Liberation and member of the Council of the Order of the Liberation, replacing Second Lieutenant Bouquillard killed in aerial combat two days earlier.

In July 1941 he was assigned to 609 Squadron. On August 7, he carried out an escort mission of Lysander aircraft over the English Channel and damaged two Messerschmitt 109s. Two days later, he shot down a new ME 109 (probable victory) and another on August 27.

Again, on September 17, Maurice Choron shot down an ME 109.

On October 21, his Spitfire was damaged in aerial combat and he was forced to make a forced landing on his return. On October 27 he probably shot down a Focke-Wulf.

In November 1941, Maurice Choron was assigned as a monitor at OTU n ° 61 before joining, on April 9, 1942, the Ile-de-France Hunting Group (Squadron 340), under the orders of Lieutenant-Commander Philippe de Scitivaux .

The next day, April 10, 1942, during the first sortie of the Ile-de-France Group, Lieutenant Maurice Choron was shot down in aerial combat when he had probably just destroyed a Focke-Wulf 190. His plane, as well as that of the wing commander Michael Robinson, disappears at sea near Calais. Maurice Choron had completed 700 hours of warfare and 62 combat missions in Britain.

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• Photo 1: Tom MacNeill
• - Ciel de Gloire
  - SGA / Memoires des Hommes
  - Maurice CHORON | L'Ordre de la Libération et son Musée