In the film Dunkirk, Tom Hardy is a fighter pilot. At the end of the film, he flies over the beaches and instead of ejecting near the perimeter and evacuating, he flies further afield, lands, destroys his spitfire, and is captured.
I'm fully happy to accept this as artistic license, but I was wondering if there was a protocol reason behind it? Did he land just so he could be sure his plane was destroyed?
Furthermore, how often would one be expected to destroy their equipment to prevent it from falling into enemy hands? What are some famous (interruptor gear aside) instances of this?
In general aircrew and personnel were instructed to destroy their equipment if capture was imminent. For example, American bomber crews were given a creed that included a line about destroying their bombsight if they were shot down, while German pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel sabotaged the landing gear of his Stuka dive-bomber before surrendering to the Americans.
While the Dunkirk scene was completely fictitious, I don't doubt there are plenty of pilots who would have done the same thing Hardy's character did. Uncontrolled landings are a rough affair and if at all possible you want to avoid injuring yourself by crashing your airplane. Better to land safely than to crash your plane and gamble with your life.