Wing Commander George Unwin
January 18, 1913 - June 28, 2006
Airman who from modest beginnings as an RAF clerk became one of the Battle of Britain's most prolific aces
Unwin, as a sergeant pilot during the Battle of Britain, with his alstian, Flash (Dilip Sarkar Collection)
JOINING the RAF as an apprentice clerk in 1929, George Unwin was selected for pilot training six years later, and went on to become one of the most successful Battle of Britain aces. By the end of the Battle, during which he flew as a sergeant pilot, he had shot down 14 enemy aircraft and had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal and Bar.
Commissioned later in the war, he returned to operations on Mosquitoes after a period as an instructor. In the postwar period he added a DSO to his DFMs for ground attack sorties against communist guerrillas in Malaya.
Unwin rejoiced throughout the RAF in the sobriquet “Grumpy”. However, this was not because of any naturally saturnine disposition, but because, while serving with 19 Squadron, he had apparently grumbled aloud to colleagues about the activities of Douglas Bader in an adjacent billet. On that occasion the famous legless fighter ace had spent part of one night filing one of his false limbs to make it more comfortable to wear. This kept Unwin awake. Once he had imparted his annoyance to amused comrades, he was immediately awarded his nickname — and it stuck for the remainder of his service career.
George Cecil Unwin was born the son of a miner in 1913, in the South Yorkshire colliery village of Bolton upon Dearne. Leaving school at 16, he applied to join the RAF and was accepted as an apprentice clerk in Records. He was to pursue a mundane career in this most unlikely branch of the Service for a future fighter ace for the next six years, being appointed leading aircraftman in 1931.
In that year he was sent to Headquarters Fighting Area at Uxbridge, where he served as a clerk until November 1935 when he was selected for pilot training. Having gained his wings, he was posted in 1936 to 19 Squadron, then still flying the open cockpit biplane Gloster Gauntlet, an aircraft woefully short on performance (max 230mph) compared with the Messerschmitt 109 (360mph), which had first flown the year before. In August 1938 No 19 was, however, the first RAF squadron to receive the Spitfire, so Unwin and his fellow pilots were experienced at operating the new type by the time the Second World War broke out in September 1939.
In the meantime Unwin had been compelled deliberately to crash one of these precious aircraft, when his engine stopped while he was on a training flight. As he was about to force-land in a field Unwin realised that a group of children were playing there, and aborted the landing in a much less favourable place, wrecking the aircraft and at some risk to himself. It was one of those occasions when “breaking a Spitfire” was considered a venial fault by the authorities.
When the Blitzkrieg in France and the Low Countries announced the end of the Phoney War in May 1940, No 19 was moved to Hornchurch, from where, from May 26, it flew sorties over the shrinking Dunkirk perimeter, attempting to protect the soldiers of the beleaguered British Expeditionary Force from air attack.
Owing to a shortage of aircraft Unwin, though an experienced pilot, was unable to take part in the first day’s sorties (and another version of the origins of his nickname is that he was very grumpy about this). Once he had a Spitfire underneath him, he soon made his experience felt.
In No 19’s valiant struggle against overwhelming enemy odds, Unwin had his first kill, that of a Henschel 126 spotter plane on May 27. The next day he shot down his first Me109 and on June 1 a twin-engined Me110. In the following days he claimed two more Me110s, though in the difficult circumstances of engaging the enemy over territory that was being rapidly occupied by German troops, these remained unconfirmed.
After Dunkirk there was a lull, but in the summer No 19 resumed operations with 12 Group’s Duxford Wing, under the command of Bader. From August 16, when he shot down an Me110 over Clacton, Unwin had a quite remarkable run of combat victories. On one day, September 7, he shot down two Me109s over the Thames Estuary, and just over a week later, on September 15 — the day now celebrated as Battle of Britain Day — he brought down three of these formidable adversaries over the South East of England.
Two DFMs, awarded within two months of each other (had he been an officer at that time they would have been Distinguished Flying Crosses), reflected his bravery and resourcefulness in an intense period of combat in which he was credited with 14 kills, though this total may well have been higher.
Rested from operations at the end of the battle, Unwin, who was commissioned in July 1941, had a number of flying instructor postings, before converting to Mosquitoes late in 1943. In April 1944 he was posted to 613 Squadron, in which, both before and after D-Day, he took part in intruder and strafing sorties over enemy occupied territory as part of the 2nd Tactical Air Force.
As a prewar regular, he stayed in the RAF after the war and after a number of instructing and staff jobs was, in late 1949, given command of 84 Squadron at Habbaniya in Iraq, operating the twin-engined Bristol Brigand fighter-bomber. With the communist insurrection against British rule in Malaya in full swing, Unwin, now a squadron leader, took this to out to Singapore, from where it flew sorties against guerrillas in the deep jungle. His leadership and courage were rewarded with a DSO in March 1952.
Unwin’s final appointment, as a wing commander, was as Permanent President of Courts Martial. He retired from the RAF in 1961, settling in Dorset, where he was regional director of the Spastics Society for a number of years. He was recently tickled to be immortalised by a toy manufacturer, who made a miniature model of him with his Spitfire and his beloved alsatian dog Flash.
His wife Edna prdeceased him. They had no children.
Wing Commander George Unwin, DSO, DFM and Bar, fighter ace, was born on January 18, 1913. He died on June 28, 2006, aged 93.
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