This is one of the most famous photographs of the Battle of Britain. A Spitfire pilot on the wing of his fighter, with his German Shepherd beside him.
The pilot was a coal miner's son who had joined the RAF as a clerk, and became one of its finest aces.
This is the story of George Unwin..🧵1/6
George Cecil Unwin was born in 1913 in a Yorkshire coal-mining town, the son of a miner. He was clever enough to win a place at grammar school, but a life in the pits or behind a desk seemed to be all that lay ahead of him.
In 1929 he joined the Royal Air Force, but not as a pilot. He signed on as an apprentice clerk, shuffling paperwork at an RAF records office. For years, that was his war-to-be. A working-class young man with an ordinary desk job, a long way from a cockpit.
But Unwin wanted to fly. He applied for pilot training, and in 1935 he was finally accepted. He was posted to No. 19 Squadron at Duxford as a sergeant pilot.
No. 19 Squadron was chosen for something special. In 1938, it became the first squadron in the entire RAF to be equipped with a brand new fighter, the Supermarine Spitfire.
Unwin was one of the first sergeant pilots to fly it, and he threw himself into helping test the new aircraft and work it into service. He became a superb pilot, later remembered by the men who flew beside him as one of the best they ever saw.
He also had a constant companion at the airfield. His German Shepherd, Flash, went everywhere with him and became the beloved mascot of the squadron. It is Flash who sits beside him on the wing of his Spitfire in the famous photograph.
As for the nickname, that came courtesy of one of the most legendary figures in the RAF. The legless fighter leader Douglas Bader was filing down his ill-fitting artificial legs late one night while Unwin was trying to sleep. When Unwin complained, Bader, with the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs showing at the local cinema, snapped back, "Oh, shut up, Grumpy." The name stuck for the rest of his life.
Grumpy Unwin turned out to be anything but harmless.
His first taste of combat came over Dunkirk in May 1940, as the British Army was being evacuated from France. In one early fight, the squadron was ordered to break off from chasing an evasive German reconnaissance plane. Unwin was not willing to let it go. He pretended his radio had failed, turned back, and shot the German aircraft down.
Then came the Battle of Britain, the desperate struggle in the skies over southern England in the summer and autumn of 1940, when a few hundred RAF pilots stood between Britain and German invasion.
By the end of the Battle of Britain, George Unwin was credited with 13 enemy aircraft destroyed and a share in two more, placing him among the highest-scoring Spitfire pilots of the entire battle.
And here is what makes his story stand out. He was not one of the dashing young officers the battle is usually remembered for. He was a sergeant, an NCO, a miner's son who had come up through the ranks from a clerk's desk. Men like him, the working-class sergeant pilots, were the quiet backbone of Fighter Command, and history has too often overlooked them.
For his skill and courage he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal and Bar. Then, after the battle was won, the RAF pulled him off the front line to train the next generation of pilots. The reason was almost comical. At 27, he was considered too old to be a fighter pilot.
Unwin's war was not over. He was later commissioned as an officer, flew Mosquitos in the build-up to D-Day, and after the war commanded a squadron in the Malayan Emergency, earning the Distinguished Service Order.
He finally retired from the RAF in 1961 as a Wing Commander, more than three decades after he had first walked in as a teenage clerk. He went on to work for a charity, played golf several times a week well into his eighties, and lived a long and full life.
George "Grumpy" Unwin died in 2006, at the age of 93, one of the last of the men who had flown Spitfires in Britain's darkest and finest hour.
A miner's son who started behind a desk, became one of the highest-scoring Spitfire pilots of the Battle of Britain, and flew into legend with his dog waiting for him back on the ground.
This was the story of George Unwin.
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