RAF Flight Lieutenant George Dunn,103, passes

David | May 6, 2026 | 3 Comments

Mr. Dunn passed April 28th. He’s someone worth remembering, if nothing else for completing 44 bombing missions over Europe.

George Charles Dunn was born in Whitstable, Kent, on September 21 1922. He attended the local school, where he was football captain, and left when he was 14 to work for Pickfords Removals.

Inspired by witnessing the Battle of Britain in the skies above his part of the country, Dunn decided to enlist in the RAF before his 18th birthday. In the meantime, he joined the Local Defence Volunteers (later the Home Guard).

Although he enlisted as a radio operator, he was selected as potential pilot material while in training. Christmas Ever 1942 he left for pilot training in Canada.

On his return to England a year later Dunn converted to bombers, and in May 1943 he joined 76 Squadron.

Dunn always said he was lucky. His aircraft was never intercepted by a night fighter, and only once did he have to escape the radar-controlled searchlights by taking violent corkscrew action. His aircraft suffered slight damage from flak on occasions, but he and his crew survived when many of their colleagues were lost.

When Dunn joined 76 Squadron at RAF Linton-on-Ouse near York in the spring of 1943, Bomber Command had just launched the campaign that became known as the Battle of the Ruhr. After flying two sorties as a second pilot with an experienced crew, Dunn and his all-sergeant crew then flew their first operation together on May 29, when the target was Düsseldorf.

This was followed by attacks against many of the major industrial centres including Essen, Gelsenkirchen, Cologne and Wuppertal. At the end of July, a series of raids were launched against Hamburg, when the electronic counter-measure called “window” was used for the first time: bundles of thin strips of aluminium foil were dropped to disrupt the enemy radar systems. Dunn flew on two of these raids, which devastated the northern port.

By early August, Dunn and his crew had flown 20 raids at the time when losses to German air defences were at their highest, including his group captain, who was shot down. On August 12 he attacked Milan, a mission at extreme range that lasted almost 10 hours. Five nights later, he flew on the raid to the German secret rocket site at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast.

After completing his 30 operations, he became an instructor at a bomber training unit, a job he described as “necessary but boring”, so he and his navigator volunteered to return to operations, and they converted to the Mosquito.

On August 23, the day he was commissioned as a pilot officer, Dunn attacked Berlin; a few days later he went to Munich. On October 3 he flew his 30th and final mission when he bombed Kassel, a few days after his 21st birthday.

Sounds like a top 10 list of places you did NOT want to fly over – and he brought his crew back intact every time. One very lucky man.

He joined 608 Squadron at Downham Market in Norfolk in December 1944. The squadron was part of the Light Night Striking Force, whose tasks were to fly “nuisance raids” in small numbers to major cities to keep the emergency services and working population awake at night. Most of his 14 sorties were to Berlin. He was Mentioned in Despatches. The Telegraph

For those who don’t speak Brit, “Mentioned in Despatches” is equivalent to a Bronze Star (to go with his DFC.)

After the war, he was very active raising funds with the RAF Benevloent Fund and is credited with raising over 100,000 British pounds for them.

Worth reading the article. 44 missions uninjured… wow.