George Herman Bennions, DFC (15 March 1913 – 30 January 2004), nicknamed "Ben", was a British flying ace who served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Second World War.
[1] He joined the Royal Air Force in 1929 as an aircraft apprentice at RAF Halton and qualified three years later as an engine fitter.
On 15 August 1940 while on a temporary rest break at RAF Catterick, his squadron was in action against a Luftwaffe force of 120 bombers and 21 Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters along the Yorkshire coast near Hartlepool.
He shot down one of the raiders before a shell exploded in his cockpit, blinding him in the left eye and severely damaging his right arm and leg.
Badly burned and bleeding heavily he struggled to bail out, and somehow managed to open his parachute before losing consciousness.
Bennions was transferred to Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, where he was one of the first pilots in the care of Sir Archibald McIndoe, the pioneer of plastic surgery for the treatment for severe burns.
He later served in North Africa as a senior controller and liaison officer with an American Fighter Group equipped with Spitfires.
Bennions left the RAF in 1946, and took a teacher training course, returning to teach woodwork, metalwork and practical drawing at Catterick where he lived for the rest of his life.
His hobbies included building and sailing a dinghy with friends and also flying until his seventies a de Havilland Tiger Moth aircraft in which he owned a share.