Wing Commander Gwilym Hugh Lewis DFC (5 August 1897 – 18 December 1996) was a British flying ace during World War I.
Lewis was the next to last surviving British ace from the war, as well as the longest lived, dying eight months before his hundredth birthday.
His wide range of friends included Prime Minister Winston Churchill, playwright Noël Coward, and fellow aces Stan Dallas, Mick Mannock, and George McElroy.
Lewis then procured £100 from his father for tuition, and put himself through private pilot's training at Hendon on a Grahame-White Boxkite.
[7] When 32 Squadron moved to France on 29 May 1916, Lewis flew a tired Airco DH.2 over the English Channel; he had four and a half hours solo flight experience.
He would score nine more times in the next six months, including one triumph shared with his squadron leader, Major Stan Dallas.
[1] On Lewis's final day in France, at his farewell luncheon, Mannock pulled aside top Irish ace George McElroy to caution him about following victims down to within the range of German ground fire.
[11] Lewis came home from the war to share a cottage in Wargrave with some of his service friends; they were Noël Coward's audience for his reading of his first play, The Rat Trap.
He served as a member of the Cabinet War Rooms reporting to and briefing Winston Churchill[1] until his health once again forced his resignation on 21 September 1944, this time from the rank of wing commander.
[1] As late as November 1960, Lewis was still active as liquidator on an insurance brokerage that month, with his address being given in London.
[1] Lewis appeared as a contributor in the 1987 documentary 'The Cavalry of the Clouds', produced by British regional commercial television station 'HTV West'.