Wing Commander Ian Richard Gleed DSO, DFC (3 July 1916 – 16 April 1943), nicknamed "Widge," was a Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot and flying ace credited with the destruction of 13 enemy aircraft during the Second World War.

[7] His father, a doctor, had served as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War, and his sister Daphne was also involved in medicine.

[6] Gleed told friends that after the war, he planned to buy a sailboat and sail to the South Seas.

He completed training on Christmas Day 1936 and was posted to 46 Squadron, flying the Gloster Gauntlet II, a biplane fighter.

He was immediately as good as his word and tore into the enemy on every conceivable occasion with apparent delight and entire lack of concern.

Despite the limitations of using searchlights to direct the Hurricanes to enemy aircraft,[15] Gleed scored two victories at night.

At Ibsley, he directed the operations of 118, 234 and 501 Squadrons, which made fighter sweeps across the English Channel and conducted bomber escorts.

[2] However, Gleed was not content sitting behind a desk and arranged to be posted to an operational command in the Middle East, a more active theater following the Torch landings.

[1] 244 Wing participated in Operation Flax, a series of fighter sweeps over the Cap Bon area intended to intercept transport aircraft attempting to evacuate Axis personnel from Tunisia to Sicily.

"[6] A 1978 biography of Gleed by Norman Franks struck one reviewer as leaving "many questions unanswered" especially regarding his personal life: "Neville Duke and Roland Beamont do not, as quoted, provide us with much of a clue to the kind of man Ian Gleed was (other than an exceptionally successful, gallant and determined fighter pilot).

Norman Franks tells us of only one close friend—a boy who used to go sailing with Gleed and whose company he seems to have gone to considerable lengths to enjoy, even at the risk of court martial for 'the employment of aircraft for unauthorised purposes in wartime.

'"[27] In 1997, RAF pilot Christopher Gotch gave an interview on a BBC documentary on LGBT history, "It's Not Unusual".

[28][29] Gotch recalled that Gleed had approached him and initiated a sexual relationship, at considerable risk as gross indecency was not only a court-martial offence but a crime punishable by jail time.

"[29] A wartime history of the Tunisia Campaign described him as "one of [the Desert Air Force's] greatest leaders" and a "great little pocket Hercules.