Ian Gleed
British writer
Wing Commander Ian Richard Gleed (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. He served in the Battle of France and Battle of Britain before being shot down and killed over Tunisia. Gleed published a fictionalized memoir, Arise to Conquer, in 1942.
Gleed Avenue in Bushey is named in his honour, one of a number of streets in the area named after Battle of Britain pilots.
Early life
Gleed was born in Finchley, north London on (1916-07-03)3 July 1916 to Seymour Richard and Florence Hair Gleed. 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.
He studied at Epsom College and was an avid sailor. Gleed told friends that after the war, he planned to buy a sailboat and sail to the South Seas.
Military career
Pre-war
After learning to fly as a civilian, Gleed was granted a RAF commission in 1936. He completed training on Christmas Day 1936 and was posted to 46 Squadron, flying the Gloster Gauntlet II, a biplane fighter.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ian Gleed” is british writer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Gleed, British and writer, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q47087526. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1916, 1943, 1942 and 1936.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ian Gleed” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.