Photo: B. Chandler
G. Atkinson, D.F.M., Pilot Instructor
Royal Air Force
1st March 1945 age 29.
"One of the few".
Men of the North: A Few of The Few; Robert Dixon; Wolf’s Nick Publishing; 2011; ISBN 9781466446830
A Gathering of Eagles, Robert Dixon, PublishAmerica, 2004 ISBN 1 4137 3498 7 contains an account of the service of Sgt.Pilot Atkinson in pages 19-24.
Simon Glancey has submitted the following:
Flight Lieutenant Atkinson was killed in de Havilland Mosquito N.F.II HJ659 of 54 O.T.U. (Operational Training Unit), which crashed whilst performing unauthorised low level aerobatics in the grounds of Pallinsburn House, near Coldstream.
His D.F.M. had been gazetted in the London Gazette 07/03/1941. The citation reads as follows:
"Sergeant George Atkinson has served with No. 151 Squadron for over 16 months and, except for a period in hospital after he had been shot down, he has been in action with them on all possible occasions. His devotion to duty and keenness maintained over this long period of day fighting are of an exceptionally high order and in night fighting, he is continuing to set an example of the highest order. He has shot down two enemy aircraft and possibly three others."
He is remembered in Blyth on B42.19 and B42.23 and in New Delaval on N51.01
