George Michael Carmichael

George Michael Carmichael, born around 1917, was a British pilot of the Royal Air Force, the son of Group Captain George Ivan Carmichael, DSO, AFC, and Kathleen Mary Foxon Carmichael of Brook, Hampshire. Holding the service number 33339 and the rank of Flight Lieutenant, he was named in the London Gazette of 24 November 1944 (issue 36816, page 5465) among officers honoured by the King; the sources consulted record his decoration as the MBE rather than the DSO held by his father, with whom the award is easily confused. By the end of 1944 he was serving with No. 53 Operational Training Unit, a fighter training establishment then flying Supermarine Spitfires from RAF Hibaldstow in Lincolnshire. On 31 December 1944, aged 27, he lost control of Spitfire Mk VB EN861 during a low-level tail-chase exercise and crashed into the ground at Nettleton Top, near Nettleton in Lincolnshire, and was killed. He is buried in Cambridge City Cemetery (grave 15117), and a roadside memorial stands on Normanby Road south of Nettleton close to the site of the crash.