Alastair Donald Mackintosh “Sandy” Gunn was born in Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland on 27 September 1919 to surgeon James Turner Gunn, MB, ChB, FRCS and Adelaide Lucy Frances (Née Macdonald) Gunn.
He attended Cargilfeld Preparatory School and Fettes School in Edinburgh. On leaving school, he took up an engineering apprenticeship at Harland and Wolff’s Govan Shipyard in Glasgow and as part of his time at Harland and Wolff, gained a place at Pembroke College, Cambridge to study mechanical sciences.
He enlisted in the Royal Air Force on 22 February 1940, becoming an aircrew candidate on 22 June 1940. He gained his wings and promotion to Sergeant on 18 January 1941 and was quickly commissioned on 25 January 1941.
Sandy was first posted to 48 Sqn Coastal Command flying twin-engine Avro Anson aircraft on maritime patrols over the Atlantic. His skill at long distance navigation brought him to the attention of his senior officers who selected him for transfer to 1 PRU to carry out photo reconnaissance missions.
He moved to RAF, Benson, Oxfordshire, flying Supermarine Spitfires specially converted for high-altitude reconnaissance missions. He was bounced around various RAF airfields in the UK including RAF Wick in the north of Scotland flying high-altitude, long-range sorties over the North Atlantic and Norwegian coast tracking German Naval movements. These sorties were very long, lonely and dangerous.
He was promoted to Flying Officer on 25 January 1942.
On 5 March 1942 he was flying a mission over Trondheim, Norway monitoring the movements of the battleship Tirpitz when he was bounced and shot down by two Me 109s. He bailed out of his doomed Spitfire receiving burns to his face and hands.
He hoped to ski to neutral Sweden, but due to his injuries, he was forced to surrender and was flown via Trondheim to a Luftwaffe Transit camp for interrogation. He spent three weeks being questioned as his captors believed he had flown from a secret RAF base in northern Norway.
He was then sent to Stalag Luft III, Lower Silesia (now Poland) where he became a Security Officer guarding the Escape Committee meetings and joining the tunnelling team. He was promoted in captivity to Flight Lieutenant on 24 January 1943.
On the night of 24/25 March 1944, Sandy along with 75 other prisoners took part in the ‘Great Escape’. His freedom proved very short-lived as he was soon captured near Görlitz and taken to the local prison where he and other escapees were roughly interrogated.
He was moved and then executed by the Gestapo on 6 April 1944 along with 49 other escapees with his remains cremated and buried along with the others at Stalag Luft III. Sandy was 24 years old when he was killed. After the Second World War, his ashes were interred and commemorated at CWGC Old Garrison Cemetery, Poznan.
Interestingly his memory is not only commemorated by a CWGC headstone, but also by his Spitfire. Remarkably his Spitfire PR.Mk IV AA810 crashed in a peat bog near Langurda, Surnadal, Norway and was recovered in 2018 and is in the process of being rebuilt to flying condition.
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