Eric Carter (pilot)

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Eric Carter (12 February 1920 – 26 July 2021) was a British Royal Air Force pilot who served during World War II. He was born near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England, and joined the RAF in 1939, saying he did so because the Germans were committing atrocities. He served with No. 615 Squadron and rose to the rank of Warrant Officer before leaving the RAF in 1946.

Carter was one of only a few non-Russians to receive the Order of Lenin, the Soviet Union’s highest military honour. He was later awarded the Arctic Star in March 2013 for his wartime service and the Medal of Ushakov by Russia in September 2014. In 2012, he launched a fundraising campaign to restore a Supermarine Spitfire donated to Stoke-on-Trent in 1969. He married Phyllis Carter in 1943. Carter died at a retirement home in Birmingham, West Midlands, at the age of 101.