Flying Officer, RAF
Born: 29 May 1918
Died: 17 June 1940
Age at Death: 22
2nd XV 1934-1935
2nd XI 1934-1935
Boxing VIII 1935
Leonid Ereminsky (known as Ounia to his family, but Minnie, from his surname, in the RAF) was born in Russia on 29 May 1918 to White Russians: supporters of the Tsar in the 1917 revolution. We do not know what happened to his father, also called Leonid; perhaps he was killed in the turmoil and civil war following the Bolshevik takeover.
At the College he was an all-round sportsman. As a boxer he had a good right hook but was “inclined to be wild” according to the school magazine.
In 1937 Ereminsky joined RAF Fighter Command, and by the outbreak of war was a Flying Officer, operating the Hurricane fighter plane.
Ereminsky fought briefly in the skies over France before it fell to the Germans in 1940, but was soon back in England, where he joined 56 Squadron. On 17 June he led a patrol from RAF Station North Weald, but the weather quickly turned overcast. Because of this, Ereminsky decided at the end of the patrol to return at low level, but was killed when his aircraft struck the roof of a house.
“It is too sad and there is very little left for me now”, his mother Julie wrote to the Head Master, Walter Hett.
He is buried in St Luke’s Churchyard, Whyteleafe, in Surrey.
To mark Remembrance in 2023, a Brighton College family visited St Luke’s Churchyard, and found Leonid’s grave.