Ian Nicholas Hunt

Ian, known as ‘Kiwi’ was born in Ashford, Kent on 1st December 1953.

He died on 2nd June 1982, during an accidental patrol engagement with friendly forces.

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Norman Boyes

I would like to contribute ever such a little about Ian Hunt. First a bit of background. During the operation in question I was serving in HMS Invincible as a Marine Engineer Artificer First Class (Button Tiff!), ‘VINCE’ was earning her West Africa Star at the time and from time to time various elements of the SF were embarked. I hasten to add at this point I do not know what is in the public domain on this but bearing in mind my ‘low position’ at the time and the consummate professionalism of the SF who did not reveal to us the nature of their ops or methods, then there is little risk in what I can tell you about Ian.

During Op Corporate there were from time to time elements of the SF embarked in Invincible. One such was a team from the SBS of whom Sergeant Ian (Kiwi) Hunt was a member. Some of the team were accommodated along with a load of mainly ‘Clanky Chiefs’ in 6Q messdeck, a rather select cul-de-sac. We got very friendly with the team, particularly Kiwi, who impressed us with their sheer professionalism, good nature and quiet, modest and self-effacing confidence. They were all of course extremely fit, I remember Kiwi doing absolutely mega amounts of press ups and he was apparently in training for a Guinness Book of Records attempt. We never embarrassed the team by venturing to ask them what they were up too – they disappeared for what seemed like a few days and then came back and we would just renew our friendship and banter! However, on one occasion they came back without Kiwi. I cannot vouch for the veracity of this but my memory serves me to recall that the story was, that he was ‘slotted’ by the SAS who did not know the SBS team were in their area, I understood they were actually transiting back to an RV on completion of their task. We were all very sad, we sent a framed picture of the ship to his widow – a pretty useless thing really but we just wanted to show that we cared and missed him.

Family and friends are encouraged to contribute.

We will add information to this memorial as we receive it.

If you have a photo, an anecdote, or simply to say you remember him, we will be very pleased to hear from you, so please contact the sama office at [email protected]