Honor Salmon (née Pitman) (30 October 1912 - 19 April 1943) was a First Officer pilot in the British Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during World War Two. She was one of fifteen women pilots who lost their lives flying in the service of the ATA.

Honor Isabel Pitman was born in Kensington on 30 October 1912 to Francis Isabel (née Butler) and Ernest Pitman.^[1] Her mother was Irish and her father was a publisher in the family's Bath based company Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons along with his father and brother Alfred.^[2] Her paternal grandfather Sir Isaac Pitman, was the inventor of shorthand and the family fortune sprang from his work. She had five siblings, Isaac James Pitman, (b. 1901) who developed the Initial Teaching Alphabet, Christian Ernest (b. 1902), John (b. 1907), Peter (b. 1911) and Diana (b. 1914).^[3]

Honor Pitman was baptised on 12 December 1912 at Weston All Saints, in Bath, Somerset.^[4]

Pitman was educated at Abbott’s Hill School and Westonbirt School, in Tetbury, Gloucestershire.^[5][6]

Pitman had learned how to fly by the age of 14 but because of her youth and age restrictions on qualifying to undertake lone flying she "always had to fly with someone & could never go to other aerodromes to land" beyond the Bristol and Wessex Aero Club.^[7] Pitman was 24 when she qualified for her pilot's licence (No. 14649), issued by the Royal Aero Club, on 23 December 1936 at the Bristol and Wessex Aeroplane Club, flying a B A Swallow with a 85 hp Pobjoy Cataract radial engine.^[8] In 1936 Pitman joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY).^[6] By 1938 Pitman had travelled to Australia. She had flown 120 hours as a qualified pilot in small Swallows, Cadets and Aeronca aircraft before the start of the Second World War ended civilian flying.^[7]

Honor Pitman married Major Henry Methuen Pomeroy Salmon (1901-1953) in St Peter's Church, Dyrham, Gloucestershire, on 20 June 1941, after which she became known as Honor Salmon. Her husband owned Tockington Manor in Gloucestershire. There were no children from the marriage.^[10]

Honor Salmon died age 30 on 19 April 1943 when the Airspeed Oxford MN765 plane she was transporting in bad weather crashed in a field on high ground at Roundway Hill near Calne in Wiltshire. The ATA investigation found that she had continued to fly in bad weather and was at fault.^[7]

She was buried at St Peters, in Dyrham, Gloucestershire, near her family’s home.^[11] Two of her brothers who also died in service during the Second World War. Peter Pitman-Butler, a Captain in the 7th Queen's Own Hussars, Royal Armoured Corps, died in July 1940, and was buried in the Cairo War Cemetery, Egypt^[12][13] and John Pitman, a Captain in the 3rd King's Own Hussars, Royal Armoured Corps, was killed in Palestine on 1 October 1943, and buried at the Khayat Beach War Cemetery, Israel. The three siblings are commemorated on a plaque in the church at Dyrham.^[3]

Honor Salmon left £32,279 in her will, her husband and brother Christian Earnest Pitman were granted probate in 25 November 1943.^[14]