Lot Archive

Lot

№ 648

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21 September 2007

Hammer Price:
£2,100

A fine Second World War D.F.M. group of five awarded to Flight Sergeant J. C. K. Platts, Royal Air Force, a Rear-Gunner who completed over 40 sorties, many of them as “Marker” and no less than 15 of them against the “Big City”: prior to joining Pathfinders, he participated in the Hamburg “firestorm” raids and in the famous strike against Peenemunde in August 1943

Distinguished Flying Medal
, G.VI.R. (636316 F./Sgt. J. C. K. Platts, R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals, good very fine and better (5) £2000-2200

D.F.M. London Gazette 15 August 1944. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. has taken part in 42 attacks on German and German occupied territory, 24 of which have been as “Marker”. Many of these have been against the most heavily defended targets, 15 on Berlin. His aircraft has on many occasions been a target for the enemy defences, but throughout his fortitiude and devotion to duty have made a valuable contribution to the safety of his crew. He is recommended for the award of the Distinguished Flying Medal.’

John Cyril Keith Platts flew his first operational sortie - against Gelsenkirchen - as an Air Gunner in No. 101 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of Ludford Magna, Lincolnshire, on the night of 9 July 1943, followed by a strike against Essen and a brace of trips to Hamburg on the 29th and on the 2 August, these last two at the height of the “firestorm” raids. But if the scenes of devastation in that city were an eye-opener for an Air Gunner at the beginning of his first operational tour - Platts flew as “Tail End Charlie” - his next sortie, in Lancaster JA 926, piloted by Flight Sergeant John Sexton, an Australian, against the secret rocket installation at Peenemunde on 17 August, produced equally shocking results, or certainly according to the eye-witness account of another member of his squadron, Sergeant J. J. Minguy:

‘Peenemunde was growing very “lively”. On the ground, everything was going up and burning as it isn’t possible. This was a mixture of flashes from the ground defences, which seemed to increase their firing in the same measure as we were raining them with bombs, and of explosions which were all more spectacular one from the other. It looked like coal burning - an inferno! Flames were of every colour possible - red, orange, green, blue and what not! Explosions succeeded one another at a rate that surpasses imagination’ (see Martin Middlebrook’s
Peenemunde Raid for further details).

A little under a week later, Platts flew his first sortie to Berlin, the first of a remarkable total of 15 trips to the “Big City”, a dozen of them virtually being flown in succession between mid-November and mid-February 1944 (i.e. at the height of what became known as the Battle of Berlin). Lucky indeed to survive this period of operations - Bomber Command lost nearly 500 aircraft in this offensive - he immediately flew a brace of trips to both Stuttgart and Frankfurt, followed by a final visit to Berlin and another to Nuremberg.

He was, therefore, probably relieved to gain a posting to recently formed No. 582 Squadron in April 1944, a Pathfinder unit operating in Lancasters out of Little Staughton, if only because that unit’s targets over the coming weeks were largely in France. Having been recommended for his D.F.M. in mid-May, Platts was posted out of No. 582 in late June; given the reference to him flying as “Marker” on 24 occasions in his recommendation, he must have been attached to another Pathfinder unit around the time of the Berlin offensive, most probably No. 7 Squadron, in which his ex-101 pilot, John Sexton, was commissioned and awarded a D.F.C.