Three: Captain N. H. Fletcher, Royal Air Force, late Imperial Yeomanry, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps - and a Great War Kite Balloon Officer

Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Cape Colony, Transvaal, Wittebergen, South Africa 1901 (1136 Tpr. N. H. Fletcher, 6th Coy 4th Impl. Yeo.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. N. H. Fletcher, R.A.F.), good very fine (3)
£250-300

Nigel Howard Fletcher, who was born in August 1878, served in 6th (Staffordshire) Company, 4th Battalion, Imperial Yeomanry during the Boer War, from which theatre of war he was invalided home, and qualified for the above described Medal & clasps (Asplin’s published roll refers).

A petrol engineer for Thorneycroft & Co. prior to the Great War, Fletcher was appointed a Temporary Flight Sub. Lieutenant (Observer) in the Royal Naval Air Service in January 1916, and was posted to No. 15 Kite Balloon Section and, as part of 2nd Balloon Wing, R.F.C., the section went out to France that September - whether Fletcher was still similarly employed at that time remains unknown, but it is interesting to note that No. 15’s Observers were compelled to undertake 13 parachute descents in the period leading up to June 1917. Certainly he was still serving as a Kite Balloon Officer on transferring to the newly established Royal Air Force in April 1918, and he ended the War at No. 18 Balloon Base after a stint of service in the Kite Balloon Section at R.A.F. North Queensferry. He was demobilised in February 1919.