An interesting Second World War M.B.E. group of seven awarded to Acting Lieutenant-Colonel S. Biesheuvel, South African Air Force, who was decorated for his pioneering work in aptitude testing pupil pilots and aircrew, work that found him despatched on special missions to London and Washington D.C., where his ideas were later adopted by the relevant defence authorities - and in order to assist his research, he qualified as a pilot himself, seeing active service in No. 12 (S.A.A.F.) Squadron in Libya and Egypt

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type breast badge; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, these two officially inscribed, ‘203333 S. Biesheuvel’; Defence Medal 1939-45, unnamed as issued and as claimed in the 1950s; War Medal 1939-45; Africa Service Medal 1939-45, these last two also officially inscribed, ‘203333 S. Biesheuvel’; Coronation 1953, mounted court-style as worn in post-1961 South African order of precedence, generally good very fine (7) £400-500

M.B.E. London Gazette 8 June 1944. The original recommendation - for an O.B.E. - states:

‘When in October 1940 the C.G.S. decided to organise aptitude testing for potential pilots in the S.A.A.F., Major Biesheuvel, a member of the Department of Psychology of the University of Witwatersrand, was selected as head of this undertaking. From its initiation Major Biesheuvel had been solely responsible for the development of this work, the obtaining of staff, the designing of apparatus and the introduction of the battery tests necessary for obtaining concrete results.

From the testing of pilots the work developed and was applied to all air crew categories and now all sections of the Air Force, including ground staff, are assessed. The saving in time and expense by the elimination of those unsuitable for training has been very great indeed and has had a valuable bearing on the man power problem.

Major Biesheuvel, for scientific accuracy, desired a flying background for his initial work of pilot selection. He, therefore, trained as a pilot and also visited units in the North and obtained operational experience. This proved of the greatest value both for the testing of of aircrew candidates but also in the other growing branch of his work where he is called in to advise the C.M.E., S.A.A.F., in all cases referred to it, either from training or operations which have psychological aspects.

From January to July 1943, on instruction from the highest authority, he visited England, the U.S.A. and Canada, in order to compare his methods and results from psychological testing with those in each of these countries. Senior officers in England and the U.S.A. evinced great interest in his work and many of his methods have been made standard practice elsewhere.

Throughout he has brought to this work knowledge and enthusiasm; energy and attention to duty have been combined with a scientific outlook and a common sense experience of humanity. His contribution to the S.A.A.F. has been unique in character and the founding and developing of this work, the value of which is becoming more fully realised daily, has only been accomplished by great personal endeavour and sacrifice.

This recommendation is made with the agreement of and in consultation with Lieutenant-Colonel Raikes, Chairman of the Personal Research Development Committee, S.A.A.F.’

Simon Biesheuvel was born in Rotterdam in April 1908 and also lived in Belgium and Brazil before his parents settled in Cape Town in the early 1920s. Having obtained a B.A. from the University of Cape Town, with distinctions in Psychology, English and French, and in 1930 an M.A. in Pyschology, he won a scholarship to Edinburgh University, where he studied temperament and behaviour for his Ph. D. Returning to South Africa, he then pursued a career as a lecturer at Stellenbosch and Witwatersrand Universities.

And of his subsequent wartime exploits, his extensive obituary in the Journal of Royal Society of South Africa states:

‘Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Biesheuvel was invited to establish a systematic procedure for the selection of pilots for the S.A. Air Force. In the process, he himself qualified as a pilot. He was Officer Commanding of the Aptitude Test Section of the S.A.A.F. from 1940-46, being demobilised as an Acting Lieutenant-Colonel. The researches of his unit and the application of its findings to personnel selection and training in the rest of the Defence Force constituted a major contribution to the distinguished achievements of the S.A. Army and Air Force during the war. Twenty-one classified reports on various aspects of psychological fitness of aircrew were written by him and circulated by the Flying Personnel Research Committee of the Royal Air Force, the South African Aptitude Test Board and the Commonwealth Advisory Committee on Defence Science ... ’

The ‘operational experience’ as a pilot referred to in the recommendation for his subsequent award of the M.B.E. was in No. 12 Squadron, S.A.A.F., in Libya and Egypt in early 1942, while his ideas were also largely adopted by his counterparts in the U.S.A., where he served at the S.A. Legation in Washington D.C. in 1943.

Such was the importance of Biescheuvel’s contribution to post-war South Africa - he was founder and Director of the National Institute for Personnel Research from 1946-62, among many other senior and influential posts - that Professor D. J. W. Strumper was moved to observe on Biescheuvel’s death in June 1991:

‘His wide-ranging and enduring contributions as a scientist, the vision of the professional leader, but above all, the personal greatness of the man who was for many years the doyen of psychologists in South Africa, are remembered with deeply felt admiration.’

N.B.
The recipient’s original claim for the Defence Medal was disallowed but after further investigation it was accepted that his latter services in the U.K. had indeed qualified him for the award and it was issued to him in March 1957 - as verified by copied official documentation included in the research file; sold with copied service record and portrait photographs, together with a copy of the extensive obituary published in the Journal of the Royal Society of South Africa.