A rare Second World War D.F.M. and Bar group of five awarded to Flight Sergeant E. Mills, Royal Air Force, a long-served Rear-Gunner in Lancasters of No. 83 (P.F.F.) Squadron who completed in excess of 50 operational sorties in 1942-43, often returning to base in flak damaged aircraft: during one daylight sortie against the heavily defended Krupps Works at Essen in July 1942, his aircraft was badly damaged by flak and reduced to three engines - it was then attacked by two Me. 110s and two Fw. 190s and reduced to two engines but Mills’s determined and accurate gunnery saved the day, one Fw. 190 being claimed as a ‘probable’

Distinguished Flying Medal, G.VI.R., with Second Award Bar, the reverse of the Bar officially dated ‘1943’ (631539 F./Sgt. E. Mills, R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, these last four privately engraved, ‘F./Sgt. E. Mills, D.F.M. & Bar, 83 Sq. R.A.F.’, together with related transmission and entitlement slips, suspension on the first repaired, nearly very fine or better (5) £3600-4000

Just 62 first Bars were awarded to the D.F.M. in the 1939-45 War.

D.F.M. London Gazette 9 February 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. has now completed 40 operations as a Rear-Gunner, involving a total of 227 hours flying. Nearly all of his trips have been to heavily defended targets in Germany, and Flight Sergeant Mills’s unfailing keenness has often proved invaluable. In this long record of successful operations are included two daylight trips - to Danzig and Essen. The former of these flights was made in both directions through the worst imaginable weather conditions, but thanks to excellent crew co-operation, in which Flight Sergeant Mills played his part, the target was found and bombed from below the low cloud base.

Very shortly after this trip, Flight Sergeant Mills took part in a daylight raid on the Krupps Works at Essen, probably the most heavily defended target in the world, this being made with a negligible amount of cloud cover. The aircraft was badly damaged by the very powerful target defences and one engine was put out of action and feathered. Long before the enemy coast was crossed on the way home, the aircraft was attacked by two Me. 110s and two Fw. 190s, and another engine failed. This made the aircraft unmanoeuvreable and unable to gain height, and had it not been for Flight Sergeant Mills’s coolness and courage in directing what little evasive action was possible, and counter-attacking these fighters whenever the opportunity arose, it is very unlikely that the aircraft would ever have reached home.

Since these operations, which occurred last July, Flight Sergeant Mills has voluntarily forfeited his right to rest from operations and offered his services to his squadron when it transferred to Pathfinder duties. During his eighteen trips with the Path Finder Force, Flight Sergeant Mills has maintained his exceptional keenness, notwithstanding the facts that some of these trips have been extremely hazardous and include three which involved flights of over 700 miles with one engine unserviceable, the engine driving his own turret being involved once.

Throughout his long operational service, Flight Sergeant Mills’s keenness for operations had been a fine example to his colleagues and I very strongly recommend him for an award.’

Bar to D.F.M. London Gazette 14 May 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. has now completed 51 operational sorties involving a total of 283 hours, and throughout this time his keenness and determination to operate at every possible occasion has been an excellent example.

Nearly all his operations have been to heavily defended targets in Germany and they include two daylight sorties to Danzig and Essen. On Danzig, although the weather was extremely poor, his captain pressed home the attack at low-level, but was very considerably helped by Flight Sergeant Mills’s very clear instructions. On the sortie to Essen whilst the aircraft was returning on only two engines, he successfully fought off the attacks of two Me. 110s and two Fw. 190s and probably destroyed one of the latter.

His keenness and alertness in the air and quick sighting of enemy aircraft has often enabled his captain to avoid engagements, even on the longer flights to the Baltic and Italy. This N.C.O. has had an outstanding operational tour and his devotion to duty has been the highest possible.’

Edward Mills commenced his operational career as a Rear-Gunner in No. 83 Squadron in February 1942, a Manchester unit operating out of R.A.F. Scampton; the Squadron converted to Lancasters in May of the same year and moved to R.A.F. Wyton on joining the Path Finder Force (P.F.F.) in August.

Teaming-up with Flight Sergeant J. E. Partridge’s crew (afterwards a Flight Lieutenant with a D.F.C. & Bar to his name), Mills flew his first sortie - a ‘gardening trip’ to Nectarines - on 16 February 1942. With rare exception, however, his extended operational tour with No. 83, which ended a year later after 51 sorties, was of a more forbidding nature. In fact, encounters with enemy fighters aside, relevant entries in the Squadron’s O.R.B. pay testament to an operational career frequented by a flurry of close calls with accurate flak. So, too, to numerous trips to heavily defended German targets, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart among them. Mills also flew against Berlin and Duisburg on two occasions; Bremen on four and Essen on five - one of the latter being one of the Thousand Bomber Raids flown in June 1942.

Two of his sorties were of the daylight variety, thus the aforementioned attack on the Krupps Works at Essen on 18 July 1942, when, in addition to the loss of two engines - and Mills’s gallant duel with two Me. 110s and two Fw. 190s - the O.R.B. reveals his Lancaster’s petrol tank was holed by one of the fighters; the duel with the 190s is recounted in an accompanying combat report (Ref. T.N.A. AIR 50/197), a report that refers to multiple attacks being carried out at a few hundred yards range, as a consequence of which the Wireless Operator was wounded. Moreover, owing to the fact the Mid-Upper Gunner’s guns jammed after a brief exchange of fire, the Lancaster’s fate fell largely on Mills’s shoulders.

Mills’s second daylight operation, flown a week earlier on 11 July 1942 against Danzig, was met with equally heavy opposition, his Lancaster returning to base with a large hole in the port plane and many other smaller holes caused by flak over the target.

It was a similar story during the night of 26-27 July 1942, when he and his crew flew one of the ‘firestorm’ raids against Hamburg - ‘Holed in port wing by flak from flak ships on way out. Searchlights put out by Gunners.’ Mills’s rear-turret guns barked into action again on the night of 22-23 November 1942, during a strike on Stuttgart, when the O.R.B. noted his Bomb Aimer showed ‘extreme determination’ in making no less than five runs over the target. During the course of this hair-raising episode, Mills and the Mid-Upper Gunner opened up on two searchlights that were coning another aircraft, ‘one of which was put out by the Rear-Gunner. Got shot by flak over Paris [on the way home]. Used quite a lot of ammo.’ It was about this time that he was recommended for his D.F.M.

As noted in the recommendation Mills ‘voluntarily forfeited his right to rest from operations’, as a consequence of which he flew around a dozen additional sorties. Once again, the targets were largely of the heavily defended kind and, as might be expected of the “Big City”, he and his crew encountered further flak damage during a strike on Berlin on the night of 16-17 January 1943 - the aforementioned gallant Bomb Aimer having the perspex of his aiming panel holed. Mills was recommended for a Bar to his D.F.M.; sold with copied recommendations, combat reports and O.R.B. entries.