The British War Medal awarded to Captain A. S. Mather, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force, a Sopwith Pup pilot who served with 3 (Naval) Squadron, and was shot down by the German Ace Oberleutnant Adolf Ritter von Tutschek, on the Western Front on 1 May 1917. Mather was taken Prisoner of War, and interned in Germany for the remainder of the War

British War Medal 1914-20 (Capt. A. S. Mather. R.A.F.) good very fine £100-£140

Arthur Stuart Mather was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, in February 1895. He was educated at the Central Secondary School Sheffield, prior to working a four-year engagement on the Inver Line. Mather was apprenticed as a Third Mate with the Inversnaid of Aberdeen between March 1911 and December 1915. Having advanced to Second Mate, he volunteered for service with the Royal Naval Air Service and was commissioned Temporary Flight Sub Lieutenant (on probation) in June 1916. Mather carried out initial training at Crystal Palace, Eastbourne and East Church, prior to being posted to East Fortune in November 1916, and then to Dover in March 1917.

Mather was posted as a pilot for operational service with 3 (Naval) Squadron (Sopwith Pups) in France. He was shot down and taken Prisoner of War on 1 May 1917, whilst escorting a formation of FE2b’s on a reconnaissance to Cambrai. Mather was the 3rd ‘victory’ (of 27) for Pour Le Mérite winner Oberleutnant Adolf Ritter von Tutschek of Jasta 12. A photograph of him being made to pose next to his captured machine by the Germans is illustrated in I Chose The Sky by 3 Squadron contemporary L. H. Rochford.

Mather claimed that he shot down an aircraft during the above combat, but it was not substantiated as he was taken Prisoner of War. An article that appeared in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph on 4 January 1919 gives the following:

‘Included in a number of officers recently returned from Germany, is Flight Lieutenant Arthur Stuart Mather, R.A.F., whose parents reside in Sharrow, Sheffield.

Flight Lieutenant Mather was attached to the squadron of the renowned Commander Mulock, and was occupied in combating German pilots in May, 1917, when, after having brought down one German machine, he was made the target of other Hun pilots, one of whom shot the controls of Lieutenant Mather’s machine. As a result of this, he was obliged to descend behind the German lines. Since then he has had experiences of typical German treatment in the internment camps at Strohen and Bad-Colberg, but has arrived home physically fit, despite the rigours of life in Germany... The only favoured class is apparently the cynically brutal German officer. As an instance of this, Flight Lieutenant Mather states that the German sentries begged piteously for bread from the British officers...

Flight Lieutenant Mather had many and varied experiences of Prussian militarism. On one occasion the Commandant of a camp brought out the armed guard, and ordered each German soldier to load his rifle, and take “mark” every British prisoner... The Commandant instructed the guard to shoot any man who laughed while the order was read a second time.’

Two of Mather’s brothers were killed whilst in service during the Great War, including one who was killed in action on the First Day of the Battle of the Somme. Having been repatriated, Mather returned to his pre-War employment and served as the 4th Officer of the Minnekahda of Belfast, and sailed on the Trans-Atlantic line. He saw employment on a succession of ships, including the Manitou with whom he was active in the evacuation of British and Russian troops from North Russia in 1919. Mather gained his certificate of competency as a Master in the Merchant Service on 6 April 1923, and was frequently employed on the Trans-Atlantic route thereafter. He died in Sheffield in June 1976.

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