Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War A.F.C. group of three awarded to Pilot Officer J. L. Horne, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, late Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force

Air Force Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.A.F.), very fine and better (3) £1600-1800

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Roy Bartlett Collection of Awards to the R.N.A.S., R.F.C. and R.A.F..

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A.F.C. London Gazette 1 January 1919.

John Leitch Horne, who was born in Falkirk, Stirlingshire in May 1899, enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps at Farnborough in May 1917 and was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant that August.

Having qualified as a pilot, he joined No. 54 Squadron out in France in February 1918, but his active service career came to a grinding halt on 1 April 1918 when he won the dubious distinction of becoming the newly established Royal Air Force’s first reported casualty - taking off for a patrol at 5.30 a.m., his Camel (No. 9259) collided with a wind-indicator, leaving him with cuts to his face and a ‘leg, bent’ (AIR 1. 969/204/5/1101 refers). He was evacuated to the U.K. and admitted to hospital in London.

Returning to duty at No. 1 (Air Fighting) School in October 1918, he was advanced to Acting Captain in the same month, and was presumably awarded his A.F.C. for instructional duties at the same establishment. He was placed on the Unemployed List in February 1919.

Having then qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University in 1924, Leitch was employed at the Falkirk Royal Infirmary, where his wife was also a Doctor. He did, however, briefly return to uniform in the 1939-45 War, when he was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve and served in the Training Branch until resigning his commission in December 1943 - no doubt in order to return to his duties in the reserved occupation of a Doctor.