Orders, Decorations and Medals

Five: Captain R. C. Nicholls, Indian Army Reserve of Officers, late Bedfordshire Regiment, Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force: having served as a teenager in the Natal Rebellion 1906, he was commissioned in the Great War, served as an Observer in the R.F.C. on the Western Front and as an Armaments Officer under Allenby, in addition to serving in Iraq as an Indian Army Officer - he died in a flying accident in South Africa in the 1930s

Natal 1906, 1 clasp, 1906 (Pte., Durban Light Infantry); 1914-15 Star (2 Lieut., Bedf. R.), rather small but officially impressed naming, circa 1922; British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt., R.A.F.); General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Iraq (Capt.), the first with severe edge cut at 3 o’clock, contact marks, otherwise generally very fine and better (5) £500-600

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to the R.F.C. and R.A.F. formed by Wing Commander Bill Traynor.

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Reginald Cathcart Nicholls was born at Sandown on the Isle of Wight in August 1888, his parents sometime thereafter moving to South Africa, where their son enlisted in the Durban Light Infantry as a boy recruit. He subsequently served in the Natal Rebellion of 1906, prior to joining the Customs Service at Shanghai, and was still similarly employed on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914.

Returning to the U.K., Nicholls enlisted in the 6th Reserve Cyclist Battalion, the Royal Sussex Regiment, that December, but was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment in January 1915. Embarked for France at the end of the year, he appears to have quickly gained attachment to the Royal Flying Corps, War Office records recording his secondment to No. 25 Squadron as an ‘Observer on probation’ by the time of his evacuation home in July 1916, when he was admitted to 4th London General Hospital with a sight defect. No. 25 Squadron was then employed in a fighter-reconnaissance role and, memorably, in a combat on 16 June 1916, was involved in the demise of the German ace Max Immelman.

Following assorted medical boards, Nicholls was found unfit for further flying duties, as a consequence of which he was ordered to attend a machine-gun course at Grantham. Emerging as a qualified Armaments & Gunnery Officer, he went overseas in March 1917, and was mentioned in one of General Allenby’s despatches (London Gazette 14 June 1918 refers). Having then been advanced to the temporary rank of Captain, he was placed on the Unemployed List in October 1919.

Meanwhile, however, and presumably as a result of his employment in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1918, he gained appointment as a Captain on the Indian Army Reserve of Officers, in which rank, on attachment to the 2/96 Infantry, he was actively employed in Iraq from December 1919 to November 1920.

Returning to South Africa, Nicholls settled at Sea Point, Cape Town, and was onetime Assistant Manager of the Tivoli Theatre, while in the mid-1930s he renewed his earlier interest in aviation and took part in some local races. Tragically, however, while returning from such an event in September 1936, his aircraft plunged nose first into the ground near Stamford Aerodrome, Natal, and he died of his injuries shortly afterwards; so, too, his passenger, the wife of South African cricketer Herby Taylor; sold with some newspaper cuttings reporting this accident, and one or two related photographs.