Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare E.II.R. A.F.M. awarded to Pilot Officer F. O. Robertson, a gallant Master Pilot and Test Pilot whose stalled aircraft went into a fatal spin when he turned it away from a Hampshire village while attempting to make a forced-landing

Air Force Medal, E.II.R. (654676 F. Sgt. F. O. Robertson, R.A.F.), in its Royal Mint case of issue, extremely fine £2500-3000

A.F.M. London Gazette 31 May 1956.

Frederick Ormonde Robertson was born in St. Pancras, London in November 1921 and served as a fitter in the 1939-45 War, prior to being selected for pilot training and being posted to No. 460 Squadron in April 1945. He subsequently graduated as an instructor from the Central Flying School, became a Command Instrument Examiner and was one of just eight pilots based at the elite Home Command Examining Unit at R.A.F. White Waltham, Berkshire. Here he was responsible for giving fellow instructors refresher courses, and flew many types of aircraft, including Vampires and Meteors, in addition to undertaking a period as a test pilot on Provosts, on attachment to Short Brothers. By now a Master Pilot, he was awarded the A.F.M. and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in June 1956.

Tragically, however, he and a fellow instructor were killed on a routine flight to R.A.F. Andover in October 1957, when their Bolton Paul Balliol caught fire and crashed into a cornfield on Sir Jeremiah Colman’s estate at Malshanger, near Oakley, Hampshire. One eye-witness later told an inquest that he had seen ‘a piece fall from the aircraft’, and then sparks followed by black smoke, while another confirmed that it had hit treetops before ploughing into the cornfield. Robertson’s last recorded message was “Forced landing south of Basingstoke engine cutting”, but the Balliol went into a fatal spin when he turned it away from the village of Oakley.