Orders, Decorations and Medals

Pair: 2nd Lieutenant T. W. Whittaker, Royal Air Force, late South African Horse Artillery and Royal Naval Air Service

British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut., R.A.F.), the last with officially re-impressed naming, good very fine (2) £60-80

Travis William Whittaker, a native of Johannesburg who was born in August 1898, appears to have served in the South African Horse Artillery 1915-17, following which, in November of the latter year, he was accepted on probation by the Royal Naval Air Service and served as a Gunnery Instructor at Cranwell, Greenwich and Eastchurch, in addition to Vendome. Qualifying as a pilot in the newly formed Royal Air Force in April 1918, he appears to have joined No. 217 Squadron, a D.H. 4 unit (and ex-Naval No. 17 Squadron), but was admitted to hospital in Dunkirk that October. Latterly appointed to No. 25 Squadron, a D.H. 9 unit, he was transferred to the Unemployed List in January 1920.