Orders, Decorations and Medals

A well-documented and exceptional Second World War immediate D.S.O., two tour D.F.C. group of eight awarded to Squadron Leader J. B. Starky, Royal Air Force, late Royal New Zealand Air Force: in what was undoubtedly one of the great “epics” of the last war, he flew home his crippled Lancaster after two crew had baled out and two others lay seriously wounded - but Starky was no stranger to perilous flight, having already survived a crash-landing in the desert and coaxed back another Lancaster minus six feet of its starboard wing

Distinguished Service Order, G.VI.R., 1st issue, silver-gilt and enamels, the reverse of the suspension bar undated, an official replacement in its Garrard, London case of issue; Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1943’, an official replacement in its Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf; New Zealand War Service Medal 1939-45, the first two virtually as issued, the remainder very fine or better (8) £2500-3000

D.S.O. London Gazette 28 September 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘At 20.11 hours on the night of 5-6 September 1943, Lancaster Y-DS 682 took off for Mannheim. The Captain, Acting Squadron Leader J. B. Starky, was on his forty-seventh trip; the remainder of the crew had about 20 sorties each to their credit. At 01.50 hours the aircraft, with starboard elevator almost completely shot away, the Navigator and Wireless Operator missing, and two more of the crew wounded, forced landed successfully at Ford. What follows is the story of events in between:

The trip was uneventful until some 20 miles short of the target. The weather was clear and the aircraft was flying at 19,000 feet. Suddenly without any previous warning, a night fighter dived in a head-on attack. Our aircraft was badly hit, the cockpit was filled with smoke and a bright light gave the impression of a fire. It then went into a violent spiral - the central column rocking violently - and being unable to regain control the Captain gave the order to abandon by parachute.

The Mid-Upper Gunner, Sergeant K. Tugwell, called out that the Rear-Gunner was stuck in his turret and the Captain made a desperate effort to regain control. The stick became a little easier, due to the dinghy which had been jammed in the tail unit blowing free, and the Captain regained control. The night fighter - a Ju. 88 - then attacked again from the rear. Both tail and Mid-Upper Gunners held their fire, and shot it down in flames.

Squadron Leader Starky then attempted to take stock. He found that both Wireless Operator and Navigator had jumped by parachute, that his Flight Engineer was wounded in the shoulder and the 2nd Pilot wounded in the arm and head. The Bomb Aimer, Flying Officer B. A. W. Beer, had attempted to jump from the front exit, but had been unable to jettison the escape hatch. When he was finally half way out of the aircraft, he heard the Captain say “Hold on!” as he had the aircraft back under control. The Rear-Gunner was now manning the mid-upper turret, while the Mid-Upper Gunner and Bomb Aimer attended the wounded.

The Captain then attempted the most difficult task of bringing his badly damaged aircraft back to base without the assistance of a Wireless Operator or Navigator. He set an approachable course for base and carried on this for over 30 minutes. By this time the Bomb Aimer had gone back to do the navigation, but as the navigators log had gone he had no plot and gave the Captain an amended course for base. On their way across France they were repeatedly fired at by A.A. batteries and as his inter-com had now gone, the Captain was compelled to take evasive action only from the judgment of the gun flashes. On one occasion the Bomb Aimer had to go through to tell the Captain that shells were bursting dangerously near the tail.

In this precarious state the damaged Lancaster made its way back through the enemy fighter belt. The Mid-Upper Gunner manned the wireless set and succeeded in getting acknowledgment to a laborious S.O.S. The Bomb Aimer tried unsuccessfully to work GEE.

Eventually the Channel was reached and as they drew near the coast the Captain and Bomb Aimer flashed S.O.S. on their lights. As they crossed the shore an immediate green was received and Squadron Leader Starky effected a masterly landing of his now uncontrollable aircraft, bringing it in at an air speed of 140 m.p.h.

The story of this flight is an epic, and the return of the aircraft to this country must be considered due firstly and primarily to the superb airmanship and captaincy of Squadron Leader Starky, and actually to the magnificent co-operation of the rest of the crew. Squadron Leader Starky has already been recommended for the Distinguished Flying Cross for his really magnificent work during two tours of operations, and I consider that his latest achievement is worthy of the immediate award of the Distiguished Service Order.’

D.F.C. London Gazette 10 September 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘This officer is now on a second tour of operations. In 1941-42 he carried out a most successful tour on Wellingtons in the U.K. against targets in Germany and German occupied Europe - finishing in the Middle East with attacks against objectives in the Mediterranean.

Flight Lieutenant Starky has now completed 42 sorties and has attacked many highly defended targets, including Essen, Benghazi and Pireaus, and has recently been actively engaged in the Battle of the Ruhr.

On one occasion recently he collided with another aircraft over enemy territory and lost a large piece of his starboard wing, but succeeded by superb airmanship in bringing his badly damaged aircraft back to base.

This officer has at all times shown resolution, courage and ability of the highest order in his attacks on enemy targets. His cheerful contempt for danger and his keenness for operational flying, have set a fine example to the other aircrew of this squadron.’

Mention in despatches London Gazette 11 June 1942.

James Bayntun “Jim” Starky, who was born in Gisborne, New Zealand in November 1916, enlisted in the Royal New Zealand Air Force in July 1940 and commenced pilot training at No. 1 E.F.T.S., Taieri, near Dunedin that August. Following further training at Wigram, Christchurch, he was embarked for the U.K., where he attended No. 20 O.T.U. at Lossiemouth in Scotland and converted to Wellingtons prior to going operational as a 2nd Pilot in No. 149 Squadron at Mildenhall, Suffolk in June 1941.

Quickly participating in nine operational sorties over the next few weeks, Dusseldorf, Bremen, Essen, Mannheim and Munster among the chosen targets, in addition to a brace of trips to Brest to attack the Prinz Eugen and Scharnhorst, he was ordered to the Middle East in September 1941, the same month in which he was appointed Flight Sergeant.

Posted to No. 148 Squadron on his arrival - another Wellington unit, operating out of Kabrit - his aircraft was hit by flak on his very first sortie to Benghazi on 5 November. Appointed 1st Pilot in the same month, he had his work cut out for him on the night of the 25th while en route to another target, for local Arabs had exchanged a landing ground’s fuel supply for water - his engines cut out shortly after take-off and although by means of pressing his head against the canopy windscreen to peer into the darkness he managed to effect a full glide angle crash-landing, two members of crew were killed outright and others seriously injured - had he not managed to jettison the bomb load none would have survived. Having been knocked out and injured himself, Starky nonetheless set off into the desert to find help, walking 12 miles over rough terrain until staggering into Landing Ground 60 covered in blood - he then guided an ambulance to the crash site. In due course mentioned in despatches for his gallantry and leadership on that occasion, he flew in the interim a brace of sorties against Pireaus in December, and six more in January 1942, these latter against Tripoli, Agedabia and elsewhere in North Africa. Having then made further visits to Benghazi in February and March, he was re-embarked for the U.K. and “rested”, gaining a commission as Pilot Officer and notching up many hours testing Spitfires, Beaufighters and other aircraft, latterly at No. 19 M.U. in early 1943.

Returning to an operational footing with No. 115 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of East Wretham, Norfolk in April 1943, Starky quickly renewed his acquaintance with German targets of the heavily defended kind, Bochum, Dortmund, Duisburg, Essen and Stettin among them, so, too, Krefeld, on the night of 21-22 June, when his Lancaster was holed in 16 places by flak - and this just 48 hours after being attacked by a Ju. 88 on returning from a minelaying sortie. Advanced to Flight Lieutenant in the same month, he had his next encounter of the hair-raising kind over Gelsenkirchen on the night of the 25th - namely a collision with another Lancaster. Men with Wings, by Wing Commander H. P. “Sandy” Powell, takes up the story:

‘Starky, now a Flight Commander, was turning his Lancaster for his run up to the target. They were flying at 14,000 feet. There was an appalling crash and the whole aircraft shook with the impact. Another Lancaster then appeared in front of them and blew up. It had struck off over six feet of Starky’s starboard wing. It was completely impossible to identify this particular Lancaster, but it was flying as though there were fighters on its tail ... the immediate awareness in Starky’s mind when he had recovered from the first shock of the collision was that to keep the Lancaster level - he had full aileron on - the control wheel had to be held over. His second thought was concerning the 4000 lb. bomb suspended in the under part of the Lancaster’s fuselage. At reduced speed he flew straight on towards the target and there dropped the great bomb. Miraculously all four Hercules engines went on running as smoothly as ever and they were able to turn and set course for home ... Over Texel, a strongly defended area, Starky, by force of habit, took evasive action. His left elbow, already low down due to the position of the control wheel, hit something with a resounding crack when making an attempt to apply opposite aileron. He was thus harshly made aware of the need to keep the controls full over to avoid doing a complete roll towards the damaged wing! This produced another shock. At the moment his elbow struck there was a torrent of German on the R./T., for his elbow had pressed the buttons on the radio switch-box and the circuit engaged and happened to pick up the comments of a German ground controller below. The landing was not the least of the difficulties, as extra speed was clearly necessary for fear of stalling the crippled wing. Lining up on the flare-path must be exactly right as it would have been courting disaster to make any but the most gentle manoeuvre on the approach. Suffice it to say a safe approach and landing was made and no additional damage of any sort was done to the aeroplane.’

Accordingly, Starky’s nerves must have been tested to the limit when ordered to return to Gelsenkirchen early in the following month, not least when his aircraft was attacked by a Ju. 88 and Fw. 190 - again, too, during a raid on Aachen on 13th. These operations were swiftly followed by a brace of trips to Hamburg during the “firestorm” raids at the end of July, while in the following month, after his advancement to Acting Squadron Leader and 115’s move to Little Snoring, Norfolk, Starky took his Wing Commander “along for the ride” in an attack against Milan on the 12th. But if his next sortie - the famous attack on the secret rocket establishment at Peenemunde on the night of the 17th-18th - proved more challenging, subsequent events in a raid on Mannheim on 5 September were to test pilot and crew to the very limit, a fact laid bare by the extended recommendation for Starky’s immediate D.S.O. Not mentioned, however, is the assault launched by the shocked and wounded Flight Engineer on his pilot, an incident curtailed by the Mid-Upper Gunner who knocked him clean out with a fire extinquisher - on regaining consciousness, the Flight Engineer returned to his position and managed to re-start two fuel-starved engines.

As it transpired, the Mannheim raid marked the end of Starky’s operational career, since he was posted to a conversion flight at Waterbeach a few weeks later, but, in March 1944, he commenced another notable chapter in his flying career, when he was posted as a test pilot to the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down. Re-embarked for New Zealand in January 1946, Starky was granted an extended commission in the Royal Air Force as a Flight Lieutenant in 1947, and quickly resumed his earlier work at Boscombe Down, extending his range to the world of jets with his first outing in a Meteor in April 1948. Later that year, he was attached to Armstrong Siddeley at Lutterworth, near Rugby, where he carried out extensive tests on Mamba, Python and Sapphire engines, and notched up around 800 hours flying time before being appointed to the Accidents Investigation Branch of the Air Department at Wellington, New Zealand in late 1952 - a useful enough experience given his survival from a spectacular “prang” in prototype Canberra WD. 933 on his return to Armstrong-Siddeley at Lutterworth in November 1954, about which time he ended his career as Chief Test Pilot for the Sapphire engine.

Starky finally relinquished his commission in the rank of Squadron Leader in August 1960 and went on to enjoy a second career in civil aviation.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s D.S.O. warrant, dated 28 September 1943, with related congratulatory letter from New Zealand’s Government Office in the Strand and a copy of the citation as sent to his father in New Zealand, together with a similar communication regarding the award of his D.F.C.; his R.N.Z.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Books (2), covering the periods August 1940 to July 1944, and July 1944 to civilian entries in April 1990, with occasional pasted down inserts, including C.-in-C Bomber Command postagram for his D.S.O.; letters from his two wounded crew members following the D.S.O. incident, both dated 12 September 1943 at St. Richards Hospital, Chichester, and both praising his courage and reporting on their progress; a selection of wartime photographs (9), including crew, aircraft damage and “Investiture Day” pictures; his wartime period R.A.F. and N.Z. embroidered uniform “Wings” and assorted tunic ribands; Empire Test Pilots School No. 2 Course Certificate, dated 5 January 1945; and an Armstrong Siddeley post-accident photograph album with some spectacular images of prototype Canberra WD. 933 following Starky’s crash in 1954.