Orders, Decorations and Medals

An original wartime flying log book appertaining to I. J. Duffett, Royal Air Force, who completed an operational tour as an Air Gunner in Lancasters of No. 100 Squadron 1944-45, being an R.A.F. Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s type, covering the period July 1943 to April 1945, with several inserted photographs of aircraft flown, together with a copied portrait photograph, covers stained, contents good (Lot) £200-250

Duffett commenced training as an Air Gunner in July 1943 and, having attended 1656 Conversion Unit at the end of that year, was posted to No. 100 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of Waltham, Grimsby. However, as a result of sustaining serious frostbite during the course of his very first sortie - an attack against Stettin on 5 January 1944 - he was hospitalised and did not return to an operational footing until August 1944, when detailed to attack La Pallice on the 12th (‘Aborted’). A brace of trips to Stettin and two more to French targets followed in the same month, the whole as a Mid-Upper Gunner in Pilot Officer Veitch’s crew, and it was in a similar capacity that he went on to complete a full tour of operations by early February 1945 - thus 33 sorties (three of them aborted), with a total of 90 hours by night and 62 hours by day.

Thus no less than 10 sorties in September 1944, seven of the daylight variety, including three successive trips to Le Havre, and another eight trips in October, targets including Essen, Saarbrucken and Stuttgart, in addition to three attacks against Cologne, one of the latter in daylight. Then in November, Duffett and his crew flew six more sorties, including strikes on Bochum and Dortmund, his flying log book noting of the latter operation - again a daylight one - ‘My crew’s last trip. Severe attack of nerves.’ Accordingly, his last three sorties were actually under the captaincy of Flying Officer Fludder, or Flight Lieutenant Brown, the targets comprising Essen, St. Vith and Bottrop, and he ended his operational tour on 3 February 1945.