Orders, Decorations and Medals

An interesting Great War pilot’s Croix de Guerre group of five awarded to Group Captain T. C. Thomson, Royal Air Force, late Royal West Kent Regiment and Royal Flying Corps

British War and Victory Medals (Capt., R.A.F.); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; French Croix de Guerre 1914-1917, with bronze palm, together with an R.A.F. Iraq Rifle and Pistol Association Prize Medal, bronze, in its Elkington & Co. fitted case of issue, and a set of related miniature dress medals, mounted as worn, a little polished but generally very fine (11) £600-800

Tilden Christopher Thomson was born in Ashford, Kent in August 1891 and was educated at Cranbrook School. Enlisting in the Royal Fusiliers in September 1914, and posted to the 7th Battalion at Falmouth, he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal West Kent Regiment in February 1915. Due to ill-health, however, he remained employed on the home establishment, where, in December 1916, having transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, he qualified for his Aviator’s Certificate (No. 3995).

Thomson subsequently flew operationally in R.E. 8s of No. 34 Squadron out in France in the following year, about this time the Squadron became one of the first to develop and exploit low-flying - 50 feet and under - to engage enemy patrols. And it was presumably in just such an operation that Thomson’s aircraft was shot up and damaged over “Nose Trench” on the evening of 14 July 1917: pilot and observer - 2nd Lieutenant H. V. Jones - made it back to base.

Moreover, according to an accompanying newspaper feature, Tilden acted as bait to lure the famous “Red Baron” and his “Flying Circus” into a trap, flying low ‘over the Somme one morning in April 1918 ... von Richthofen did not realise that other Allied planes were themselves hovering high above Tilden Thomson’s plane, ready to dive on the unsuspecting Germans. It was during the ensuing dogfight over French fields that the Prussian aristocrat met his death at the age of 26’. The same source also states that Thomson brought back dead Observers in his aircraft on no less than three occasions, evidence of a combat record well worthy of the award of his Croix de Guerre - which decoration was sent to his sister at the ‘The Manor House, Tenterden, Kent’ in February 1919 (official War Office letter refers); another accompanying newspaper feature relates how an old photograph of him in the cockpit of his R.E. 8 was used by an artist to fashion a sculpture of a pilot on a war memorial in Alexandra Park, Hastings.

Remaining a regular between the Wars, Thomson served in Iraq and India, and was awarded the Defence & War Medals for subsequent services on the home establishment in the 1939-45 War as a Group Captain.

Sold with a good selection of career photographs (approximately 30 images), quite a few of them of postcard format, many of them of aircraft, and including scenes from Iraq; together with a quantity of original documentation, including War Office (Foreign Decorations Section) forwarding letter for his Croix de Guerre, dated 1 February 1919; invitations from the Viceroy and the Countess of Willingdon to events marking the Silver Jubilee in June 1935 (2), and another similar from the Viceroy’s Staff; an old typed statement of services relating to his appointment in the Engineer Staff Duties Branch, India, dated 24 March 1938; together with the above mentioned newspaper articles.