Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Great War O.B.E. group of three awarded to Squadron Leader J. E. B. Thornely, Royal Air Force, late Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919; British War and Victory Medals (2/Lieut., R.F.C.), good very fine (3) £350-400

O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1919:

‘For services in connection with the War.’

John Edmund Burnet Thornely was born in Cambridge in July 1896 and qualified for his Royal Aero Club pilot’s certificate in a private capacity on the EAC Biplane at Eastbourne Flying School in July 1914 (Certificate No. 831). Commissioned as a Flight Sub. Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service in August 1914, he appears to have served at Sheerness, alongside such famous characters as Claude Grahame-White and civilian instructor F. W. Merriam. Having then briefly held a commission in the 13th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps as a Flying Officer in September 1916, and thereafter is listed under the R.F.C’s Military Wing (Aeroplanes), until transferring in the rank of Major to the Office of the Director of Air Personnel in the summer of 1918. Thornely relinquished his commission in June 1919, ‘on account of ill-health contracted on active service’.