Auction Catalogue

26 March 2009

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 770

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26 March 2009

Hammer Price:
£2,800

An outstanding Second World War D.F.C. group of seven awarded to Flight Lieutenant D. R. “Ross” Harper, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, a Navigator who participated in 99 operational sorties in Baltimores and Bostons in the Mediterranean theatre of war 1942-45, all of them with the same pilot - the pre-war Irish rugby international Charles “Paddy” Boyle

Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1945’, with its Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals; Greece, Air Force Cross, together with his wartime I.D. tags and embroidered Observer’s brevet, good very fine and better (10) £2500-3000

D.F.C. London Gazette 21 August 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘This officer has acted as Navigator to Squadron Leader Boyle in 99 day and night sorties in operations in Sicily and the Italian mainland. His ability as Navigator and Bomb Aimer has undoubtedly played a considerable share in the success achieved by this team. By his devotion to duty on operations and as Squadron Navigation Officer, he set a high example to the navigators of his unit.

On two occasions particularly he has succeeded in getting his pilot safely through exceptionally bad weather to the target area and back to base.

On the night of 15 August 1944, during the invasion of Southern France, his aircraft was among several briefed to attack communications in the mountainous area between Nice and Turin. Nearly all the remaining aircraft were forced to return owing to severe electrical storms. He, however, managed to guide his pilot through the mountainous area and at the same time was able to carry out an accurate bombing attack on a small enemy M.T. convoy which he located under these very difficult conditions.

On the night of 21 September 1944, when operating from Cecina, very similar weather conditions prevailed and prevented almost all the aircraft from crossing the Appenines to attack a target in the Rimini area. Flight Lieutenant Harper, however, navigated the aircraft safely across, found and bombed the target, and navigated back to base under conditions which would normally have justified the most experienced crew from abandoning the operation.’

Dennis Rosslyn “Ross” Harper, who was born in Edgbaston in May 1915, was educated at Wrekin College and qualified as an architect prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Enlisting in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in March 1940, he was embarked for South Africa, where he attended aircrew and Air Observer courses at Queenstown and East London, prior to returning to the U.K. to an O.T.U. at Bicester in late 1941.

Posted to No. 55 Squadron, a Baltimore unit based in Egypt, in the summer of 1942, Harper teamed-up with Pilot Officer (afterwards Squadron Leader) Charles “Paddy” Boyle, the beginning of a long operational partnership that lasted until the War’s end - the latter was a successful pre-war Irish rugby international. Over the coming months, pilot and Navigator led a nomadic life, moving from one desert landing ground to another, all the while engaged in a constant flurry of operational sorties. Nor were these sorties anything but the most perilous kind, directed as they were against crucial enemy armour, supplies and communications - in fact one of Harper’s earlier sorties, most probably a strike against massed armour of the 18th Panzer Division, led to the participating aircrew being nicknamed “The Imperturbable Eighteen”, such was the concentration of flak that greeted the 18-strong Baltimore force as it closed the target - his flying log book noting - ‘Heavy, intense and accurate flak! Flap shot to pieces!’ Here, then, a fair representation of so many of 55’s sorties at the time of the great El Alamein offensive, the Squadron carrying out 352 sorties in 10 days, more than any other Desert Air Force unit - Boyle and Harper were sometimes carrying out two sorties a day, and their Baltimore was damaged by flak on at least two other occasions in the same period.

Back in action in a raid on Crete in the New Year, the accuracy of the flak was only surpassed by a prowling Me. 109, Harper noting ‘Nick’s turret holed’. But it was not until March 1943 that the operational agenda really got underway again, a month in which Boyle and Harper flew another eight sorties, one against enemy transport north-west of Mareth proving of the eventful kind - ‘4 holes. Bombs from No. 3 in our box bounced off the wing of No. 3 in leading box then hit our nose!!!! Our kite u./s.’ Seven more sorties followed in April, five in May, six in June and eight in July, many of the latter in support of the Sicily landings and, as recorded by Harper, not without further flak damage. He and Boyle were duly “rested” at No. 70 O.T.U., Shandur, followed by a period on attachment to No. 13 Royal Hellenic Squadron in the first half of 1944 - both were eventually awarded the Greek Air Force Cross, although official correspondence in The National Archives suggests they were onetime recommended for Crosses of the Order of George I - see accompanying research.

Back on operations with 55 Squadron in July 1944, pilot and Navigator extended their tally of sorties to around the 80 mark, carrying out numerous night intruder operations over Italy in the period leading up to, and including, September - enemy transport, railways and harbours among their favoured targets. And in January 1945, after converting to Bostons, Harper and Boyle commenced yet another operational tour, this time in No. 13 Squadron, a component of 232 Wing, a further flurry of operations in support of the Eighth Army’s advance in Italy raising Boyle’s total tally of sorties to 101 and Harper’s to 99 - it was during Boyle’s 100th trip, an attack on an enemy convoy north-west of Rivigo, that their Boston was severely damaged by flak, Boyle having to bring the crippled aircraft home on one engine - he offered his crew an opportunity to bale out, but they elected to stay with him, loyalty which was duly rewarded by a ‘masterly landing’. With a final mission flown on 29th April, a successful bridge-busting operation, both were awarded long overdue D.F.Cs.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s S.A.A.F Observer’s or Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, covering the period May 1941 to September 1945; Buckingham Palace forwarding letter for his D.F.C.; his Airman’s and Officer’s Pay Books and a Middle East application form for Identity Cards, with portrait photograph, dated 10 April 1943; a letter of thanks from the Greek C.O. of No. 13 (Hellenic) Squadron, dated 1 March 1944; a selection of wartime photographs (approximately 15 images), including Bostons in flight; wartime newspaper cuttings reporting on the award of his D.F.C., and an earlier feature reporting on his long operational record with “Paddy” Boyle (’Midland Architect Is R.A.F. Owl’); together with the recipient’s R.A.F. tunic, complete with rank insignia, Observer’s brevet and medal ribands.