Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Flight Sergeant W. C. Meyrick, Royal Air Force. who completed a tour of operations in Lancasters of No. 207 Squadron

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal 1939-45, mounted as worn, together with R.A.F. cap badge and embroidered ‘S’ brevet, good very fine (5) £350-400

Qualifying as a Wireless Operator at No. 4 Radio School in August 1943, and as an Air Gunner at No. 10 Air Gunnery School in October of the same year, Meyrick completed his training at No. 29 Operational Training Unit prior to joining No. 207 Squadron, a Lancaster unit based at Spilsby, Lincolnshire, in the summer of 1944.

Assigned to an attack on Givors on the night of 28-29 July, Meyrick was in fact regularly employed in support of the Allied landings over the coming weeks, or against rocket sites - thus four daylight strikes against further French targets in August, including a brace of trips to Trossy St. Maxim, and three by night, one of these, however, against Stettin. Further daylight raids on Brest, Le Havre and Boulogne followed in September, while five German targets were attacked by night, among them Bremerhaven, Munchen Gladbach and Stuttgart. Strikes against gun sites at Flushing and Westkapelle were among Meyrick’s targets in October, both of the daylight variety, so, too, Bergen and Bremen by night, together with a “Gardening” run. Finally, in November, he completed his tour of operations with four attacks on German targets, including Dusseldorf.

His skipper throughout these operations was Pilot Officer L. M. Summers, who was awarded the D.F.C., the relevant recommendation stating, in part:

‘On different occasions, once when coned by searchlights at Bremen, another when his aircraft was the target of concentrated and heavy flak over Denmark, and again when attacked by a Ju. 88 at Dusseldorf, his skill and resource were responsible for the safe return of his aircraft.’

For his own part, Meyrick qualified as a “Special Operator” in Radio Counter Measures (R.C.M.), and joined No. 223 Squadron at Oulton, Norfolk, in April 1945, completing one further sortie - against Munich’s radar defences - in a specially equipped B-24 Liberator before the end of hostilities; sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Flying Log Book, entries covering the period June 1943 to April 1945.