Orders, Decorations and Medals

Four: Flight Lieutenant E. Haslett, Royal Air Force, who completed a tour of operations in Lancasters No. 626 Squadron

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Burma Star; War Medal 1939-45, together with Flight Engineer’s embroidered brevet, generally good very fine (5) £250-300

Haslett qualified as a Flight Engineer in February 1944 and, having gained flying time at a conversion unit, was posted to No. 626 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of Wickenby, Lincolnshire. Joining Pilot Officer Raymond Gauvreau’s crew, he commenced his operational tour with a strike against a railway junction in France on 17 June 1944, the first of a dozen or so such operations in support of the Allied landings in Normandy - several of them being flown in daylight, including Caen on 7 July, when his aircraft was hit by flak.

Two attacks on Stuttgart and a strike on the German Naval H.Q. at Kiel having made up 626’s operational agenda in the last week of July, pilot and Flight Engineer attacked assorted targets in Belgium, France, Germany and Holland during August and September, several of them in daylight; finally, in October, they completed their operational tour with attacks on Duisberg and Stuttgart, the latter, their 30th sortie, being flown on the night of the 16th-17th. Gauvreau, by now a Flying Officer, was awarded the D.F.C. (London Gazette 16 February 1945 refers).

Meanwhile, Haslett attended a conversion course, and was posted to No. 511 Squadron, a transport unit flying Avro Yorks, in which capacity he remained actively employed until September 1946, a protracted period of service in which he notched up 912 hours by day and 301 hours by night, the whole on long range flights out of R.A.F. Lyneham - to the Mediterranean and beyond, Burma and India being frequent destinations. He was released shortly thereafter, having been advanced to Flight Lieutenant in April 1945, and took up civilian employment at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.

Sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Flying Log Book, covering the period April 1944 to August 1946, together with additional civilian entries for the period June 1948 to July 1970, these as a fitter and passenger, the spine bound in black tape, but contents good.