Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Pilot Officer C. Bell, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who was killed in action piloting a Lancaster in the costly strike on Mailly in early May 1944

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal 1939-45, extremely fine (3) £250-300

Cyril Bell commenced pilot training in Canada in June 1942, returned to the U.K. in April 1943 and, having attended assorted conversion and operational training units, joined No. 207 Squadron, a Lancaster unit, at Spilsby, Lincolnshire, in early 1944. Thus ensued 18 operational sorties prior to his death in action, his German targets including Augsburg, Berlin (twice), Essen, Frankfurt (twice), Munich and Stuttgart (twice).

But it was as a result of the advent of operations against French targets in the run-up to the Allied landings that Bell was killed in action, his Lancaster being shot down by a night fighter on returning from the costly strike against an enemy base at Mailly on the night of 3-4 May 1944. Of this raid, the caption to an accompanying Air Ministry photograph states:

‘Aircraft of Bomber Command in strong force attacked a large depot of tanks and lorries at Mailly, 40 miles south-east of Rheims, on the night of 3-4 May. The Germans reacted violently to the attack on what was evidently an important military objective and sent up fighters in great numbers. A pitched battle was fought over the target soon after the attack had begun but the bombing went on with unfaltering precision. The marking was deliberate and exact and the bombing was well concentrated round the target indicators. A pall of smoke soon covered the whole area of the depot and violent explosions were seen through the smoke with huge flames bursting up. 1500 tons of high explosives and incendiary bombs were dropped ... This photograph, taken by another of the attacking aircraft, shows a Lancaster bomber flying just above the towering columns of smoke.’

Over 40 of our aircraft were lost, the majority of the 320 airmen being killed outright, Bell and his entire crew among them. He is buried in a collective grave at Dontilly Communal Cemetery, France.

Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Book (R.C.A.F. pilot’s edition), covering the period July 1942 to May 1944, with official ‘Death Presumed’ and ‘Royal Air Force Central Depository’ stamps, dated April 1946; an old carbon copy of an Air Ministry letter addressed to his widow, dated 19 April 1947, confirming the burial of her husband in a collective grave with his crew; another, dated 22 July 1950, regarding the unveiling of a memorial to him and his crew at their Lancaster’s crash site at Donnemarie-en-Montois, together with related photographs - ‘The memorial, described as a simple cairn, surmounted by the Cross of Lorraine, was unveiled on 7 May 1950, in the presence of 1,000 people, including a detachment of French troops, bands and local villagers and members of the resistance movements of the district’; and a poignant run of crew portrait photographs taken in April 1944, shortly before their demise.