Orders, Decorations and Medals

An interesting quantity of photographs and documentation appertaining to Warrant Officer W. R. H. Yexley, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, a long-served Parachute Jumping Instructor who saw active service on the Burma front in 1943-45, gaining a “mention” and a King’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air - so, too, from his Gurkha pupils, the honorary title “Bahadar Thapa - The White Gurkha”, comprising wartime photograph albums (2), one with approximately 80 images and the other 65 images, the vast majority of them taken in India, together with a further quantity of loose photographs (approximately 80 images), these too taken during his time in India, together with a “Baptism of the Equator” certificate issued aboard ‘An H.M. Transport’ on 17 August 1942, assorted newspaper cuttings, and his cloth and bullion embroidered Parachutist’s Brevets, generally in good condition (Lot) £80-120

Yexley, who enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in May 1941, volunteered for the Parachute Jump Instructor’s Course in December of the same year and was posted No. 1 Parachute Jump School at Ringway in March 1942, where he instructed French and Polish servicemen, some of them, no doubt, members of S.O.E. In the summer of 1942, he volunteered for a posting to the Far East, where he instructed Indian and Gurkha troops at Delhi and Rawalpindi, latterly as Battalion Instructor to 153/154 Gurkha Paratroop Regiments, work that gained him the honorary title of “Bahadur Thapa - the White Gurkha” from his admiring Nepalese pupils - an accompanying photocopy of his Flying Log Book credits him with 125 descents before the War’s end. Moreover, a copy C.V. confirms his appointment as a Warrant Officer to Special Air Services for operations over Burma, Malaya and Indo-China, in which capacity he completed 31 “special duties” sorties, more often than not in support of Chindit, S.O.E. 136 Force and O.S.S. operations - thus on occasion acting as Jump Master for assorted agents. He was awarded the King’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air in January 1944 and a “mention” in June of the same year. Yexley returned to the U.K. in September 1945 and was demobbed in June 1946.