Orders, Decorations and Medals

A rare Second World War Coastal Command D.F.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant E. R. Mitchell, Royal Air Force

Distinguished Flying Medal, G.VI.R. (1056077 Sgt. E. R. Mitchell, R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star, clasp, Atlantic; War Medal 1939-45, mounted as worn, together with a marcasite R.A.F. sweetheart’s brooch, the reverse marked ‘Sterling Silver’, in its case, good very fine and better (5) £2200-2500

D.F.M. London Gazette 15 June 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘Sergeant Mitchell was posted to thus unit after having completed 13 operations with Bomber Command.

Since then he has completed 24 sorties over the sea of which nine have been Air Sea Rescue work and the remainder Anti-Submarine patrols.

On two occasions he succeeded in making base under weather conditions that called for the exercise of the highest technical skill and on one occasion when his set was damaged by enemy action he was able to mend it in the air and produce all the wireless aid his captain asked of him.

Furthermore, in the training of his new crews he has been of the greatest value and by his personal example and industry he has infused into them that enthusiasm for the work that he himself possesses.

He has flown 246 hours (operational) with Coastal Command.’

Ernest Raymond Mitchell was serving as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in No. 10 Operational Training Unit (O.T.U.) at the time of being recommended for his D.F.M. in April 1943, by which stage he had completed 37 operational sorties. No. 10 O.T.U. was attached to Coastal Command at St. Eval in August 1942, and remained similarly employed until July 1943, in which period its aircrew made 89 U-Boat sightings and attacked on 55 occasions - ostensibly a training unit, No. 10’s personnel actually spent the last three weeks of their course on anti-submarine patrols over the Bay of Biscay. And of the attacks carried out, two ended in the confirmed destruction of U-Boats, but the cost was high, around 50 of the unit’s Whitleys being lost in the same period, either to enemy action or hazardous flying conditions.