Auction Catalogue

25 February 1998

Starting at 1:00 PM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Arts Club  40 Dover St  London  W1S 4NP

Lot

№ 748

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25 February 1998

Hammer Price:
£1,000

A Spitfire Pilot’s A.F.C. group of seven awarded to Flying Officer G. E. Camplin, Nos. 611, 72, and 145 Squadrons, Royal Air Force

Air Force Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1945’, with its Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Africa Star, clasp, N. Africa 1942-43; Defence and War Medals, with oak leaf emblem for commendation for valuable services in the air; Air Efficiency Award, G.VI.R. (Flt. Lt., R.A.F.V.R.) mounted as worn, together with two R.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Books for the period June 1939 to January 1948, a S.A.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Book for the period March 1944 to July 1945, and certificate of commendation for valuable services in the air, dated 1 January 1944, nearly extremely fine (7) £800-1000

Gordon Ernest Camplin joined the Volunteer Reserves early in 1939, training at Waltham and then Hawarden, in Cheshire, where he trained on Spitfires. After a brief period with 611 and 72 Fighter Squadrons, he was posted to 145 Squadron at Tangmere in February 1941. His log book entries for June and July are quite eventful; on 21 June, whilst on bomber escort to Boulogne, his Spitfire was ‘jumped by 5 E/A and got separated from friends, flew low over coast and attacked patrol boat (about 40’ long). saw 3 of crew fall or dive into water and boat caught fire’; 25 June ‘Damaged 109E, saw smoke pour from it and pieces fly off’; 3 July, ‘Attacked 109E head on. Blew cockpit hood off’. The Squadron moved to Catterick at the end of July 1941, and to the Middle East in February 1942. Camplin did not see any action there until the end of May when he began flying patrols over Gambut, several times encountering enemy fighters and, on 15 June, shooting one wing off a Ju88. He left the Squadron on 10 July 1942 and, after a short spell in hospital, joined the British Airways Repair Unit at Heliopolis, recovering planes from Malta that had landed in the desert. In September 1942 he was posted to the Aircraft Delivery Unit and over the next 12 months flew over 150 different aircraft types.

Camplin was attached to the South African Air Force from March 1944 on a special mission to deliver a Spitfire to Cape Town at the request of the South African Government, who wanted one for exhibition purposes. Flying Officer Camplin took delivery of Spitfire F.VIIIC ‘JF294’ on 1 March 1944 and flew it from Cairo to the Cape where he spent the next six months giving exhibition flights throughout South Africa, all of which are recorded in his S.A.A.F. log book. The plane was later stripped of its Cerulean Blue paint and flown in a polished metal finish as the personal mount of Colonel Douglas Loftus. In December 1948, ‘JF294’ was offered on loan to the South African National War Museum at Saxonwold, near Johannesburg, where it remains proudly on display to this day. Sold with further research including some original photographs of the recipient.