Auction Catalogue

5 July 2011

Starting at 10:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 664

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5 July 2011

Hammer Price:
£680

Four: Warrant Officer 1st Class A. N. Pixley, Royal Canadian Air Force, a member of the Caterpillar Club who died whilst a prisoner of war

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Canadian Voluntary Service Medal 1939-45, with overseas clasp; War Medal 1939-45, together with his Caterpillar Club membership badge, gold, with ‘ruby’ eyes, the reverse officially inscribed, ‘Sgt. A. Pixley’, extremely fine (5) £600-800

Asa Nelson Pixley, who was born in Saskatchewan in May 1909 and enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force at Ottawa in August 1941, served as a Wireless Operator in No. 408 (Goose) Squadron from May until 10 July 1943, when his Halifax was downed in a raid on Gelsenkirchen and crashed at Essen-Kupferdreh. Four members of crew managed to bale out and were taken P.O.W., including Pixley but, as confirmed in official records, he was subsequently reported as having died while in captivity on 18 April 1945, seemingly while interned in Stalag 357 at Kopernikus Thorn but no less likely during the great exodus west ahead of the advancing Russians - one source has him listed as dying at a hospital in Hamburg, and it is there, in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery, that he is buried.

Ssold with a full file of research, including letter from a descendant.