Auction Catalogue
Pair: Lieutenant J. B. Shearlaw, Machine Gun Corps, onetime attached Royal Flying Corps
British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. J. B. Shearlaw), good very fine (2) £240-280
James Blackburn Shearlaw, a native of South Shields who was born in October 1893, was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps in January 1915. First embarked for active service in January 1916, when he entered the Mesopotamia theatre of war as a subaltern in 130th Machine Gun Company, M.G.C., he was attached to the Royal Flying Corps from early 1918, with whom he undertook pilot training in No. 22 (Reserve) Squadron in April-May. Having then been demobilised in June 1919, Shearlaw appears to have been employed in a civilian capacity at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in the period August 1928 to March 1930, when he flew as an Observer in the Experimental Section, including work on the Jaguar V Development Project.
Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s warrant for the rank of 2nd Lieutenant (Land Forces), dated in January 1915; his R.F.C. Training Transfer Card and Pilot’s Flying Log Book (Army 425), with entries for the period April to May 1918, and August 1928 to March 1931, together with hand written pilot’s training notebook and several training manuals of the same period; his copy of Central Staff, India, Field Notes - Mesopotamia, February 1917; assorted badges and “pips” and a pair of sunglasses.
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