Auction Catalogue

22 September 2000

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Orders, Decorations and Medals

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 777

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22 September 2000

Hammer Price:
£1,450

A Spitfire Pilot’s Immediate D.F.C. group of six awarded to Flight Lieutenant R. G. C. Russell, Nos. 601 and 241 Squadrons, Royal Air Force

Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated 1945; 1939-45 Star; Italy Star; Defence & War Medals; Coronation 1953, mounted as worn, together with his very detailed and comprehensively annotated S.A.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Book for the period February 1943 to August 1951, good very fine (6) £1200-1400

D.F.C. London Gazette 29 June 1945: ‘This officer has participated in a large number of varied sorties. He has set a fine example of skill and courage and has invariably pressed home his attacks with accuracy and determination. On his last sortie in April, 1945, Flight Lieutenant Russell took part in an armed reconnaissance. When nearing Padova a convoy of enemy vehicles was sighted. In the face of considerable light anti-aircraft fire a good attack was pressed home. In the first run over the target, Flight Lieutenant Russell’s aircraft was hit. Despite this, he made several more runs over the target. He afterwards flew back to an airfield where he executed a perfect landing although one of the wheels was punctured.’

Flight Lieutenant Richard Gerald Cruickshanks Russell joined the R.A.F.V.R. in 1939 and underwent pilot training in the U.K. before proceeding to South Africa in 1941. He served as an instructor at No. 27 Air School in 1943, and, having converted to Spitfires at 71 O.T.U., Ishmalia, joined No. 601 (County of London) Squadron, Desert Air Force, on 8 May 1944, flying sorties in support of the Allied offensive on Monte Cassino. On 18 May 1944, the day the Polish flag was finally planted on the summit at the cost of one thousand Polish dead, Russell recorded in his Log Book: ‘Nothing seen in the air but lots of shelling at Cassino early morning & dead quietness there in the evening.’ Having flown numerous ground attack missions in the period up to the end of July, Russell went to the Air Gunnery School at Ballah before returning to 601 at Fano in September. In November he was posted to 241 Squadron at Bellaria in the same Wing, No. 244, and, as the Italian campaign moved on, was engaged in bombing and strafing enemy transport, bomber escort and A.S.R. duties.

On 28 April 1945 he flew his final sortie of his tour, and, on the recommendation of his commanding officer, was awarded an immediate D.F.C. Squadron Leader A. J. Ratcliffe recommended: ‘F/Lt. Russell took off on the 28th April 1945, briefed to take four long range Spitfires to the Padova area on an armed recce. Just S.E. of the town he saw a convoy of enemy vehicles. Light flak was intense and on their first straffing run F/L. Russell was hit in the cannon and his subsection leader in the hydraulic system. He told the fourth member of the formation to look after the subsection leader on his way back to our lines and then proceding to do four more runs on the enemy convoy with his three remaining guns, during which he was hit once more. When he and his No.2 finally broke away from the aera, one armoured fighting vehicle and three M.T. were left blazing and the remainder of the convoy, comprising four M.T. and 2 guns, had been severely damaged. On returning to base his No.2’s A.S.I. was found to be u/s so F/L. Russell, although very short of fuel, told him to formate on him and twice led him into land before flying off to a strip where he did a perfect landing with his burst tyre ...’ Demobbed in December 1946, Russell served with 501 (County of Gloucester) Squadron, R.Aux.A.F., flying Vampire jets from Filton in 1949-1950.