Auction Catalogue

25 & 26 March 2013

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

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Lot

№ 1110

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26 March 2013

Hammer Price:
£480

Four: Flight Sergeant T. W. Etchells, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, a Vengeance dive-bomber pilot who was posted missing over Burma in June 1944

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, together with the recipient’s original Air Council condolence slip in the name of ‘Flight Sergeant T. W. Etchells’, extremely fine (4) £180-220

Thomas William Etchells, who enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in August 1941, commenced pilot training in Rhodesia in May 1942. Embarked for India from South Africa in May 1943, he was posted to No. 45 Squadron that December, operating in Vengeance dive-bombers, but, at the time of being posted missing on 25 June 1944, he was serving in a Calibration Flight at Calcutta.

The son of Frank and Ann Etchells of Macclesfield, Cheshire, he was 23 years of age, has no known grave and is commemorated on the Singapore Memorial.

Sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Book (Form 414 type), covering the period May 1942 up until his final flight on 25 June 1944, with ‘Death Presumed’ and ‘Royal Air Force Central Depository’ stamps, dated July 1946, together with two old wartime invoices, one of them from the Sergeant’s Mess at Mauripur.