Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Family group:

Three: Acting Squadron Leader M. Nolan, Royal Air Force, who was killed in action while serving as a Wellington pilot in No. 38 Squadron in April 1940
1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, extremely fine

Four: Lieutenant H. K. Mattingly, Royal Artillery, who married Nolan’s widow
France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 2nd issue, Territorial (Lt. H. K. Mattingly, R.A.), together with two identity discs, extremely fine (9) £300-350

Maurice Nolan was born in August 1912 and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force in March 1935. A Flight Lieutenant in No. 38 Squadron, a Wellington unit, by the outbreak of hostilities, he had attained the acting rank of Squadron Leader by the time of his death in action on a North Sea sweep in search of the Scharnhorst and Hipper on 12 April 1940. Squadron records reveal that his Wellington was attacked by a brace of Me. 110s, and that its undercarriage was seen to be lowered, and then raised, before it crashed into the sea. Aged 27 years, he left a widow, Winifred Hazel Nolan, who later married Lieutenant H. K. Mattingly, a gunner subaltern who had been commissioned in February 1943; sold with a file of research.