Auction Catalogue

25 & 26 June 2014

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Download Images

Lot

№ 1554

.

26 June 2014

Hammer Price:
£360

Pair: Third Officer R. D. Lewis, Royal Air Force, seconded Air Transport Auxiliary

Defence and War Medals 1939-45, in their original addressed Air Ministry card forwarding box, extremely fine (lot)
£400-500

Robert David Lewis was born in Pwllheli, Wales in July 1916, the son of David Lewis, an artilleryman who died in the following year, and was educated at Ratcliffe College. According to the roll of pilots published in Cheeseman’s Brief Glory (copy included), Lewis was seconded to the Air Transport Auxiliary from the Royal Air Force, and is known to have served in No. 6 Ferry Pool at Ratcliffe towards the end of the War.

Sold with the recipient’s rare embroidered bullion T.I. and A.T.A. cap badges and “Wings”, together with his R.A.F. and A.T.A. identity discs and a quantity of original documentation, the latter including his A.T.A. Flight Authorization Card, dated 25 June 1944, British Empire Aviator’s Certificate, dated 20 June 1947, Ministry of Civil Aviation Private Pilot’s Licence (2), dated 20 June 1947 and 25 June 1953, and two A.T.A. Association newsletters (1947 and 1948), a copy of the A.T.A’s Pilot’s Reminder Book, together with two signed Accident Committee reports, dated at White Waltham in March 1945, one of them regarding a Spitfire IX which swung off the runway at Snitterfield and tipped on its nose - Lewis was absolved of any blame, the pipe line to the brakes on the control column having become detached during the flight. Also with two books: ‘
Brief Glory, The Story of the A.T.A., by E. C. Cheesman; and Spreading my Wings, by Diana Barnato Walker.