Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Lieutenant H. F. Darby, Royal Air Force, late Rifle Brigade, East Surrey Regiment and Royal Flying Corps, who was wounded as an infantryman in August 1915, and served as a Kite Balloon Officer in France 1916-17

1914-15 Star (S-5369 Pte. H. F. Darby, Rif. Brig.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. H. F. Darby), very fine and better (3) £250-300

Howard Forbes Darby, a native of New Malden, Surrey, was born in August 1896, and enlisted in the Rifle Brigade in November 1914. Embarked for France in the 6th Battalion in May of the following year, he was wounded in the right shoulder on 25 August 1915 and evacuated to England.

Subsequently commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 10th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, he transferred to to the Royal Flying Corps in September 1916 and was serving as a balloon officer in No. 16 Kite Balloon Section (K.B.S.) in France by the year’s end. Having then served as a Balloon Commander in No. 33 K.B.S. from March 1917, he was admitted to hospital in mid-July, but his service record does not reveal the circumstances behind his admission - accompanying research states that he received multiple gunshot wounds, but in the absence of verification, it may have been on account of other causes. More certain is the fact he was found him ‘unfit for further service’ in January 1918 and discharged as a Lieutenant in the following month; sold with copied attestation and service papers.