Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Pilot Officer F. S. Ralph, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who was killed in action while serving as a Wireless Operator in No. 460 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron in one of the Hamburg “firestorm” raids of July 1943 - his Lancaster became the 43rd victim of the famous night fighter ace Hauptman Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weissenfeld, who was awarded Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross a few days later

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, in their original Air Ministry forwarding box addressed to ‘Mrs. J. M. Ralph, 4, Charles Crescent, Harrow, Middlesex’, together with his Air Council condolence slip in the name of ‘Pilot Officer F. S. Ralph’, and numbered section of issuance slip, extremely fine (3) £300-350

Frederick Sydney Ralph was killed in action on the night of 29-30 July 1943, while serving as a Wireless Operator in Lancaster ED 535 AR of No. 460 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron. On this, his second trip to Hamburg as part of the “firestorm” raids, his aircraft was shot down by Hauptman Egmont Prinz zur Lippe-Weissenfeld, who was awarded Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross a few days later. The famous German night fighter’s observer later described the fate of ED 535 AR thus:

‘After a further long zigzag flight, with the ground-control officer giving details of the bomber-stream and being told of bombers here and there, the pilot suddenly spotted a four-engined aircraft against the northerly twilight at a height of 6,800 metres and about 150 metres in front and above us to the right. It was a visual sighting with no radar. The eight exhaust flames were, in comparison to the ones I had seen earlier, so small and weak in intensity as to be like 3-mm wireless sparks.

The pilot flew after it straight away, positioned himself about eighty metres underneath and matched his speed to that of the bomber. The dark shape of the four-engined aircraft was clearly visible against the sky above us. It was a Lancaster.

The pilot hit its left wing with his first attack and burning pieces of it flew off. The pilot was a little disappointed that the bomber wasn't shot down by this first attack; he had wanted to show me how to hit it between the two engines and finish it off quickly. The Lancaster kept straight and level all the time, without any evasive action.

On his second attack, Prinz zur Lippe used his special method. He slid under the bomber, pulled up the nose suddenly, fired a burst and dropped away quickly in case the bomber blew up. It didn't, although pieces were still falling off it. We attacked again. The bomber still didn't explode; its pilot was trying to reach some low-lying clouds. I didn't see any return fire but we found four bullet holes in one rudder after we landed. I wasn't used to all these manoeuvres. I wasn't strapped in and I kept being pushed down into the floor and then coming up to hit the cockpit roof.

We made one more attack and, this time, his wing started burning after only half a second. We saw the Lancaster go down into a wood near a railway. We started to circle the crash position in the normal manner, so that ground control could fix the position of the success but the radar operator warned the pilot that our petrol was low and we had to leave and land quickly at Stade, actually cutting in front of another fighter that was landing. About fifty metres before we reached the dispersal, the engines cut.

The Lancaster was a 460 Squadron aircraft with a mixed Australian-English crew on their fourth operation. There were no survivors. It was Prinz zur Lippe-Weissenfeld's forty-third night success. He was killed on 12 March 1944 when 'hedge-hopping' in the Ardennes, being credited with fifty-one successes at the time of his death’ (Martin Middlebrook’s The Battle of Hamburg refers).

Of the Lancaster’s crew, only one has a known grave, the remainder, including Ralph, being commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial. He was 26 years of age and the son of Sydney and Emily Ralph, and the husband of Joan Mary Ralph of Harrow, Middlesex; sold with research.