Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Squadron Leader W. R. Gilmartin, Royal Air Force, late Army Service Corps

British War and Victory Medals (32575 F./Cadet W. R. Gilmartin, R.A.F.); India General Service 1908-35, 1 clasp, Waziristan 1925 (356426 L.A.C. (A./Sgt.) W. R. Gilmartin, R.A.F.), this last with extensive official corrections to naming, good very fine (3) £500-600

Walter Raymond Gilmartin was born in Burnley in September 1895 and enlisted in the Army Service Corps in January 1913. It was in this capacity that he qualified for his British War and Victory Medals prior to transferring to the Royal Air Force in early 1918, when he was appointed a Flight Cadet; records show that he flew D.H. 6s and 9s and the Avro B.E. 2c prior to his transferral to the Unemployed List as a 2nd Lieutenant in May 1919.

In November 1923, Gilmartin re-enlisted in the Royal Air Force as a Leading Aircraftman and attended a pilot’s refresher course. He was awarded his ‘Wings’ in December of the same year and, having been advanced to the acting rank of Sergeant, served in the Waziristan operations of 1925, when he flew D.H. 9s of No. 27 Squadron (Medal & clasp); approximately 260 ‘Waziristan 1925’ clasps were issued to R.A.F. personnel under Wing Commander R. C. M. Pink, C.B.

Placed on the Reserve (Class ‘E’) in September 1929, Gilmartin was re-mustered as a clerk in the General Duties Branch on reaching the age limit for pilots in September 1933. He departed the R.A.F. two years later but was recalled in the summer of 1939 and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in the General Duties Branch (Administration) in December 1940. He finally relinquished his commission in June 1954, when he was permitted to retain the rank of Squadron Leader; sold with copied research.