Auction Catalogue

25 & 26 November 2015

Starting at 12:00 PM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Live Online Auction

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Lot

№ 509

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25 November 2015

Hammer Price:
£500

Three: Warrant Officer J. E. Naisbett, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, a Wireless Operator in No. 630 Squadron who was taken P.O.W. after his Lancaster was shot down by flak on the Berlin run in March 1944

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, in their original addressed card forwarding box with numbered section of issuance slip and Air Ministry slip, good very fine (3) £300-350

John Edmund Naisbett, a native of Crook, Co. Durham, qualified as a Wireless Operator in December 1942 and, having served in the Middle East on ground duties in the period May to August 1943, returned to the U.K. to attend an O.T.U. and conversion course.

In early 1944, he was posted to No. 630 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of East Kirby, in which capacity he flew his first operational sortie - a strike against Schweinfurt - on the night of 24-25 February.

March witnessed him carry out two trips to Stuttgart and two trips to Frankfurt, prior to a strike on Berlin on the night of the 24th-25th. This was to prove his final sortie, his Lancaster - U-Uncle - being downed by flak over Munster: all of the crew successfully baled out, one of them evading capture but the remainder, including Naisbett, becoming P.O.Ws. He was incarcerated in Stulag Luft I at Barth, Germany, from whence he was repatriated in mid-May 1945.

Sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, covering the period November 1942 until March 1944, together with his “Wartime Log for British Prisoners”, as issued by the Y.M.C.A. and containing a colourful array of original artwork, cartoons, poems, and one or two photographs.