Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Original flying log books and other documentation appertaining to Wing Commander G. L. Verran, Royal Air Force, including R.C.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Book, covering the period August 1943 to September 1944, bound with R.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Book, covering the period September 1944 to September 1952, brown leather binding with gilt titles; and R.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Books (Form 414 types), covering the periods October 1952 to February 1954; February 1954 to September 1955 and October 1955 to April 1962; together with his U.K. Private Pilot’s Licence, dated 16 September 1952; Royal Aero Club Pilot’s Certificate, dated 7 October 1953; Aircrew Categorisation Card (Pilot), with entries for Helicopter search and rescue training in 1961; another similar, but Transport Command issue, with entries for his post as an examiner on Wessex and Whirlwind courses in 1966-67; Air Ministry letters in respect of his ‘assimilation to a new career structure’ in 1961; British Passports (2) and Driving Licence; a file containing ‘A Record of Material Presented to the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Aviation Team’ by Boeing in 1965, in respect of the Chinook helicopter; a copy of Detached Flight, The Book of No. 1 B.F.T.S., Terrell, Texas, U.S.A.; representative Defence and War Medals, and Coronation 1953, to which the recipient was entitled; and a presentation chromium-plated cigarette box, inscribed, ‘Presented to Squadron leader G. L. Verran by the Officers and Aircrew of No. 22 (S.A.R.) Squadron, St. Mawgan, June 1962’, generally in good condition (Lot) £200-300

Gordon Leslie Verran was born in Luton in March 1924 and entered the Royal Air Force in March 1943. Assessed for pilot training at Perth, Scotland, he was duly embarked for Canada in R.M.S. Queen Mary and returned to the U.K. in June 1944, after attending Flying Training Schools at Monckton, and Terrell, Texas. He was posted to No. 567 (A.A.C.) Squadron at Hornchurch in December 1944, he remained similarly employed until the War’s end. He was awarded the Defence & War Medals.

Having then served at A.H.Q. in Italy, he held a number of appointments in Austria, including time in No. 87 Squadron, this the period of the Berlin Airlift, in which his flying log book records the rescue of a child and several flights conveying senior officers and diplomats.

In the early-to-mid 1950s he served as an instructor to the University of London Air Squadron, although he entered the jet age in Meteors on being detached to No. 209 A.F.S. at Weston Zoyland in the same period. Attached to the Ceylon Air Force in 1955-57, he returned to the U.K. to take up an appointment in Transport Command, followed by attendance of helicopter course at the Central Flying School in 1960.

He was next appointed to the command of No. 22 Squadron at St. Mawgan, flying Whirlwind helicopters on air-sea rescue operations, a period in which the squadron - operating alongside its counterpart No. 228 - was called out on an almost daily basis. As reported in Flight in December 1961, ‘Between 1 September 1960 and 30 September this year the Whirlwinds were called out 213 times - including 40 false alarms - and rescued 74 persons, of whom 60 were civilians. The Whirlwinds also carried out 62 casualty evacuations.’

Verran appears to have been ‘grounded’ in the summer of 1962, when he attended the College of Air Warfare at Manby, prior to taking up an appointment at the Air Ministry. He was placed on the Retired List as a Wing Commander in May 1978 and died in Abingdon, Oxfordshire in 1979.