Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Squadron Leader B. J. L. Greenland, A.F.C., Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, a graduate of the Empire Test Pilots School and the United States Navy Air Test Centre

Defence and War Medals 1939-45; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, S.E. Asia 1945-46 (Flt. Lt. B. J. L. Greenland, R.A.F.), together with M.I.D. oak leaf representative of the recipient’s King’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air, good very fine (4) £500-600

A.F.C. London Gazette 1 January 1959.

King’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air London Gazette 1 January 1949.

Bertram John Leigh Greenland was born at Ashton under Lyne, Lancashire in December 1922 and enlisted in the Royal Air Force in February 1941. Subsequently qualifying as a pilot, he was commissioned Pilot Officer in the R.A.F.V.R. in April 1943 and was serving as a war substantive Squadron Leader by the war’s end, shortly before his active employment in the S.E. Asia operations (Medal & clasp). Reverting to the rank of Flight Lieutenant about this time, he was awarded the King’s Commendation for Valuable Services in the Air in January 1949, possibly for work as a test pilot. Certainly he graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School, where he attended the McKenna Trophy Dinner in December 1951.

Advanced to Squadron Leader in July 1955, Greenland attended - as an official assessor - the public enquiry into the causes behind the loss of a B.E.A. Viscount that crashed at Nutts Corner on 23 October 1957. The five crew and two passengers were all killed after the Viscount overshot the runway and crashed within the airport boundary.

Greenland subsequently served as a test pilot in the Flying Wing at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Bedford in 1958, services that most likely resulted in his subsequent award of the the A.F.C. He was placed on the Retired List in January 1962 and afterwards worked as an Assistant Manager with Sperry Gyroscope Limited; sold with copied research, including further details in respect of the Viscount crash at Nutts Corner in 1957.