Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Aero Club of America Medal for Merit and Honour awarded to Major Edward Mannock, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., Royal Flying Corps, the highest scoring and most decorated British flying Ace of the first World War

AERO CLUB OF AMERICA, Medal for Merit and Honour 1917, bronze, 67mm, the reverse embossed (Major Edward Mannock) good vey fine and very rare

In the summer of 1917, representatives of the Aero Club of America organised a Foreign Service Committee in Paris. The primary purposes of this committee were to provide for the needs of American pilots in France, and to afford them a clubhouse in Paris where they might relax when on leave from the theatre of battle. Among the advisory members of the Committee were: Major Edmund L. Gros; Lt. Col. William Thaw; Capt. James E. Miller; and Sgt. George F. Campbell-Wood, former secretary of the A.C.A. who was then serving in the French Army. It was this committee who created the aero club's medal for Merit and Honour, in 1917, for presentation to deserving Allied aviators.Among those honoured with the Aero Club's medal was Major Edward Mannock, who was reported to have brought down seventy three enemy aircraft and proclaimed '... the Champion British airman of the war.' Mannock, who was shot down and killed on 26th July, 1918, was awarded the Victoria Cross together with the D.S.O. and 2 bars, and the M.C. and bar.The Aero Club's medal was also awarded to other British aces, notably Albert Ball, Fletcher Philip Fullard and William A. Bishop.