Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria including the collection to Naval Artificers formed by JH Deacon

A fine Second World War D.F.C. and Bar group of four awarded to Flight Lieutenant V. F. R. Kenward, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who survived two operational tours totalling 72 sorties, and a controversial crash-landing with Cheshire, V.C., in addition to participating in the famous Dresden raid of February 1945

Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., with Second Award Bar, the reverse of the Cross dated 1943 and the Bar 1945, in its Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, in named card box of issue with forwarding slip, extremely fine (4) £1800-2200

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Awards to the Men of Bomber Command 1939-45.

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D.F.C. London Gazette 13 August 1943. The recommendation states:

‘This Officer has completed 29 sorties as a Bomb Aimer and flown for a total of 184 operational hours. He has made several attacks against the heaviest defended targets including Berlin, Bremen, two to Hamburg, three to Italy and six to the Ruhr. He has been extremely successful in obtaining a very high number of good photographs and holds first place on the Squadron record ladder. This Officer possesses a fine offensive spirit and setting his mind on the task in hand has always directed his aircraft skilfully into the target despite the most intense flak opposition. His tenacity and unconquerable spirit of determination to achieve his object, has always been a source of inspiration to the whole Squadron. He is recommended for the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.’

Bar to D.F.C. London Gazette 13 August 1945. The recommendation states:

‘Flight Lieutenant Kenward is visual Bomb Aimer to a very successful Marker crew, who have on a number of occasions been detailed as Deputy Master Bomber. Now on his second tour, Flight Lieutenant Kenward is an exceptionally keen and able Bomb Aimer with a high sense of responsibility and unfaltering determination. He is strongly recommended for a non-immediate award of a Bar to the Distinguished Flying Cross.’

Flight Lieutenant Vivian Frederick Roy Kenward, D.F.C., who was born in Hucclecote, Gloucestershire, and educated at Dover Grammar School, enlisted in the R.A.F.V.R. in July 1940, shortly after he had assisted in the evacuation at Dunkirk in a Dover fishing boat. Commencing his initial training as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in March 1941, Kenward eventually transferred to Bomb Aimer duties and joined his first operational posting, No. 76 Squadron, a Halifax unit, at Middleton St. George, in May 1942. On the last day of the month Kenward participated in the 1000 Bomber Raid on Cologne, and from then until completing his first tour of 30 sorties in August 1943, was regularly employed on the German run.

From August 1942 until April 1943, his Squadron C.O. was none other than Leonard Cheshire. The latter quickly made his mark on the Squadron’s personnel, his pre-raid briefings being renowned for their no-nonsense approach:

‘His [Cheshire’s] main achievement lay in setting and maintaining extremely high standards of technical competence for aircrews and ground-crews alike.

“To avoid being shot down is not enough,” he would tell the crews. “You must avoid being shot down in such a way as not to prejudice your chances of finding the target.”

“If there are many guns and the bursts are forming a box round you, get out of the box as quickly as you know how. If the shells form a general loose barrage not predicted against you as an individual, take no evasive action at all. You may just as easily fly into a shell as away from it.”

These very words must have been ringing in the ears of Kenward’s pilot on the night of 6-7 September 1942, when his aircraft was coned by enemy searchlights over Duisburg for 40 minutes, a terrifying experience which was immediately followed by collision with a barrage balloon - all of the paint on the Halifax’s underside was scraped off but crew and aircraft safely reached home.

Then on the night of 23-24 October, having been credited with a direct hit on a factory in Aachen earlier in that month, Kenward found himself appointed Bomb Aimer to Leonard Cheshire’s crew for an attack on Genoa. Both men would later give accounts of this night, Cheshire claiming, in an interview with the author Russell Braddon, that it was one of the most memorable sorties of his time with No. 76 Squadron:

‘This, then, is the background of Cheshire’s next tour. And yet, again, when asked about this period, he merely purses his lips against joined finger-tips, looks rather vague - and not much interested - and announces:

“76 Squadron. Yes. Well, they made me a Wing Commander. Can’t remember much else except it was 1942. Oh, and I distinctly remember the occasion when we were flying home from Genoa. Never forget it!”

They had just successfully bombed the Italian city. To do so, they had flown a long and arduous course over the Alps. Now they had to do it again, in reverse, to get home. They were tired and jaded with nervous exhaustion that arrives when a job is done but hours of tedious flying lie ahead. Cheshire was flying on George, his automatic pilot, and had gone to sleep.

He was woken by fierce gun-fire and found an enemy biplane fifty yards on their tail, firing point-blank.

“He missed. My Rear-Gunner never fired on him at all. I took violent evasive action but he got within fifty yards again. And again he missed. I was a bit terrified for a while. Fortunately, after that, the other plane couldn’t hope to catch us again so we stooged off home. Just about the closest I ever got to being shot down by a fighter, all the same. He just couldn’t have missed, but he did. Twice! So I remember it rather well.” ’

Kenward gives an even more modest account of the evening’s proceedings:

‘On a trip to Italy, it could have been Genoa, we were attacked by an old Italian fighter - it still had fixed under-carriage and spats. Our Gunners shot it down, so we cruised around in the brilliant moonlight for a while to see whether another one would turn up. For some reason we had plenty of petrol, so we went off course to see Mont Blanc in the moonlight - lovely.’

Amazingly, however, Kenward makes no mention of the fact that his skipper was none other than Leonard Cheshire. But his Flying Log Book reveals a probable reason in the form of a dispute concerning their landing after the raid. Kenward’s entry states, ‘Ops. Genoa - Fine Trip Over Alps - Crashed - Benson’. Immediately below this statement is a pencilled inscription that softens the blandness of ‘Crashed’ with ‘Swung on landing’. The handwriting bears a remarkable likeness to that of Cheshire!

Whatever had occurred between skipper and Bomb Aimer that night, Kenward never again flew with Cheshire, although it is not without interest that he did fly with the next C.O. of No. 76 Squadron on two occasions towards the end of his tour in June 1943. Clearly his skills as a Bomb Aimer had made their mark - he had been commissioned as a Pilot Officer back in January 1943.

Another crash landing that undoubtedly left a lasting impression on Kenward was more serious:

‘Towards the end of my first tour we had an accident about which I now tell you. The Mid-Upper Gunner had jammed his leg when moving the turret and could not move. We returned to England very short of fuel and found everything covered by fog. Something had held us up en route and the usual stations with FIDO had been put out. The pilot told all the crew to jump except for me and the injured Gunner. We called up on the emergency waveband and an aerodrome said that they would fire rockets above the airfield. Unfortunately, perhaps because of the fog, only one of these exploded over a satellite airfield. This lit up for a few seconds and we commenced landing - it had lit up the curved perimeter track and we could not stay on it. Luckily we hit a pile of sand which took away the wheels and then we ran through a wooden hut full of wireless sets. All of this slowed us down until we hit a house. I jumped out into the best room - onto the sofa. The aircraft caught fire and burned within the house. The amazing thing was that the injured man got up and away but could not move for three weeks afterwards. We stopped at another house for help but our pilot, who was Irish, was mistaken for a German by the woman owner and she came for us with a carving knife - we ran!”

Kenward completed his first tour of operations in July 1943, with an outing to Nuremburg, and was awarded the D.F.C. More or less grounded in the interim, he returned to the operational scene with No. 582 Squadron, part of No. 8 Group, Path Finder Force, in August 1944, flying his first mission, in a Lancaster, to Stuttgart on the 25th of the month. Thus ensued a busy second tour of some 40 sorties, many of them flown in support of the operations in France, marshalling yards, V.1 sites, docks, factories and enemy batteries being among defined targets. And, as evidenced by Kenward’s account of an attack on Calais on 24 September, enemy opposition was rarely absent:

‘We were told to bomb Calais, which was holding out - there was [apparently] no defence so we could go in at 1000 feet. We were the leading squadron of three and I was the Primary Marker. Luckily I was to drop bombs and markers. As we approached it seemed like a piece of cake - no fighters, nothing. We opened the bomb doors and released the bombs. Immediately we did this all hell broke loose. Unknown to everyone a regiment of bofors guns had got into the pocket and they had waited until we were going to bomb. We were hit quite badly in the engines and fuselage but behind us there was murder as they could not miss. The following two squadrons did not follow the Light Brigade - they turned away to fight another day. We were in real trouble as the Captain asked me for the nearest airfield. I knew that Manston was just behind Folkestone and we turned to land there. It was only a little fighter forward airfield and although he put on every brake we had, we stopped about 30 feet short of the control tower where they were all flat on the floor expecting a Lancaster to run in to them.’

Towards the end of his second tour, Kenward was regularly acting as the Primary Marker, especially as the final onslaught on Germany commenced - he flew in the famous raid on Dresden on the night of 13-14 February 1945, when masses of incendiaries kindled the worst ‘firestorm’ of the War - 1600 acres were devastated and over 35,000 casualties caused. Yet intense opposition was confronted elsewhere, a raid on Magdeburg on the night of 16-17 January being a case in point, when nearly 5% of the attacking force was lost. In late April Kenward finally completed his second tour - and 72nd sortie - in a strike on Bremen, and was awarded a well-deserved Bar to his D.F.C. He was demobilised as a Flight Lieutenant in April 1946.

Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Book, covering the period March 1941 to June 1945; Buckingham Palace investiture admittance ticket for the D.F.C., dated 24 October 1944, and forwarding letter for the D.F.C. Bar; Air Ministry letter of thanks on resignation of his commission, dated 18 July 1946; several wartime newspaper cuttings and photographs; and the recipient’s 12pp. handwritten memoir, with related typescript.