Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria to coincide with the OMRS Convention

Three: Flight Lieutenant S. Jones, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, whose tour of operations included a crash-landing in a flak damaged Lancaster and qualification for the Caterpillar Club after baling out of another damaged aircraft after a punishing encounter with a J.U. 88

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star, clasp, France and Germany; War Medal 1939-45, in named card box of issue, extremely fine, together with related Caterpillar Club membership badge, the reverse officially engraved, ‘Sgt. S. Jones’, and Path Finder Force badge (5) £600-800

Flight Lieutenant S. Jones, who was from Glasgow, commenced his operational career as a Flight Engineer with No. 630 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of East Kirkby, Lincolnshire in March 1944, completing his first mission, against Essen, on the night of 26th-27th. Nuremburg follwed three nights later, but his aircraft was compelled to return early to base, a fortuitous outcome since 95 bombers and several hundred aircrew were lost that night, it being the most costly raid of the War.

April witnessed three trips being made to France, in addition to raids on Aachen, Brunswick and Munich. The latter sortie, on the night of 26th-27th, resulted in Jones’s Lancaster crash-landing at Borgo, Corsica, after being coned in searchlights over the target and badly hit by flak. By the middle of May, all of the crew were back at East Kirkby and sorties to Antwerp and St. Valvevy-en-Caux were completed by the month’s end. Operations against French targets largely occupied No. 630’s agenda in June, Jones and his crew attacking a target in Caen on D Day itself. But on the night of 21st-22nd, in a strike against Wesseling, their Lancaster was badly shot up by a J.U. 88. Jones takes up the story:

‘I am afraid old ‘G’ George caught a packet over enemy territory, a J.U. 88 got us from underneath, shot away a lot of the rear turret, two thirds of the port elevator, blew a great hole in the fuselage opposite the entrance door, blew up some radio equipment, hit the mid-upper turret and damaged the aileron controls. It was a wonder that no one was hurt, we dropped our bombs, turned round and belted for home, but the aircraft was in a pretty bad state and “Blue” (Flying Officer L. Rackley, D.F.C.) did a wonderful job in flying it straight and level, but with Doug and I, in turn, hauling back on the stick, which developed a very heavy tendency and was hard to work. We managed it eventually and we reached England at about 15,000 feet.

We could not turn the aircraft or make any attempt to land so “Blue” said “Bale out”. First of all I lashed the stick to the back of “Blue’s” seat with wire, and then tied up the rudder controls. Doug and Taffy made their effort first with fatal results to poor old Taffy [one parachute was used between them]. I went sixth and “Blue” followed.

It was a momentary effort to go through the front escape hatch, head first, with cloud rushing by so far below, but after a second or so, and the ripcord pulled, it was a wonderful sensation to be floating gently in space, and not a sound to break the stillness of the night.

After a while, ‘G’ George came round in a great diving circle and disappeared through the clouds, a few seconds later a great glare went up as it crashed to earth. A little later I dropped through the clouds, the cloud base was so low I was rather taken by surprise and I hardly had time to get into some sort of position before I hit the deck. I could see the aircraft blazing merrily and, to my great relief, out in the wide open spaces.

I made a fruitless trip across the field to what looked like a house but was only trees. However, I found a nice haystack and sat down for a welcome smoke. After a while something ran over me, probably a frog, so I set off to find a way out of the field, drew two blanks but at the third attempt I reached a road with telegraph wires which seemed hopeful. I struck off to the right, which looked more interesting and, after a minute or two, came across a couple of derelict looking caravans, and to my surprise as I went past a voice said “Who’s there?” I asked the way to the nearest house and the old boy inside came to the door of the caravan and gave me the necessary directions and, as an afterthought, said “Are you English?”, which rather amused me.

Five minutes walk and I landed at a small pub and knocked up the owner who was downstairs in a moment and gave me a whisky. They had a phone so I was on to our own aerodrome immediately, and then to the nearest one here. The innkeeper gave me tea until the R.A.F. rolled up.

We picked up Jack and “Curly” on the way and found Ian already there, Doug had landed near a Yankee aerodrome and came on later in the morning. They dumped us all in the sick bay, gave us breakfast and then off to sleep.’

Unbeknown to Jones at this stage was the fact that his Australian skipper, Flying Officer L. Rackley, had also survived, but with a fractured shoulder - he had the misfortune to get his parachute caught on the carriage of a London-bound express train and was dragged along the railway track for some distance before breaking free.

Back in action in early August, Jones went on to complete his tour of operations with eight more sorties that month, most of them against German targets, and he was transferred to instuctional duties in October. He appears to have been released from the Service in late 1945.

Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Book, covering the period November 1943 until October 1945; and two wartime neswpaper cuttings featuring the extraordinary story of Flying Officer Rackley.