Auction Catalogue
Create new listThree: Flight Lieutenant C. W. Walker, Royal Air Force
1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star, clasp, France and Germany; War Medal 1939-45, unnamed as issued, extremely fine (3) £160-200
Sold with original World War 2 card box addressed to ‘Flight Lieutenant C. W. Walker, Hanwell, London’; the recipient’s R.A.F. Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book; several photographs of a friend’s grave at Arnhem and various aircraft and a photocopied extract from Flight, 28 September 1944, entitled, ‘Airborne Operation, An Account of the Flight of One Short Stirling in the Landing Across the Rhine at Arnhem by the 1st Allied Airborne Army’, by John Yoxall in which the recipient is illustrated, with the caption, ‘P/O C. W. Walker, rear-gunner and best shot in the Group’. The article deals with the Stirling squadron’s operations since ‘D’ Day and the reparations for Operation Market Garden.
C. W. Walker entered the Royal Air Force in 1943 and in October 1943 was with No.1657 Conversion Unit based at Stradishall flying in Stirlings. With No.75 Squadron in November, he served as a gunner on several mine-laying operations to Friesia, Kiel and Bordeaux, his aircraft crash landing on 26.11.1943. In March 1944 he was transferred to No.620 Squadron at Leicester East and Fairford. In Stirlings flying as a rear gunner, he trained in the towing of gliders and in paratroop and container dropping. His aircraft was heavily involved in the operations around ‘D’ Day and his log book lists carrying ‘Paratroops’ on 5.6.1944 and ‘French paratroops’ on 9.6.1944. Possible actions re-supplying the ‘Underground’ are listed in his log book throughout July and into September as ‘War Operations - Special’. On 17.9.1944 it records his services during ‘Operation Market Garden’ with ‘War Operation with Glider (Arnhiem (sic)), followed by ‘War Operation with Glider - re-supply’ on 19.9.1944 and 20.9.1944. One of the last entries in his log book is an ‘Operation to Norway’ on 27.11.1944.
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