Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well-documented and interesting Second World War campaign group of five awarded to Squadron Leader P. Lamboit, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve: a pre-war specialist in the film industry who worked on colour processing at Hollywood, he won a “mention” for his valuable services as a photographic interpreter in P.R.U. units

1939-45 Star; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf, good very fine (5) £200-300

Paul Lamboit was born in London in 1906, the son of a French father and English mother. Educated in England and France, he found employment in the film industry and spent several years as a colour photographic technician with Dufaycolor Inc. in New York, work that also took him to Hollywood in California.

Returning to the U.K. on the advent of hostilities in September 1939, he was commissioned in the R.A.F.V.R. and went to work as a Photographic Officer with ‘Heston Special Flight’ (a.k.a. No. 2 Camouflage Unit), from whence the unit’s Spitfires carried out vital reconnaissance work. Towards the end of 1940 the unit was renamed No. 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (P.R.U.), and came under the command of Wing Commander G. W. Tuttle.

In 1942, he was posted to No. 2 P.R.U. at Heliopolis, near Cairo and, in the following year, transferred to No. 3 P.R.U. at Calcutta as Squadron Photographic Officer. He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 1 January 1945, refers) and released in the rank of Squadron Leader. After the war Lamboit worked for Kodak and wrote several articles in respect of P.R.U. work for Aeroplane Monthly and other publications. He died in 1996, aged 90.

Sold with a large quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s M.I.D. certificate and commission warrant for the rank of Pilot Officer, R.A.F.V.R., dated 23 November 1939; a photograph album with an interesting array of some 60 wartime images, including P.R.U. Spitfires; a ‘restricted’ copy of ‘Evidence in camera’ and much besides.