Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Pilot Officer J. A. C. Newman, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who was posting missing after a ‘Gardening’ sortie in a Wellington of No. 166 Squadron in August 1943

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, together with original Air Council condolence slip in the name of ‘Pilot Officer J. A. C. Newman’, good very fine (3) £240-280

John Arthur Cyril Newman commenced his operational tour as a pilot in No. 166 Squadron, a Wellington unit based at Kirmington, Lincolnshire, in June 1943. Thus, in the same month, he carried out three ‘Gardening’ trips and participated in attacks on Krefeld, Wuppertal, Gelsenkirchen, Aachen and Cologne, the latter operation including a visitation from an enemy night fighter. In July, other than an attack on Essen, in which his Wellington was damaged by flak, he was solely employed in attacking Hamburg during the famous ‘firestorm’ raids at the end of the month; once again, his aircraft was damaged by flak. Finally, in August, he was ordered to carry four ‘Gardening’ trips and it was on the last of these, off Lorient on the 27th, that he and his crew were posted missing. At the time of his death, aged 22 years, Newman was serving as a Warrant Officer, but his commission had been approved a month earlier and was duly announced in the London Gazette; The son of Arthur John and Elsie Newman of Putney, London, he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial; sold with brief research.