Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Flight Sergeant L. G. Pettit, Royal Air Force, who completed 45 operational sorties, many of them in the Path Finder Force - his pilot was awarded a brace of D.F.Cs in the same period

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, good very fine (4) £340-380

Leonard George Pettit, who was born in February 1917, enlisted in the Royal Air Force in February 1936. Nothing further of his career is known until he attended a conversion unit as a 2nd Engineer in February 1944, following which he commenced an operational tour with No. 207 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of Spilsby. Joining the crew of Flying Officer Overgaauw, and later that of Pilot Officer C. W. Eaton, he went on to complete over 20 sorties in the period April-July 1944, many of them in support of the Normandy landings - the Saumur railway bridge, the coastal batteries at Maisy and La Parnelle, and elements of the 4th Panzer Division at Balleroy in the first week of June alone. Rocket sites, too, were on 207’s agenda, including a daylight strike against Thiverney on 14 July, as were more regular German targets, such as Munich and Stuttgart (twice).

In August 1944, and still as a member of Eaton’s crew, Pettit attended a Path Finder Force course at R.A.F. Warboys, and was duly posted to No. 97 Squadron at Coningsby later that month, when he and his crew flew their first P.F.F. mission against Konigsberg on the 29th. And between then and February 1945, he raised his tally of sorties to the 45-mark, assorted targets in Czechoslovakia, Norway and Poland being among 97’s operational brief, but the majority, in fact, being of the heavily-defended German kind - thus trips to Brunswick, Darmstadt, Karlsruhe (twice), Munich and Stuttgart (twice), among others. And an indication of the opposition confronted over such targets may be gleaned from the fact that his pilot, the newly promoted Flight Lieutenant C. W. Eaton, was awarded a brace of D.F.Cs for the same period (London Gazettes 16 February and 4 December 1945 refer). The recommendations - copies included - speak of Eaton as one of the outstanding Primary Blind Markers in the Squadron, who often flew alone over the target amidst accurate predicted flak.

Pettit was released from the Service in January 1946.

Sold with the recipient’s original flying log book, covering the period February 1944 to February 1945 (the date of his qualification as a Flight Engineer has been erased from the Certificates of Qualification page, but feint traces of the original entry suggest December 1943); his R.A.F. Service and Release Book and three wartime photographs.