Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant G. Budden, Royal Air Force, late Royal Engineers and Royal Flying Corps, who was wounded in a combat with Hermann Goring in August 1917

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. G. Budden, R.F.C.), good very fine (2) £360-400

Provenance: DNW, March 2012.

Gilbert Budden was born in October 1890, the son of a school master from Macclesfield, Cheshire, and was educated at Clifton College and Manchester University, where he gained a BSc in engineering in 1912.

By the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914 he was employed as a mining engineer out in Mexico, but he made his way home and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in April 1915. And going out to France in 12th Field Company, R.E. in July 1915, he would have been present in the Hooge operations in the following month, thereby qualifying for the 1914-15 Star - the whereabouts of which remains unknown.

Transferring to the Royal Flying Corps in the summer of 1916, Budden attended No. 2 School of Aviation prior to being posted as a pilot to No. 70 Squadron in March 1917, but was hospitalised with shock on 23 April after a heavy crash-landing. Returning to duty in the following month, he fought in combats over Menin on the 4th and Roulers on the 5th, while his Sopwith Camel was damaged by A.A. fire during a photographic reconnaissance on the 12th. Budden also participated in ground strafing operations, an attack on enemy transport near Menin being a case in point, when 250 rounds resulted in two lorries colliding.

But his most memorable sortie occurred on 5 August 1917. Norman Franks and Hal Giblin take up the story in Under the Guns of the German Aces:

‘Many of Goring’s successes occurred in the evening hours and this proved no exception. Ten of Jasta 27’s Albatross Scouts took off at 19.45, formed up and headed for Ypres looking for trouble. They found what they were looking for almost half an hour later when they ran into a patrol of Sopwith Camels from No. 70 Squadron. Goring picked out an opponent and attacked. The Camel’s pilot seemed anxious to keep the fight above the trench lines and to avoid straying too far over the German side. Goring followed him closely, firing at a range of no more than 50 metres. According to Goring, flames began to come from the Sopwith and, trailing smoke, it went into a spin and was lost in a cloud. The Staffelfuhrer was certain he had shot the Camel down and it seemed his judgement was vindicated when, on 29 August, he was officially credited with the victory.

In fact, Goring’s opponent was Lieutenant Gilbert Budden and although he was wounded in the combat and his machine badly damaged, he still managed to land the Camel near Bailleul.’

Declared ‘unfit for any service’ for many months as a result of the serious nature of the wound to his left arm, Budden returned to instructional duties on the Home Establishment shortly before the Armistice and was transferred to the Unemployed List in September 1919.

After the War, he took up posts as a metallurgical engineer with the Marzipil Copper Company in Mexico and the U.S.A., but he returned to the UK on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, and served as the Assistant County Secretary for the Red Cross in Cambridgeshire. He died in June 1953, aged 62 years.

Sold with a file of research, and a copy of Under the Guns of the German Aces, by N. Franklin and H. Giblin.