Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Second War ‘Coastal Command’ D.F.C. attributed to Beaufort Captain, Pilot Officer P. F. R. Graham, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, killed in action 21 August 1941

Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated 1942, in Royal Mint case of issue, extremely fine £800-1200

D.F.C. London Gazette 28 July 1942.

Peter Francis Ralph Graham was born in 1920, the son of Major C. J. Graham, D.S.O., M.C., and his wife Winifred, and was educated at Wellington College and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Commissioned Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 21 December 1940, he served during the Second World War in Coastal Command with No. 217 Squadron, based at R.A.F. St. Eval, Cornwall, and ‘was appointed captain of his plane, a Beaufort, with another Wellingtonian (Pilot Officer J. A. V. StockIey) as his navigating officer. During the late summer of that year they made sixteen long flights over the Atlantic, searching for enemy ships and submarines and laying mines in the enemy coastal shipping routes; once they took part in a big night attack on the Scharnhorst as she lay in dock. The plane and her crew were lost on 21 August 1941, while on shipping patrol off the west coast of France. "Before they took off on that last flight they made themselves a memorable reputation, and they wrote on the pages of the Atlantic Battle story a chapter which remains an inspiration to their squadron.”’ (Wellington College Roll of Honour refers).
Graham is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.

Sold together with a photograph of the recipient.

For the medals awarded to the recipient’s father and brother, see Lots 13 and 9.