Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Sergeant W. Goulding, Royal Air Force, who was killed in action over Germany in July 1944

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal 1939-45 good very fine (3) £300-350

William Goulding, who came from Winsford, Cheshire, commenced training as an Air Gunner in October 1943. And on qualifying as a Mid-Upper Gunner, he was posted to No. 61 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of Skellingthorpe, in June 1944. Quickly assigned with his crew to targets in support of the Normandy landings, he flew against the marshalling yards at Limoges on the 23rd, Prouville on the following night, and the enemy communications centre at Vitrey on the 27th. The U-Boat pens at Bordeaux followed on the night of 11-12 July, but he and his crew failed to return from their next sortie, to Russelsheim, on the very next night. As late as April 1947, Goulding’s mother received the following report from the R.A.F.’s Missing Research and Enquiry Service:

‘In his report the Investigating Officer states that the aircraft in which they were flying, actually crashed at Bechenheim in the forest of Verholz, after a bombing raid on Russelsheim. The aircraft exploded on impact and all that remained of the six crew who perished in it were buried in the nearby cemetery at Offenheim in a comrades grave situated on the right when entering the Cemetery. You may quite sure that death came instantly to them all ... The report further states that the remains of four members of the crew of another aircraft which crashed in the vicinity on the same night, were also buried in this grave, which has been registered in the names of all ten men ...’

Sold with a quantity of original documentation and four photographs, the former including the recipient’s original Flying Log Book, covering the period of his training days in October 1943 through to his loss in action with No. 61 Squadron on 13 August 1944, with R.A.F. Records Office forwarding slip; a letter to the recipient’s mother, dated 3 October 1945, written by the brother of his Lancaster’s Flight Engineer, in which he discusses the crew’s fate on the basis of a survivor’s account (‘After Flt. Lt. Meek had jumped from the plane, I think the wing had burned off, and the plane went into a spin towards the earth, and the crew had either been burned to death, or killed on impact with the ground ...’); and Air Ministry correspondence regarding the recovery of the crews’ remains and subsequent burial, including grave photographs.