Auction Catalogue

19 September 2003

Starting at 11:00 AM

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Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

Lot

№ 1299

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19 September 2003

Hammer Price:
£3,500

An extremely rare Fall of France 1940 operations immediate D.F.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant R. T. Tomlinson, No. 12 Squadron, Advanced Air Striking Force, R.A.F., who, as a Corporal (W./O.-A./G.), rescued his pilot from the burning wreckage of their Fairey Battle after a gallant strike against advancing German troops: the pilot was Flight Lieutenant William Simpson, D.F.C., who later wrote the wartime best-sellers “The Way to Recovery” and “One of Our Pilots is Safe”

Distinguished Flying Medal, G.VI.R. (550950 Cpl. R. T. Tomlinson, R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, good very fine and better, together with an assortment of related R.A.F. badges (9), including Air Gunner’s brevet, three “Flying Bullets” and two gilt and enamelled Squadron badges (13) £1800-2200

D.F.M. London Gazette 31 May 1940. The recommendation for an immediate award states:

On 11 May 1940, Corporal Tomlinson acted as Wireless Operator / Air Gunner to Flight Lieutenant W. Simpson on a low-level bombing attack on troops and convoys on the road between Luxembourg and Junglister, the aim being to check the German advance after the violation of Holland and Belgium.

In spite of intense opposition from light A.A. fire, from the time the frontier was crossed at Petange, the attack was pressed home and direct hits scored. After the attack, a petrol leak developed, and the pilot had to make a forced landing two and a half miles N.W. of Virton. After touching down, the aircraft caught fire. Immediately, Corporal Tomlinson, and the Air Observer Sergeant Odell, without thought for their own safety, scrambled to the pilot who was enveloped in flames, and pulled him clear of the aircraft, which afterwards blew up. This mission was carried out in Battle aircraft L. 4949.

Valuable photographs of the bombing and convoy were obtained by Corporal Tomlinson.’

Robert Tod Tomlinson, who was the son of an R.F.C. pilot, was a pre-war Royal Air Force N.C.O. who qualified for Observer and Air Gunnery duties on the advent of hostilities, in the rank of Corporal. Subsequently employed with No. 12 Squadron, a Fairey Battle unit, out in France, as part of the Advanced Air Striking Force, he flew operationally on a number of occasions prior to his D.F.M.-winning exploits.

On a
Nickel and reconnaissance sortie over the Rhineland on 4 March 1940, with Simpson acting as his pilot, their Battle was caught in intense light and heavy flak, but emerged unscathed. Again with Simpson at the controls, he flew on another Nickel sortie to Coblenz on 25th of the same month, following which a reconnaissance was carried out down the Rhine as far as Birgen, at the relatively low altitude of 3,000 feet. On 7 April, however, on a low-level cross-country exercise, his pilot was none other than Flying Officer D. E. Garland, who, just five weeks later, won the R.A.F.’s first V.C. of the War, piloting one of No. 12’s Battles on a desperate mission to destroy a bridge over the Albert Canal in Belgium, in the face of an ‘inferno of flak’.

Tomlinson, Simpson, and fellow crew member Sergeant Odell, were to face similarly stiff enemy opposition on their next mission together, an offensive patrol to engage an advancing column of enemy troops on the road between Luxembourg, Junglister and Echternach. Taking-off from Amifontaine in “V for Victor”, shortly after 5 p.m., on 10 May, they found their target less than an hour later, having hedge-hopped, banked round houses and swept down valleys, and up again, over tree-tops, dodging high-tension cables. According to Simpson, he carried out the final bombing at an altitude of 30 feet, ‘skimming over the tops of the [enemy’s] vehicles’ before releasing four bombs on the leading elements. He continues:

‘All of this time, Tomlinson was standing up in the back, taking photographs. We were so low down, so dead over the top of the column that some of our bombs were bound to hit. Turning violently from one side to the other, in an attempt to escape from the heavy fire that was spraying us, I saw four puffs of grey-white smoke drifting down-wind lazily from the bombed vehicles. It was then that I noticed for the first time that we had been hit. The cockpit was full of petrol fumes and I was sticky with escaping glycol. I opened the hood of the cockpit to allow the fumes to escape. Suddenly there was a heavy thud. Flames started pouring from a great jagged hole on the left side of the engine - two cylinders had been hit. Lumps of molten metal shot past my head. Miraculously my Rolls Royce Merlin continued to turn. I opened the throttle wide, and just managed to keep flying at about 100 feet above the ground. We must have been hit mainly by light flak, well concealed in the woods. The column had obviously been expecting attack from the air - certainly it was well prepared when we arrived ...’

Unable to gain altitude, Simpson realised that escape by parachute was not an option. He therefore started to look around for a place to carry out a forced landing, and, just as he was giving up hope of finding anywhere amidst the hills and trees, he spotted a small grass-covered clearing atop a hill. Quickly making a wheels-up “Belly-landing”, he heard a series of sickening crunches before the Battle ground to a halt. Simpson’s continues:

‘While we were in the air the flames from the engine had been blown clear of my cockpit. Now they settled down, and the fire in the engines burned furiously. Before I had time to undo the straps which secured me in the cockpit the flames had rushed back from the engine. Suddenly the petrol vapour which had escaped from the burst tanks and permeated the cockpit was touched off. The was a tremendous “woof”.

My hands were searching frantically for the release clip holding my straps together. Great sheets of searing flames rushed between my legs and up to thirty feet above me. In that first rush of heat my hands were burned and they seized up solid. They were completely useless. I was trapped by my straps and could not move. The awful realisation that I was about to be burned to death took possession of my mind. A tremendous white heat enveloped me. I could feel my flesh burning, but the pain I felt was mostly mental.

I shall never be able to describe the agony of spirit that I knew when it seemed certain that I should burn to death. Having found that it was impossible for me to escape my trap by my own efforts, I let my hands drop on to my knees and curled myself up, waiting for the release of death. My whole mind was full of a bloodcurdling scream; but no sound came. If it had it might have relieved the shock. For some reason I never lost consciousness. I sat there for what seemed to be hours, but could only have been seconds, filled with the awful horror and fear of a drawn-out death. I was convinced that it was certain and inevitable. Behind my head the electric klaxon screamed out its strident note, reminding me to lower my wheels before making a landing. That sound pierced my senses for days afterwards ...’

But rescue was on the way in the form of Corporal Tomlinson and Sergeant Odell:

‘But I did not die. Odell and Tomlinson appeared on the side of the wing - I heard Odell’s gasp of horror - and they dragged me from the flames. Tomlinson burnt his hands on the metal release which secured my parachute and was pressing into my stomach. It was red-hot. The other straps had all burnt through. They dragged me down over the wing and rolled me in the long damp grass, trying to extinguish the flames that still clung to me. The few rags of clothing that still hung on my shoulders were blackened and smouldering. Molten metal had fallen on to the top of my left flying boot. It had already burnt through the thick leather, the sheepskin and three pairs of socks. It was now biting into the top of my foot. The pain was great. Odell cut the boot with his knife. At last my foot was free, but the pain hardly diminished.

With both of them on each side of me, propping me up, we staggered away from the burning Battle and flopped down 200 yards away. V for Victor was burning like a torch. Every now and then the flames would discover something explosive: the Verey signal cartridges in the cockpit, or the machine-gun ammunition, which would pop and crackle like burning twigs. Then the petrol tanks caught fire. There was a tremendous explosion, and still the Battle burned. V for Victor. Victor for what? Certainly not fire. A stupid thought, this, but it kept coming back into my mind like a hated jazz tune that runs for hours through the brain and cannot be got rid of.

The first-aid kit burnt with Victor. Tomlinson had saved the camera. He said that he was sure he had taken plenty of good photographs of the enemy column. Could all this be real? Had I been burnt - yes, I could see and feel the physical evidence. Yet we were chatting about photographs; Tomlinson was trying to cheer me up - yes, that must be it. Part of my mind still seemed to be detached - to be a long way off, somewhere in space, looking back at the rest of the mind, which was still imprisoned in my burnt body, watching every reaction, feeling each sensation, living vicariously the tortures and bewilderments of the rest of my body and mind.

They left me sitting in the grass, my back to the burning aircraft, and ran towards a little group of peasants who were standing on the edge of the clearing, as far away as possible from the scene of the accident. They seemed to have difficulty in interesting the Belgians.

“They took us for Germans,” said Odell, when he got back to me, “but they say they’ll help. One of them has gone off for a car. They’re still a bit suspicious.”

They went back to the group to try and hurry things up ... Odell, having at last convinced the Belgians of our friendly intentions towards their country, arrived back at last in a battered old Citroen driven by a fat Flemish farmer. It was like a little grey box on wheels. Thank God, it was closed and not an open tourer! The back seat had been removed. I was pushed in beside one of the Belgians, who put his arm around me to support my dropping form. He kept repeating: “Quel malheur. Les sales Boches!” We bumped on the worst and most uncomfortable journey of my life.’

Having been driven along roads packed with refugees, the three R.A.F. men reached a convent where the nuns quickly administered morphia to Simpson, who was still sufficiently conscious to appreciate the company of his two crew members:


‘I don’t think I was ever so grateful for human companionship. We had been comrades in the air, priding ourselves on our teamwork. In my moment of greatest need thay had not hesitated. They had pulled me out of the flames and saved my life. One moment of hesitation of their part, and I would have been burned to death. But there
was no hesitation. They did not stop to count the cost. Nobody could have blamed them had they left me. We had been together on many pleasant flights in peace-time. Then when I needed them most they did not fail me.’

In fact, as a result of his own burns, Tomlinson was able to accompany Simpson for the next few weeks, the pair of them being shuffled along a line of different hospitals as the German advance continued apace. At length, however, they parted ways, never to see each other again.

Having recovered from his burns, Tomlinson returned to frontline duties in No. 12’s Battles, flying his first operational sortie on the last day of July 1940, against Rotterdam. In the following month, on the 17th, he participated in a dusk attack against surface craft in Boulogne harbour, an unenviable initiative that was greeted with intense flak, at least one hit being registered on his aircraft’s wing (‘Used M.G. from 400 feet’). And in a similar strike against the same target on the night of 21-22 September, his Battle was again hit by enemy fire. An outing to Ostend on the 11 October proved less hazardous, however, the intense flak being inaccurate, but his Battle returned to base with one ‘Hang up’ aboard.

In December 1940, the Squadron took delivery of its first Wellingtons, and it was on a training flight on 8 February 1941 that Tomlinson was killed as a result of an accident. Writing to his father from R.A.F. Binbrook a few days later, the Squadron C.O. stated:

‘ ... The aircraft in which your son was flying was engaged on an operational training flight and was piloted by his Flight Commander. When approaching to land the aeroplane was seen to stall and crashed in a field not far from the edge of the aerodrome, your son being killed instantly.

The loss of your son is a great blow to the Squadron, as he was one of the best Wireless Operators we had. He had been with the Squadron a long time, was popular with everyone and had proved his courage and good qualities while operating with the Squadron in France ... ’

Sold with the recipient’s original Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, covering the period October 1939 to December 1940, with opening endorsement ‘324 Hrs. 5 Mins. (20 Hours 20 Mins. night) brought forward from flying log book lost in France through enemy action’, and closing statement, ‘Killed on Active Service 8.2.41’; together with two lively letters written by the recipient to his father in August and December 1939, the latter from France; two R.A.F. Record Office letters informing his next of kin that he had been admitted to hospital ‘suffering from burns to hands’, both dated in May 1940; wartime editions of Simpson’s memoirs,
The Way to Recovery and One of Our Pilots is Safe, this latter dedicated to Odell and Tomlinson ‘who together saved my life’; a copy of Leads the Field, The History of No. 12 Squadron, by Flying Officer T. Mason; ten emotive letters dating from February 1941 to April 1951, the whole dealing with the recipient’s death as a result of a flying accident and / or grave headstone inscriptions; and R.F.C. related memorabilia and documentation relating to the recipient’s father, including original cloth R.F.C. Wings.