Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Memorial Plaque (Reginald Binckes) lightly polished, very fine £160-£200

Reginald Binckes was born in December 1892 and enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service on 29 July 1917. Given the rank of Temporary Probationary Flying Officer he was posted to H.M.S. President at Crystal Palace for basic training, and in September 1917 was posted to Vendome in France for pilot training, before returning to England for further training at Cranwell.

Advanced Lieutenant, Binckes received an operational posting with 214 Squadron on 29 May 1918, based at Coudekerque, just outside Dunkirk. His first operational mission was as an Air Gunner in a Handley Page on 12 June 1918. On 15 June he took part in a raid on Bruges, during which his aircraft was hit by Anti-Aircraft fire at 10,000 feet above Bruges. The starboard propeller and radiator were hit and the pilot shut the starboard engine down and had to throttle back the port engine. The pilot then glided from Bruges back to the lines. Because they were going so slowly in the glide they were held in the search lights and subject to very intense fire. Miraculously, none of the crew was hit. The plane glided to the lines and crashed on the beach in No Man’s Land at Nieuport, before being rescued by Belgian troops.

After further uneventful missions, the majority over Bruges, Binckes’ luck finally ran out on 17 July 1918. Whilst taking off at St Inglevert, uphill, and fully loaded, the wheels of his Handley Page caught in a tall wheat crop and caused the plane to nose over. All three crew members were injured, with Binckes’ being the most serious. Transferred to Field Hospital 308 in Calais, having suffered a fractured spine, he died of his injuries four days later on 21 July 1918. He is buried at Les Baraques Military Cemetery, Sangatte, France.

Leslie Semple, a pilot with 207 Squadron, recorded in his diary: ‘Am very very sorry that poor old Binckes has gone under. He was a topping fellow. Most obliging and a really good chum. He would go out of his way to help anybody. A real loss to the service he was a really good pilot.’

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