Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Flight Sergeant E. L. B. Vanes, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals, unnamed as issued, extremely fine (4) £150-200

Sold with Air Council condolence slip named to ‘Flight Sergeant E. L. B. Vanes’ and medal forwarding box addressed to ‘Mrs A. Vanes, Borough Road, Middlesborough, Yorkshire’. Also with copied entries from the Operations Record Book and other research.

Flight Sergeant (Navigator/Bomber) Eric Leo Burrows Vanes, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, was killed on active service on 6 April 1944, when his Liberator of No.357 Squadron crashed when flying the ‘Hump’ route over the Himalayas. His remains were interred in the Sai Wan War Cemetery, Hong Kong. Vanes, aged 22 years was the son of Cornelius Leo Leonard and Amelia Vanes of Middlesborough.

Flying Officer Moreland and Flight Sergeant Sullivan of No.357 Squadron were ordered to take their two Liberators to Chabua in Assam and there pick up a load of petrol and transport it to Kunming, China. To get to Kunming from Chabua meant flying the ‘Hump’ route over the Himalayas, achieving a height of approximately 22,000 feet. Sullivan’s aircraft, ‘BZ952’, with Vanes as Navigator, seven other crew and four ground crew passengers, became separated from that of Moreland’s in poor weather and crashed. A week later, the wreckage was found b y a missionary some 200 miles north of Kunming: the aircraft had crashed into the side of a mountain, six miles from Choatung airfield. There were no survivors. It is recorded that Moreland’s aircraft, which successfully made it over the Hump, was subject to violent wind shear which had them at 30,000 feet at one moment and then had them dropping like a stone at the next. The perspex nose section burst in and fusilage rivets were popped and the fusliage twisted. Eventually after becoming lost the aircraft made it to an emergency allied airstrip cut in the jungle. When the aircraft made it back to its base three weeks later, the damage was such that it was immediately written off by the Engineering Officer; the fusilage alone being three feet out of alignment!. It is further reported that a photograph of the wreckage of ‘BZ952’ was pinned up at the base as a warning to other crews of the dangers involved in flying the ‘Hump’.