Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria, to include the Brian Ritchie Collection (Part I)

Four: Flight Sergeant R. McClaren, Royal Air Force, who was taken P.O.W. after his Halifax crash landed in Denmark in February 1944

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals, together with post-war Bomber Command and P.O.W. commemoratives, both in their cases of issue, good very fine and better (6) £300-350

McClaren, who qualified as an Air Gunner in June 1943, joined No. 158 Squadron, a Halifax unit operating out of Lissett, in January 1944. That month he participated in three trips to Berlin, in addition to a sortie against Magdeburg, but on his very next operation, once more to the “Big City”, on the night of 15-16 February, his pilot was forced to make a crash landing in Denmark due to instrument and engine failure. Happily all of the crew survived, but were quickly rounded up and taken P.O.W.

Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Book, covering the period May 1943 to February 1944, with final entry in May 1945 as a returning P.O.W. in a Lancaster; together with his “Wartime Log for British Prisoners”, as gifted by the Y.M.C.A., this complete with usual drawings, poems and magazine cuttings, etc., and a rather worn but interesting diary from P.O.W. days, this with assorted pencilled notes and some interesting observations about anything from rations to punishments.