Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Property of Patricia, Lady Foley

An interesting group of four awarded to Squadron Leader H. B. “Micky” Bell-Syer, Royal Air Force, who was seriously wounded when his Hurricane was shot down over France in May 1940: he went on to win an A.F.C. for his work as a test pilot at Boscombe Down in 1942 and to complete a tour of operations as a Mosquito pilot in 2nd T.A.F. in 1944

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals, together with a fine Cartier, London lucky mascot, in the form of a rectangular plaque, in silver, with applied R.A.F. wings, in gold, above a central figure of St. Christopher, the hinged back-plate inscribed, ‘Michael Bell-Syer, Chevalier Sand Peur et Sans Reproche, 1941’, and with four screw-holes for affixing to his aircraft’s cockpit, in fitted leather case, together with R.A.F. uniform “Wings” and medal ribands, the latter showing entitlement to the ‘France and Germany’ clasp, extremely fine (6) £1400-1800

Herbert Benjamin Bell-Syer (who loathed his Christian names and was always known as Michael or “Micky”) was born in Alton, Hampshire in December 1918, the son of a retired Captain, R.N., and was educated at Allhallows at Honiton, Devon. Entering the Royal Air Force at the end of 1936, he gained his “Wings” at R.A.F. Netheravon in the following year, was posted to the School of Army Co-operation at Old Sarum and, pre-war, held appointments in No. 16 (Army Co-operation) Squadron and No. 614 Squadron at Odiham. Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, he joined a Lysander flight at “Base 11” in Africa, on clandestine duties with the French Foreign Legion, but he returned to the U.K. in the following year to the Armament Testing Squadron at Boscombe Down.

This latter appointment, however, was curtailed by his posting to No. 73 Squadron in France in May 1940, where, after a few days, he went into action on the advent of the German invasion of the Low Countries. On 24 May, while on patrol with three other Hurricanes of No. 73 Squadron, he participated in a head-on attack against 30 Heinkels and 30 Me. 110s, and was shot down, one of his fellow pilots afterwards reporting that he had last seen him ‘descending in a parachute with a rent in the top of it’. The Squadron’s Operational Record Book further noted, ‘Even if Bell-Syer were to leave us, we are interested in his fate, as he has already impressed a sense of efficiency and confidence in those connected to him, despite his very recent arrival.’ But nothing further was heard of him until the first week of June, when he was located by a fellow officer of No. 73 Squadron in a hospital at Grand Luce, badly disfigured by burns to his face and head, temporarily blinded, and also suffering from shrapnel wounds in one of his legs. Evacuated ‘in a two-day grace period’ that followed the signing of the Armistice, he was fortunate to receive the immediate attention of the famous New Zealander surgeon, Archie McIndoe, attention that enabled him to make a remarkably quick recovery.

In fact, as verified by his flying log book, Bell-Syer returned to duty in August 1940, albeit on a non-operational footing, when he rejoined on “special duties” the Armament Testing Squadron at Boscombe Down, a posting that witnessed him conducting hazardous and secret experimental work, and flying many aircraft types, including Albacores, Blenheims, Bostons, Havocs, Hurricanes, Liberators, Lysanders, Mitchells, Mustangs, Spitfires, Tempests, Typhoons and Wellingtons, and even the occasional flight in a Messerschmitt 109 or 110. It was about this time that his wife, Rose, lately married to Lord Burgh, presented him with the above described cockpit lucky mascot by Cartier. And the St. Christopher plaque certainly worked, Bell-Syer coming through unscathed and being rated as a test pilot of ‘very near the exceptional class’. He was awarded the A.F.C. and remained similarly employed until transferring to an Operational Training Unit in March 1944.

That May Bell-Syer returned to the operational scene, being posted to No. 613 (City of Manchester) Squadron at Lasham in Hampshire, a Mosquito unit of 138 Wing, 2nd Tactical Air Force. The Squadron’s C.O. at this time was Wing Commander R. N. “Pinpoint” Bateson, a renowned low-level specialist who had recently rolled two bombs ‘right through the front door’ of Gestapo Headquarters in the Hague. Bell-Syer, too, subsequently flew on some memorable operations, not least the low-level daylight strike against an S.S. barracks at Egletons, south-east of Limoges, on 18 August 1944, an outing flown in support of the Maquis. No. 2 Group’s irrepressible leader, Air Vice-Marshal Basil Embry, who went along to observe proceedings, later described how they ‘flew the whole way at 50 feet and caught the Germans completely unprepared. As we attacked, arms drill was being practised and our photographs showed soldiers on the steps of the house quite unaware of the danger’. In fact between mid-May and late August 1944, Bell-Syer completed over 40 sorties, many of them of the daylight variety against enemy targets in Northern France, including a trip to Caen on 24 June, when his Mosquito was hit by 20mm. flak.

In September 1944, he was posted as an instructor to R.A.F. Harwell, where he ended the War, and in August 1946, while employed on similar duties, logged his first flight in a Meteor jet. Bell-Syer retired from the R.A.F. in the rank of Squadron Leader in 1947 and went to work for Hawker Siddeley. A keen sportsman and accomplished skier, who won the over-70s downhill race at Zurs, Austria, several years in a row, and who ‘throughout his life was blessed with the company of beautiful women’, he died in March 1999, aged 80. He was survived by his companion of 18 years, Patricia, Lady Foley.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s Flying Log Books (2), covering the periods August 1940 to August 1946, and September 1946 to May 1947 [his first flying log book is believed to have been lost in France in May 1940]; together with a fine array of R.A.F. career photographs, 1936 to 1947 (approximately 75).