Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Flying Officer G. G. Lonsdale, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence and War Medals, in original [damaged] card forwarding box, addressed to ‘Mrs. M. W. Lonsdale, “Arbory”, Hawthorne Lane, Bromborough, Cheshire’, extremely fine (4) £300-350

Gerald Gordon Lonsdale was posted missing following an anti-shipping patrol off the north coast of Spain on 24 April 1942, aged 24 years, while serving in No. 502 (Ulster) Squadron. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.

No. 502 was a Coastal Command unit, and, at the time of Lonsdale’s death, equipped with Whitleys. The first squadron to be equipped with the long range A.S.V. (air-to-surface vessel) Mark II radar, it claimed its first “kill”, the U-206 in the Bay of Biscay, on 30 November 1941.

The ‘Majorie Lonsdale’ listed under his next of kin by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is believed to have been his wife, although her address is given as Caversham, Reading, Berkshire.