Auction Catalogue

23 September 2005

Starting at 11:00 AM

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

Grand Connaught Rooms  61 - 65 Great Queen St  London  WC2B 5DA

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Lot

№ 1265

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23 September 2005

Hammer Price:
£3,300

A fine Second World War pioneer night fighter pilot’s D.F.C., A.F.C. group of seven awarded to Acting Wing Commander E. S. Smith, Auxiliary Air Force and Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who flew operationally with No. 600 (City of London) Squadron in the Battle of Britain

Distinguished Flying Cross
, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1945’; Air Force Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1943’; 1939-45 Star, clasp, Battle of Britain; Air Crew Europe Star, clasp, France and Germany; Defence and War Medals; Air Efficiency Award, G.VI.R., 1st issue (Act. Sqn. Ldr. E. S. Smith, A.A.F.), good very fine or better (7) £3000-4000

D.F.C. London Gazette 2 October 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘This officer has almost completed his second operational tour of Night Fighting. He started as one of the pioneers of night fighting with No. 600 Squadron during the Battle of Britain in the days when night fighting was indeed a perilous occupation. There was no proper ground control, no navigational aids, only inefficient R./T. and no form of airfield lightings. In spite of these setbacks, this officer was always in those days in the forefront to engage the enemy. Although he destroyed no enemy aircraft on his first tour, it required great courage and determination to fly at all under conditions that then prevailed.

On his second tour with No. 488 Squadron, and subsequently as Commanding Officer of No. 264 Squadron, he has destroyed one enemy aircraft on the night of 30-31 March 1945. This was his reward for a large amount of flying often in extremely bad weather and with no guarantee of open bases to return to. Throughout he has shown the same keenness and determination to engage the enemy, should he be found, as he did in the early days, and although his personal score is small, his example and leadership have been an inspiration to his squadron and have resulted in the destruction of many enemy aircraft.

In all he has completed 105 sorties against the enemy in defensive and offensive patrols over England, the beachhead and subsequent front line areas.’

A.F.C.
London Gazette 2 June 1943. The recommendation states:

‘Squadron Leader Smith has served as Officer Commanding the Development Flight, since November 1940. During this period he has been almost solely responsible for all the trials and reports on fighters up to December 1942. In addition, he has made affiliations with Bomber Command and has assisted with considerable flying on bomber types. In July 1942, Squadron Leader Smith was selected for special duties with the Royal Air Force delegation in Washington. His flying ability and keenness have invariably been of the highest order.’

Edward Stanley Smith was educated at Sherborne and Clare College, Cambridge, at which latter seat of learning he read Law and joined the University’s Air Squadron. He subsequently joined No. 600 (City of London) Squadron, Auxiliary Air Force, and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in July 1936. Called to full-time service in August 1939, he flew with No. 600 throughout the Battle of Britain period, mainly on night-fighter patrols in the Squadron’s A. 1 radar-equipped Blenheims, but occasionally on daylight operations, such as that flown over Middlekerck-Zeebrugge-Flushing on 10 May 1940, when Smith and ‘A’ Flight claimed an He. 111 destroyed on the ground. During the Battle proper, No. 600 operated out of several well-known frontline airfields, Hornchurch, Northholt and Redhill among them, but Manston was undoubtedly the Squadron’s most memorable frontline location, for it was regularly attacked by the Luftwaffe - Al Deere was moved to say “How those 600 Squadron chaps take it, I don’t know’.

As verified by Smith’s A.F.C. recommendation, he next served in the Air Fighting Development Unit, from November 1940 through to the end of 1942, and did not return to an operational footing until joining No. 488 Squadron, a Mosquito night fighter unit, sometime towards the end of 1943 or in early 1944. By now a Squadron Leader, he was next appointed to the command of No. 264 Squadron, another Mosquito unit, in which capacity he served from April 1944 until June 1945, a period that witnessed him and his fellow pilots engaged in considerable action over N.W. Europe, initially over the Normandy beachhead and latterly on 2nd T.A.F. patrols over the Scheldt Estuary and the Rhine - Smith’s “kill” in March 1945 was one of three achieved by No. 264 that month.

Released in the rank of Acting Wing Commander at the end of 1945, he died in 1970.

Sold with a quantity of related artefacts, including a “liberated” Messerschmitt altimeter; a quantity of collar studs, including two of the escaper-compass variety; No. 600 and 264 Squadron wall plaques; a 12-inch B.B.C. record, the label confirming it as a recording of an interview with Smith in May 1941, very probably regarding night fighter activities; and a studio portrait photograph.