Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second War M.B.E. group of three attributed to First Officer Esta Eldod, Women’s Royal Naval Service

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type, lady’s shoulder badge, silver, in Royal Mint case of issue; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, very fine and better (3) £120-£160

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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M.B.E. London Gazette 14 June 1945.

Esta Eldod was born in Hackney on 3 July 1898 and was appointed to the Women’s Royal Naval Service as Third Officer on 16 July 1940. Posted to Headquarters at Pembroke on 11 September 1940, she served throughout the War as Press Officer in the office of the Director of the Women’s Royal Naval Service. Decorated with the M.B.E. for this work, she later sailed from London to Santos aboard the Brasil Star, taking employment in South America as a Public Relations Officer. A founding member of the Institute of Journalists (1948), she later returned to England and took her retirement in Sussex.

Sold with the recipient’s original Bestowal Document for the award of the M.B.E., and a fine portrait of her in naval uniform.