Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well-documented Bomber Command casualty’s group of three awarded to Sergeant J. D. L. Kelly, Royal Air Force, a Wireless Operator who was killed in action in a Whitley of No. 51 Squadron in a raid on Bremen on the night of 3-4 January 1941

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, extremely fine (3) £350-400

In October he flew on three more German trips - Berlin, Duisburg and Stettin - but on the night of 20th-21st, on returning from a strike on Milan, his pilot was compelled to ditch their Whitley in the Irish Sea, five miles off Liverpool. As it transpired, he would shortly be involved in another perilous incident, namely that which occurred on the night of 13-14 November, when, on returning from a strike against Leuna, a broken propeller blade resulted in his Whitley crash-landing. Then on the 17-18 November, following a trip to Hamburg in between, his pilot made a forced landing at Kirton-on-Lindsay on returning from a raid on Gelsenkirchen. Notwithstanding these recent close-shaves, Kelly and his crew completed further sorties to Bordeaux and Wilhelmshaven before the month’s end, followed by another six in December, these latter against Dusseldorf, Bordeaux, Kiel, Mannheim, Duisburg and Lorient - the trip to Kiel resulted in yet another forced-landing, this time at Finningley. Then on the night of 3-4 January, on a raid to Bremen - his 21st operational sortie - Kelly and his aircraft were lost without trace. With no known grave, he is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, comprising the recipient’s original Flying Log Book, covering the period June 1940 up until his death in action in January 1941, the flanking page inscribed ‘Death Presumed 4-1-41’, together with R.A.F. Records Office forwarding slip; and a series of poignant correspondence addressed to his father, commencing with official telegram reporting him missing in action, dated 4 January 1941, with related follow-on letter from the R.A.F’s Record Office, dated the 5th (‘This does not necessarily mean that he is killed or wounded ... ’), letter from Wing Commander W. B. Tait, his Squadron C.O. (‘I am afraid this is an anxious time for you ... but ask you not to give up hope’), a handwritten letter from a squadron friend, Paul Phillips, to his mother, dated 14 March 1941 (‘I have not heard anything as yet about Jack and his crew. But don’t give up hope, there is still every chance as news takes a very long time to travel ... Tonight we are going to Hamburg. We have a couple of hours before taking off so I can write a few letters’), together with further communications from the R.A.F. Records Office, dated 17 February, 29 April and 23 June 1941, cataloguing the onward saga of his official status down to ‘death now presumed’, and typescript copies of three letters sent by Kelly’s father in response to some of these letters.