Orders, Decorations and Medals

The important O.B.E., Second World War D.F.C., “Operation Grapple” A.F.C. group of eight awarded to Group Captain K. G. Hubbard, Royal Air Force: having won his D.F.C. for a busy tour in Wellingtons, during which he once carried out an attack at 200 feet under our illuminating flares, he went on to command No. 49 Squadron during Britain’s first H-Bomb tests and captained the Valiant that dropped the first such weapon on 15 May 1957 - a device 70 times more powerful than that dropped on Hiroshima in 1945

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge; Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1945’, with its Royal Mint case of issue; Air Force Cross, E.II.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1957’, with its Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals; Coronation 1953, mounted-court-style as worn, together with a set of related miniature dress medals (these including a General Service Medal 1918-62 with Palestine 1945-48 clasp but to which the recipient was not entitled), contact marks, generally good very fine (8) £8,000-10,000

O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1953.

D.F.C. London Gazette 20 April 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘Squadron Leader Hubbard has completed a very satisfactory tour of operations consisting of 40 sorties, totalling 199.55 hours. An ex-Training Command Instructor he has used his extra flying experience to good purpose, and as an efficient Deputy Flight Commander and later Flight Commander, he has passed on this experience in a most beneficial manner to the new and lesser experienced crews under him.

On the night of 20-21 August 1944, he took part in the first attack on the Herman Goering Works at St. Valentin, which proved to be quite heavily defended. Due to having a navigator of indifferent efficiency he ran ahead of the main bomber stream and thus attracted undivided attention of these defences and several others en route, yet he waited at the target until the main force arrived and pressed home his attack with them.

On the night of 12-13 April 1944, he laid mines in the River Danube from a height of only 100 feet and attacked a string of barges with machine-gun fire, obtaining strikes.

On the night of 14-15 May 1944, he took part in a special low-level attack on the important Latissana Railway Bridge in Northern Italy, at a height of only 200 feet, which involved the somewhat hazardous procedure of going in individually underneath the light of the illuminating flares.

He has carried out many attacks in close support of the Fifth and Eighth Armies and against marshalling yards in the Po Valley, also both day and night supply dropping and bombing operations in support of the Partisan Forces in Yugoslavia. He attacked targets as wide apart as Athens to Southern France.

I, therefore, recommend that this excellent tour of operations be recognised by the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.’

A.F.C. London Gazette 13 June 1957.

Kenneth Gilbert Hubbard joined the Royal Air Force in August 1940 and was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in May 1941. Posted to the Central Flying School at R.A.F. Cranwell to commence training as a flying instructor, he duly qualified and served in that capacity at R.A.F. Grantham until the end of 1943, when, having attended an Operational Training Unit and converted to Wellingtons, he joined No. 70 Squadron out in Italy in January 1944.

As confirmed by the above recommendation, he went on to serve a full tour of operations between January and December 1944, amounting to 40 sorties and about 200 hours flying time. As stated above, too, several of these sorties were of the low-level, specialised type, as no doubt were his “Battle Stooge” attacks on enemy troops and transport in support of the Anzio operations. Nor were they free of high drama, a case in point being a raid on the Prahova Oil Storage Depot at Bucharest, when Hubbard’s Wellington was coned by searchlights over the target, or for that matter his attack against the Herman Goering Works at St. Valentin - ‘Heavy flak encountered on route. Over target, heavy flak, 100 searchlights. Coned on leaving target area. Hit in several places by heavy flak’ (his Flying Log Book refers). Hubbard was awarded the D.F.C.

In January 1945 he joined No. 77 O.T.U. at Qastina in Palestine, where he served until that May, but did not qualify for the General Service Medal 1918-62, and in August 1946, having returned to No. 70 Squadron piloting Liberators in the interim, he took command of No. 104 Squadron, a Lancaster unit based in Egypt. Next posted to the Empire Armament School at R.A.F. Manby, he flew Lancaster Thor 1 and Lincoln Thor 2 to South Africa and Canada in 1948, following which he joined the Directing Staff of the Flying College on its formation at Manby.

As a Squadron Leader Hubbard was Station Commander of R.A.F. Shaibah 1951-53 when this station was involved in the evacuation of British personnel from Abadan. He was awarded the O.B.E.

Having next attended the R.A.F. Staff College, he was advanced to Wing Commander and posted to the V-Bomber Force in January 1955, with whom he completed his Valiant conversion course at R.A.F. Gaydon, before assuming command of No. 49 Squadron at R.A.F. Wittering in September 1956. No. 49 was specifically tasked the live drops element of “Operation Grapple” in the South Pacific, Britain’s first H-Bomb tests, and the first such test was carried out with Hubbard at the helm of Valiant XD 818 on 15 May 1957, off Malden Island, some 400 miles south of Christmas Island. He later wrote:

‘We removed all anti-flash screens and I turned the aircraft 90 degrees to port; as we turned, the sight which met our eyes was truly breathtaking. There, towering above us (remember we were at 45,000 feet), was a huge mushroom shaped cloud, with the stern a cauldron of mass orange as the fireball had developed and the hot gases risen into the atmosphere, progessively fanning out and forming a white canopy which can only be compared to the top of a mushroom. This top must have reached an altitude of approximately 60,000 feet, with ice caps forming. It really was a sight of such majesty and grotesque beauty that it defies adequate description’ (Operation Grapple, Testing Britain’s First H-Bomb, by Group Captain Kenneth Hubbard and Michael Simmons, refers).

Testing continued at Christmas Island until November 1958, during which time the Squadron dropped a total of seven thermo-nuclear devices. Hubbard was awarded an immediate A.F.C. - and Britain demonstrated to the world her resolve to protect her democracy with a nuclear deterrent that could be delivered by the Royal Air Force to any target within V-Bomber range.

At the conclusion of the “Grapple” test series Hubbard served at H.Q. Bomber Command and, as Group Captain, commanded the R.A.F. Stations of El Adem and Scampton - the latter station was at that time the base for the Blue Steel-equipped Vulcan B2s of 27, 83 and 617 Squadrons. His final appointment was as Group Captain Training at H.Q. Transport Command.

Hubbard, who was President of the “Megaton Club” formed by members of 49 Squadron who served in “Grapple”, died in January 2004.

Sold with a very large archive of original documentation and photographs, together with a number of related artefacts, including:

(i) The recipient’s original Flying Log Books (8), covering the periods November 1940 to January 1943; February 1943 to July 1945, this actually two books bound as one and including 22 target photographs, together with his “Personal Copy” log for the period February 1943 to January 1944; July 1945 to April 1949; May 1949 to June 1956; June 1956 to November 1958; December 1958 to December 1962; March 1963 to August 1964, and thereafter, until October 1985, civil flights.

(ii) Warrant for the recipient’s O.B.E., dated 1 January 1953, framed and glazed; together with related congratulatory message from the C.-in-C., M.E.A.F., dated 31 December 1952; certificate for his Coronation Medal 1953; and a telegram from Winston Churchill thanking Hubbard for his kind assistance as C.O. of El Edem, framed and glazed.

(iii) Commission warrants for the rank of Pilot Officer, dated 13 June 1941 and Flight Lieutenant, dated 10 December 1944, both framed an glazed.

(iv) A massive quantity of career documentation contained in numerous files, a large percentage of it directly relevant to “Operation Grapple”, including all types of plans, technical data and reports, some of a “Top Secret” nature, the whole contained in a large black-painted wooden box, the lid inscribed, ‘Wg. Cdr. K. G. Hubbard, O.B.E., D.F.C., A.F.C.’

(v) A massive photographic archive, covering most aspects of Hubbard’s career (amounting to at least 300 or 400 images), and including a series of framed and glazed pictures of assorted Royal or V.I.P. visits; together with four photograph albums, with numerous images of a similar nature; and a visitors’ book with assorted signatures, among them H.R.H. Prince Philip, dated 15 December 1961.

(vi) Assorted uniform “Wings”, rank epaulettes, etc., together with official issue oxygen mask, navigational instruments, etc.

(vii) A brass tankard commemorating the Mediterranean campaigns of 1942-43, made from metal salvaged from the battlefields of North Africa; a silver-plated tankard with engraved inscription, ‘Presented to Sq. Ldr. K. G. Hubbard, D.F.C., by the members of His Squadron, Royal Air Force Flying College, March 1951’; and a pewter tankard with engraved inscription, ‘Presented to Wing Commander K. G. Hubbard, O.B.E., D.F.C., A.F.C., R.A.F., as Officer Commanding No. 49 Squadron, by Vickers Armstrong (Aircraft) Ltd., Dec. 1957’.

(viii) A silver cigarette case, the inside lid engraved, ‘Ken, 1943’; another similar, with gilt interior, this engraved ‘Presented to Group Captain K. G. Hubbard, O.B.E., D.F.C., A.F.C., Officer Commanding R.A.F. El Adem, 3rd January 1963’; and a cigarette box, the front side engraved, ‘Presented to Group Captain K. G. Hubbard, O.B.E., D.F.C., A.F.C., Officer Commanding R.A.F. El Adem, From the Officers (The Team), 3rd January 1963’.