Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Second World War D.F.C. group of six awarded to Warrant Officer J. T. Darby, Royal Air Force, late Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who completed nearly 60 wartime sorties as an Air Gunner

Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1944’ and further privately engraved, ‘940734 W./O. J. T. Darby’; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals; Royal Air Force L.S. & G.C., E.II.R. (940734 Sgt. J. T. Darby, R.A.F.), mounted as worn, contact marks, very fine and better (6) £1600-1800

D.F.C. London Gazette 23 November 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘As a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner Warrant Officer Darby has completed a large number of sorties, many of them in the Middle east. He has displayed exceptional skill and proved himself to be a most valuable member of aircraft crew. In spite of several trying experiences his keenness remains unabated and his example has been most inspiring.’

John Thomas Darby, who was born in May 1921, qualified as a Wireless Operator / Air Gunner in September 1940 and, having attended No. 15 O.T.U. at Harwell, with whom he flew on a nickel raid to Paris, was posted to No. 40 Squadron, a Wellington unit operating out of Wyton. Flying his first sortie against Ostend on the 21 December 1940, and another to Bremen on New Year’s Day, he was lucky to survive his aircraft’s collision with a telegraph pole in a training flight a little over a fortnight later - ‘Plane Burnt Out’. In fact, Darby was kept off an operational footing until the following April, when he joined No. 38 Squadron in the Middle East, another Wellington unit.

Flying his first sortie with No. 38 against Eleusis, Greece on the 11 April, as a Front Gunner, he thereafter flew as Rear Gunner, and between that date and late December 1941 completed another 43 operational sorties, many of them on the thankless and perilous Benghazi run - while so engaged on the 19 April his aircraft was attacked by an Me. 109 and crashed near Mersa Matruh: he was, however, back on operations two weeks later. On a similar sortie on 28 June, his captain, Pilot Officer C. S. Davis, took their Wellington down to 1,000 feet to bomb enemy shipping, and afterwards flew ‘on to Benina where, in spite of heavy anti-aircraft fire, he machine-gunned aircraft on the ground from a low altitude’ (Davis’ D.F.C. recommendation refers). In August, Darby joined a squadron detachment at Malta, from which place he regularly flew against Tripoli and Benghazi, prior to returning to Egypt to end his operational tour that December.

Back home, in March 1942, he joined No. 11 O.T.U. at Bassingbourne as a Wireless Operator instructor, in which capacity he served until June 1943, when he returned to the operational scene as a Mid-Upper Gunner with No. 115 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of East Wretham - he flew his first sortie, a “Gardening” trip, on the night of 25 July. And between then and late October, he completed another nine sorties, his German targets including a brace of trips to both Berlin and Nuremberg, while during a strike against Turin on 16 August, his handiwork as a Mid-Upper Gunner contributed to an attacking fighter being driven off. About this time, Darby was taken ill with flu and therefore missed a trip with his usual crew on the night of 22 September 1943 - their Lancaster was shot down and three of his friends killed (the lot is accompanied by photographs of Darby visiting their graves in recent years). Gazetted for his D.F.C. that November, he did not actually receive his decoration until the following year, when he attended a special investiture held by the King at R.A.F. Witchford. For much of the remainder of the War, he served again as a Wireless Operator instructor in Ansons at R.A.F. Bishop’s Court, and he appears to have been discharged in January 1947.

However, Darby re-enlisted in July 1951, qualified as an Air Traffic Controller in August 1962 and was finally discharged in the rank of Warrant Officer at R.A.F. Oakington in January 1972.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation and photographs, including the recipient’s original Flying Log Books (2), covering the periods July 1940 to December 1945 and January to October 1946; his Honorary Membership Card for H.M. Forces to the Maltese House of Assembly, dated March 1941; his R.A.F. Air Traffic Control Certificate of Competency; Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (S.H.A.P.E.), service certificate for the period January 1966 to July 1968; warrant for his appointment to the rank of Warrant Officer, R.A.F., dated 1 July 1969; his R.A.F. Certificate of Service 1951-72; career photographs (8); official “retirement letter” dated 13 December 1971; an embroidered ‘S’ brevet; and an old cigarette case with explanatory note, ‘Belonged to a Navigator burnt by battery acid, 20 November 1940’ (actually the date of his first operational sortie, a nickel raid on Paris); and other miscellaneous but original documentation.