A Collection of Awards to the R.F.C. and R.A.F. formed by Wing Commander Bill Traynor

Family group:

A rare Great War escaper’s M.C. group of four awarded to Lieutenant A. P. Taylor, Royal Air Force, late Royal Naval Division and Royal Naval Air Service: decorated in 1919 for his earlier escape following the Antwerp operations in 1914, he witnessed further action on the Western Front with the R.N.D., was severely wounded in 1917, and afterwards qualified as a Kite Balloon Officer

Military Cross, G.V.R.; 1914 Star, with (copy) clasp (L7/3339 Act. A.B., R.N.V.R., Benbow Bttn., R.N.D.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut., R.A.F.), generally good very fine

The Great War service pair awarded to his father, A. T. I. Taylor, Mercantile Marine

British War and Mercantile Marine Medals (Arthur T. I. Taylor), good very fine (6) £3000-4000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to the R.F.C. and R.A.F. formed by Wing Commander Bill Traynor.

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M.C. London Gazette 16 December 1919:

‘In recognition of gallantry in escaping from captivity whilst prisoners of war.’

Arthur Percy Taylor was born in Woodford Green, Essex in February 1892 and enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as an Ordinary Seaman in August 1914. Subsequently posted to the Benbow Battalion, Royal Naval Division, he was employed in the Antwerp operations of the same year and was among those interned by the Dutch. However, as verified by his service record, ‘he escaped from Holland between 17.5.15 and 27.5.15’, the same source further verifying that an application ‘for an award for escaping from Holland in 1915’ was made as late as 1918 (ref. RND/11786). He was subsequently among those decorated under the authority of AO 193 of 1919, in his case with the Military Cross.

Commissioned as a Temporary Sub. Lieutenant in September 1915, Taylor was next embarked for the Mediterranean, where he served in the Nelson Battalion on Mudros and Lemnos from January to May 1916. He was then embarked with his unit for France, where he served as a Lewis Gun and Signalling Officer until severely wounded in April 1917 - evacuated to the St. John Hospital at Etaples, and thence home to 2nd Eastern General Hospital in Brighton, he was not cleared for duty by a medical board until the end of the same year. In the interim, however, he had applied for a transfer to the Royal Naval Air Service, and he was duly appointed a Flight Sub. Lieutenant for kite balloon training at Roehampton, from which establishment he graduated in the New Year:

‘Fit for Kite Balloon pilot. Is likely to suffer from cold at great heights owing to wound of leg. Graduated. Very good ability to command and a keen, intelligent officer’ (his confidential report refers).

Posted to the Kite Balloon Section at Immingham in April 1918, where he joined the strength of the newly established Royal Air Force as a Lieutenant, Taylor remained similarly employed until the end of hostilities. He transferred to the Unemployed List in November 1919, following an appointment in the R.A.F’s Search Unit in France.