Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Flight Lieutenant E. R. Howden, Royal Air Force, who completed a tour of operations in Wellingtons of No. 148 Squadron, onetime being attached to No. 104 Squadron on Malta

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, generally good very fine (3) £250-300

Ernest Herbert Howden, who was born in December 1919, enlisted in the Royal Air Force in July 1939 and qualified as an A.C. 2 Wireless Operator in January 1940. Having then attended refresher courses at Hampstead Norris and Harwell, he was embarked for the Middle East, where he joined No. 148 Squadron, a Wellington unit operating out of a desert landing ground on the Tobruk run - his very first sortie, with Squadron Leader Moore, D.F.C., at the helm, was against shipping in the harbour on 6 August 1942.

Shortly thereafter, he teamed-up with the crew of Pilot Officer William McRae, R.A.F.V.R., eight further strikes against Tobruk being completed in the same month, followed by 20 more of a varying nature in the period leading up to his detachment to No. 104 Squadron in Malta that December - thus plenty of operational activity in support of the 8th Army, enemy transport, gun positions and airfields being among favoured targets, but not without cost: in the period 1940-42, the Squadron lost over a hundred aircraft, 206 members of aircrew being killed or taken prisoner.

McRae’s crew was ordered to join No. 104 Squadron at Luqa at the end of the year, right at the height of Malta’s famous siege, from which heavily bombed airfield he and Howden flew another dozen or so sorties between December 1942 and February 1943, Tripoli being their most visited target, but Sicily and Crete also taking up part of the Squadron’s operational agenda. Pilot and Wireless Operator completed their final mission on the 3 February, Howden’s tally of sorties having risen to 47 - comprising over 250 hours of operational flying time. McRae was gazetted for the D.F.C. in the following month (London Gazette 23 March 1943 refers), the recommendation for which incorporates events witnessed by his gallant Wireless Operator:

‘On 1 September 1942, this officer was detailed to attack enemy transport concentrations in the battle area. He bombed the target with great success, causing two large fires and followed this up with a machine-gun attack from 600 feet. On 1 and 3 November 1942, he took part in successful double sorties against concentrations of enemy transport. Flying Officer McRae has consistently set a fine example to his crew by his fearless determination to achieve success.’

For his own part, Howden was commissioned as a Pilot Officer in July 1943, and served as an instructor at signalling units for the remainder of the War, latterly at Boundary Bay in British Columbia. He was finally released in the rank of Flight Lieutenant in July 1946.

Sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Flying Log Book, privately bound in fine-quality green leather, with gilt decoration and spine title, ‘Flying Log Book - F./Lt. E. H. Howden, 1940-45’, in slip-case, covering the period February 1940 to July 1945, together with two wartime photographs.