Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Four: Warrant Officer D. R. Milton, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, 2nd Pilot of a Coastal Command Wellington that took the surrender of a U-Boat in May 1945

1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, good very fine and better (4) £250-300

Derek Roy Milton was born in May 1924 and entered the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in September 1942. Selected for pilot training in May 1943, he was embarked for Canada, where he remained until returning to the U.K. in the summer of 1944 and, after attending No. 21 A.F.U. in Staffordshire, was posted to No. 36 Squadron, Coastal Command, at Chivenor, Devon in January 1945.

Gaining further experience as a 2nd Pilot in the Squadron’s maritime Wellingtons, and shortly after 36’s move to Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides in March 1945, Milton completed his first sortie - a convoy escort mission - on 15 April. Anti-U-boat patrols were also very much part of the Squadron’s operational agenda, and it was on his fourth such sortie on 9 May that his Wellington, captained by Warrant Officer Coleman, took the surrender of the U-1058 - around 45 U-Boats were operating in the Atlantic or British inshore waters at the time of Admiral Doenitz’s message to them to surrender, the majority making for Loch Eriboll near Scapa, and all of them under instructions to fly a black flag on surfacing.

Having completed one or two more sorties, Milton was transferred to an Operational Training Unit and was demobilised in November 1946.

Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Book (R.C.A.F. pilot’s issue), covering the period June 1943 to January 1946, together with his R.A.F. Service and Release Book and several interesting wartime photographs, among them an image of the U-1058 taken on 9 May 1945, signed by Milton and his fellow crew.