Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second World War North Africa operations D.F.M. group of five awarded to Sergeant H. G. Lovell, Royal Air Force, a Wireless Operator who completed a tour of operations in Wellingtons of No. 142 Squadron

Distinguished Flying Medal, G.VI.R. (1376510 Sgt. H. G. Lovell, R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, together with the recipient’s identity disc, generally very fine or better (6) £1600-1800

D.F.M. London Gazette 9 July 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘Sergeant Lovell has carried out 31 bombing and mine-laying sorties. He is a member of the crew which had the finest operational record in the Squadron for the past six months. His crew has on the last six sorties carried incendiaries and have acted as Pathfinder for the Squadron. On each occasion they have faithfully laid their incendiaries in the centre of the target area. Sergeant Lovell’s quiet and confident manner has considerably influenced his crew. His devotion to duty both on the ground and in the air, have been outstanding. Strongly recommended for the award of the Distinguished Flying Medal.’

Horace Godfrey Lovell joined the Royal Air Force in September 1940 and qualified as a Wireless Operator at No. 2 Signals School, Yatesbury in the following year. Having then attended further courses, he joined No. 142 Squadron, a Wellington unit, at Waltham, Lincolnshire, in late 1942, in which capacity he first flew operationally that November, completing “Gardening” trips to Lorient and St. Nazaire, in addition to raids on Turin and Stuttgart. A few weeks later, however, he joined a detachment of 13 “tropicalised” aircraft ordered to Blida in North Africa, in which theatre of war he served from January to April 1943 and completed over 20 sorties, the vast majority of them against enemy docks installations at Bizerte, Trapani and Tunis, and latterly in the aircraft designated as “Pathfinder”. He was recommended for his D.F.M. on 28 April 1943, his skipper, Sergeant Leslie Evans, winning similar approbation for continually pressing home his attacks ‘in the face of the heaviest ground defences’.

Returning to the U.K., Lovell was employed as a Staff Wireless Operator and instructor at R.A.F. Oakley until August 1945, and was finally demobilised at Uxbridge at the end of that year.

Sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, covering the period November 1941 to February 1945; Buckingham Palace investiture admittance tickets (2), dated 30 November 1943; wartime portrait photograph and three target photographs; a copy of Blida’s Bombers, by Squadron Leader M. Summers, M.M., being an account of 142 and 150 Squadrons in North Africa; and a Civil Defence School (Easingwold) certificate for the Senior Officers’ course, this in the name of ‘Mr. H. G. Lovell, D.F.M.’ and dated 15 March 1970.