Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Lieutenant A. E. Muncaster, Royal Air Force, late Royal Flying Corps

British War Medal 1914-20 (Lieut. A. E. Muncaster, R.A.F.); Victory Medal 1914-19 (2 Lieut. A. E. Muncaster, R.F.C.), an unusual combination of naming to the R.F.C. and R.A.F., very fine or better (2) £100-120

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force.

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Alfred Ellison Muncaster, who was born in Suffolk in May 1892 and resident in Alberta, Canada on the outbreak of hostilities, originally enlisted in the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force in April 1915, and was drafted to the Canadian Army Service Corps.

Transferring to the Royal Flying Corps as a Cadet in February 1917, when his father Captain W. H. Muncaster, was serving in No. 4 (Canadian) Casualty Clearing Station, he qualified as a pilot and was posted to No. 21 Squadron, an R.E. 8 unit, out in France, in July 1917. But he sustained serious head injuries on 12 August when taking-off for a sortie with 2nd Lieutenant J. E. Cobb as his Observer - their aircraft stalled and spun from 200 feet before crashing into the ground. Cobb died of his injuries two days later, while Muncaster was evacuated to the U.K. with a ‘fractured skull and neurasthenia’. And he relinquished his commission as a result of ill-health in December 1918; sold with a file of research.