Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Queen’s Medal for Champion Shots of the Air Forces, E.II.R., with dated clasp ‘1962’ (R.R.A.F. 1962: Cpl. Tech. B. T. Gilpin , Score 562), good very fine and rare £800-1000

In November 1962, Brian Gilpin was the only N.C.O. member in a team of seven officers. The Royal Rhodesian Air Force (R.R.A.F.) had for years entered a team for the Bisley shoot but nobody had ever achieved a performance that qualified them for the final rounds, so nobody complained. But in 1962, the R.R.A.F. team walked away with two of the six trophies - The Northern Rhodesia Regiment Rifle Cup and the 2nd King’s African Rifles Challenge Cup. Moreover, Gilpin won the Rhodesian Individual Rifle Aggregate, followed by the Queen’s Army Best Shot Medal.

It was the closest finish ever in the competition at Salisbury’s Cleveland Range, Gilpin, in his very first attempt for the Queen’s Medal, beating the champion shot of the British South Africa Police, Staff Inspector Donald Hollingworth, who had won the Queen’s Medal in 1956 and 1957, and been runner-up in 1959, with a score of 562 versus the latter’s 561. And it was at this point that senior Army and Police Officers appeared to become disgruntled at being beaten at their own game, but the Minister of Defence of Rhodesia insisted on going ahead with the presentation of Gilpin’s Army Best Shot Medal, revised rules stating it could be awarded to anyone in the ‘Military Forces of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and the British South Africa Police’.

However, after further protestations from senior Army and Police Officers, Gilpin was indeed called upon to surrender his original award, the Rhodesian press reporting some six months later - ‘An Air Force spokesman in Salisbury said that Corporal Gilpin had been awarded the Army Medal as a member of the Armed Forces of Southern Rhodesia. It had now been found armed forces did not include the Air Force [!]. “The status of the Army and Air Force Medals is the same,” said the Air Force spokesman. “The award of the Air Force Medal has been backdated to November 1962,” he added.’

So Gilpin duly received the Queen’s Medal for Champion Shots of the Air Forces from the Prime Minister Sir Roy Welensky, while Donald Hollingworth received a Bar to his Army Best Shot Medal, the latter afterwards acknowledging that he had found the entire episode rather embarrassing. For his own part, Gilpin later wrote ‘At the time I was naturally disappointed. Beating the best in the country at what they are trained to do is a lot more satisfying than beating a dozen or so Air Force types shooting part time for fun.’

Sold with a quantity of copied photographs and newspaper reports, and an original letter from the recipient, dated 6 January 1992.