Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A Second War campaign group of four awarded to Lancaster Wireless Operator, Sergeant F. E. Rogers, Royal Air Force, who flew in at least 38 operational sorties with 640 Squadron, including an attack on the coastal batteries at Maisy on D-Day

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, extremely fine (4) £260-£300

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, March 2010.

F. E. Rogers enlisted in the Royal Air Force at Cardington in August 1941, attended a Wireless Operator’s course at No. 4 Radio School in March-June 1942, and first gained air experience in May 1943. Having then attended operational training and conversion courses, he was posted to 640 Squadron, a Lancaster unit operating out of Leconfield, Yorkshire, in March 1944, in which month he flew his first sorties - strikes against Frankfurt on the nights of the 18th and 22nd.

April-May witnessed the Squadron carry out no less than ten attacks on railway yards in France and Belgium, in preparation for the forthcoming Normandy landings, in addition to operations against Dusseldorf and Karlsruhe, while on D-Day itself Rogers and his crew were assigned to the enemy coastal batteries located at Maisy. So, too, in the same month, to a further ten French targets, two of them in daylight, including Laval airfield, assorted marshalling yards and V-rocket sites, and ‘H.Q. Panzer Division’ at Avracy. Another four sorties were flown against V-rocket sites in July, in addition to strikes against Bottrop and Wanne Eickel, the latter outing resulting in flak damage, while in the final month of his operational tour in July, Rogers took part in four more anti-V-rocket site sorties, his Halifax being holed by flak during a visit to L’Hey on the 2nd. Shortly afterwards, his skipper, Flying Officer J. S. Weaterton, was awarded for the D.F.C. for ‘his fine offensive spirit’.

For his own part, tour expired with 38 sorties under his belt, Rogers was posted to an operational training unit as an instructor in August 1944, and he remained similarly employed until joining 635 Squadron, another Lancaster unit, in June 1945, in which capacity he flew a brace of “Cook’s Tours” to Germany in the same month. He would appear to have been demobilised at the end of the same year, having latterly served at H.Q. No. 44 Group.

Sold with the recipient’s original R.A.F. Navigator’s, Air Bomber’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book, covering the period May 1943 to August 1945; and a photographic image of recipient in uniform.