Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The ‘life-saving’ group of thirty-one miniature dress medals attributed to Colonel R. A. Munro, Royal Canadian Air Force, and a Canadian ‘Adventurer Extraordinaire’

Order of Canada, Member’s badge; Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Officer’s badge; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Defence Medal; Canadian Volunteer Service Medal, with Overseas clasp; War Medal 1939-45; Canadian Centennial Medal 1967; Jubilee 1977; Canadian 125th Anniversary Meal 1992; Poland, Republic, Order of Virtuti Militari, Fifth Class; Polish Cross of Bravery; International, Canadian Order of Icarus Senior Companion’s badge; Military and Hospitaller Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem Knight Grand Cross badge; Japanese Red Cross Society Gold Order of Merit badge; Nobility Order of the Niadh Nask of Ireland Member’s badge; Companionate of Merit of St. Lazarus Knight Commander’s badge; Membership Medal of the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame, with three rosettes on riband; Companion of the Order of Flight (Edmonton); Member of the Order of Polaris (Yukon Territory), with clasp; French Liberation Medal; European Combatant Cross; Japanese Red Cross Society Member’s Medal; Commemorative ‘Castello Lanzun’ Inauguration Medal; Life Saving, Royal Life Saving Society Recognition Badge, with top ‘R.L.S.S.’ riband bar; Royal Life Saving Society of Canada (Alberta and North West Territories Branch) Meritorious Service Medal; Royal Life Saving Society of Canada (Alberta and North West Territories Branch) Benefactor’s Medal, with clasp; Royal Life Saving Society of Canada (Alberta and North West Territories Branch) Diamond Jubilee Medal 1984; Portuguese Life Saving Society ‘Protector Benfeitor’ Medal; Imperial Japanese Sea Disaster Rescue Society Medal of Merit; Association of Military Surgeons of the United States Member’s badge, all mounted for display purposes; together with the recipient’s full-sized Life Saving Benevolent Association of New York Medal, silvered, the reverse engraved ‘Colonel R. A. Munro’, with ‘December 1971’ suspension bar; and a St. John Ambulance Priory of Canada Centennial Commemorative Medallion 1993, generally nearly extremely fine (33) £400-£500

Exhibited by Captain Jack Boddington at the Orders and Medals Society of America Annual Convention, Philidelphia, 2003 (for which it won a Bronze Exhibit Medal).

Raymond Alan Munro was born in Montreal, Quebec, on 14 July 1921, and was educated in Canada and the United States. He commenced flying at Toronto, Ontario, in 1937 and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. He was posted to 145 Squadron, R.A.F., and became a Spitfire pilot. He survived three major crashes and was returned to Canada and medically discharged in March of 1942. He subsequently became a commercial pilot, law student, investor, balloonist, and parachutist. his name appears in the Guinness Book of World Records twice, firstly for the most northerly parachute descent (landing on the North Pole in 1969), and secondly for piloting the first hot air balloon across the Irish Sea in 1971. He was admitted to Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973, and was appointed to the Order of Canada the following year.

Munro was awarded the Life Saving Benevolent Association of New York’s Medal for saving human life in peril in December 1971. Whilst slying an amphibious aircraft alone in bad weather, he spotted an overturned boat in Pelham Bay, New York, some one and a half miles from shore. He landed in rough water, dived in, and brought one man to the aircraft and revived hi. He then attended to another man and laid him across the float of the aircraft and taxied to shore and safety.

The recipient of numerous honours, awards, and life saving medals, Munro died on 26 May 1994. His full-sized medals are housed in Canada’s Aviation Hall of Fame.

Sold with extensive copied research.