Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A very rare and well-documented Berlin Airlift O.B.E., Second World War Martin B-26 Marauder operations D.F.C., “V.I.P. Flight” A.F.C. group of ten awarded to Wing Commander H. S. Grimsey, Royal Air Force, late Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve: a pilot with an ‘exceptional’ rating, a veteran of well over 50 operational sorties and a member of the Caterpillar Club, his “V.I.P. Flight” appointments included command of the 11 aircraft assigned to the famous Yalta Conference

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge; Distinguished Flying Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1944’; Air Force Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1947’; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star, clasp, France and Germany; Africa Star, clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals; Coronation 1953, together with related Caterpillar Club membership badge, gold, with “ruby” eyes, the reverse engraved ‘Sgt. H. Grimsey’, and Czech Pilot’s Flying Badge, by Spink & Son , London, silver, silver-gilt, in its fitted case of issue, generally good very fine (12) £3800-4200

O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1949.

D.F.C. London Gazette 7 April 1944. The original recommendation states:

‘Wing Commander Grimsey has recently assumed command of No. 52 Squadron after a long tour of duty with No. 14 Squadron. He began his tour from England against shipping off Zeebrugge. He was then posted to the Middle East where he made 16 bombing sorties in close support of the Eighth Army. After the Squadron had converted to Coastal Reconnaissance in November 1942, this officer carried out many reconnaissances in the Aegean Sea, and laid mines in the Bay of Tunis with accuracy and determination, his mines being dropped at night into the channel at a height of less than 200 feet.

On 31 January 1943, this officer was the leader of two reconnaissance aircraft on offensive patrol. He sighted a 4000 ton merchant vessel escorted by two destroyers and five Ju. 88s. Despite this opposition he made his attack with determination. The results of the torpedo attack were not observed for he was chased away by a Ju. 88 which he probably destroyed.

On 5 April and 19 August 1943, while engaged on long range reconnaissances, this pilot sighted valuable enemy convoys. In each case, all the vessels were reported accurately and expeditiously by wireless to his base.

On 31 January 1943, this officer was the leader of two reconnaissance aircraft on offensive patrol. He sighted a 4000 ton merchant vessel escorted by two destroyers and five Ju. 88s. Despite this opposition he made his attack with determination. The results of the torpedo attack were not observed for he was chased away by a Ju. 88 which he probably destroyed.

On 5 April and 19 August 1943, while engaged on long range reconnaissances, this pilot sighted valuable enemy convoys. In each case, all the vessels were reported accurately and expeditiously by wireless to his base.

From 25 August 1943 to 2 February 1944, this officer was in command of a detached flight of No. 14 Squadron at Taranto. The closing of the Adriatic to the enemy and the successful strikes against enemy shipping in that sea and down to Corfu are in large measure due to the work of this flight in which Wing Commander Grimsey played an important part.

I strongly recommend this officer for the award of the Distinguished Flying Cross.’

A.F.C. London Gazette 12 June 1947. The original recommendation states:
‘Squadron Leader Grimsey is a Flight Commander and Deputy Squadron Commander. He has been employed as a V.I.P. Flight pilot with his present unit for three years. During this period he has flown many important missions in all weathers with outstanding skill. In particular he led eleven aircraft in “Operation Argonaut” for the Yalta Conference in February 1945. In April 1946, he made a most urgent special flight, in exceptionally poor weather conditions, to bring the Governor of Gibraltar to the United Kingdom. As a Flight Commander he has trained and encouraged his V.I.P. Flight crews to the same high standard as himself and has consistently chosen the most arduous and difficult missions himself; he invariably accomplished these with skill and determination. Squadron Leader Grimsey has set a fine example and has been an inspiration to the whole squadron.’

Harry Spencer Grimsey was born at Stowmarket in July 1913 and was educated at Ipswich Grammar School. Enlisting in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in October 1939, after having gone solo in a Piper Cub earlier in the year in a private capacity, he underwent further pilot training in Southern Rhodesia and was posted as a Sergeant Pilot to No. 110 Squadron, a Blenheim unit based at Wattisham, Suffolk in May 1941. Flying his first sortie - against enemy shipping at Zeebrugge - on 5 June, he was posted to No. 14 Squadron in the Middle East in the following month.

Grimsey’s introduction to operational flying in this theatre of war commenced in late August 1941, when he participated in a brace of “leaflet raids” over Iran, but it was not until the following November that he commenced a more regular agenda of anti-tank strikes on the El Adem-Tobruk run, eight such sorties being flown that month. And in December, he was enrolled as a member of the celebrated Caterpillar Club, he and his crew having been compelled to abandon their Blenheim on returning from a strike against El Timini aerodrome on the 9th. With no wireless contact and caught in a sandstorm, they were unable to locate their airfield before running out of fuel. Fellow crew member, Pilot Officer C. A. D. Speller, takes up the story:

‘We returned from a solo raid about the middle of December last in our aircraft, but darkness had fallen and visibility was nil, and we were unable to find our base in the desert. Being short of petrol we could not make one of the emergency landing grounds. The pilot [Grimsey] therefore climbed but as we reached 3000 feet the engines started to cut. He gave the order to bale out; the Air Gunner went first and I followed, the pilot coming after me.

As it was pitch black I could see nothing and had no sensation of falling. I don’t remember pulling the rip cord but I know I was very surprised at the “jerk” I felt; it was nothing like as severe as I had been led to believe. The chute opened perfectly - even the pilot who was down to nearly 2000 feet, before being able to leave the aircraft, made a successful descent, although owing to an awkward landing he sustained minor fractures in both legs. Both the Air Gunner and I were unhurt ...’

Grimsey’s fractured legs had sufficiently healed to permit his return to operations with No. 14 by February 1942, and he completed a reconnaissance in search of Italian shipping on the 22nd. Commissioned in the following month, during which he participated in three more sorties, including two anti-submarine patrols, Grimsey next went into action in June 1942, when he flew a brace of operations against Heraklion aerodrome on Crete, and another two against enemy units in the Sidi Barrani area. By this stage of the North Africa operations No. 14’s C.O. was Wing Commander R. “Boffin” Maydell, who would later describe how the Squadron’s mounting casualties were beginning to have a serious effect on morale - in April 1942 alone, No. 14 lost 21 Blenheims and 28 aircrew, the majority as a result of accidents caused by a shift from daylight formation bombing to night bombing.

In August 1942, however, No. 14 became the first R.A.F. unit to be equipped with Martin B-26 Marauders, then considered one of the fastest and most advanced day bombers ever built, but notoriously difficult to handle, so much so that the aircraft type quickly became known as the “Widow Maker”. No. 14, however, successfully accomplished their conversion training without too many major mishaps, thereby dispelling the aircraft’s hitherto unpopular reputation, and indeed went on to prove - once properly mastered - that the Marauder was probably one of the most effective aircraft of the War. No doubt high on the list of pilots to share this view was Grimsey, who completed his first outing in the type in November, in a reconnaissance over Crete, during which he was able to report by wireless the position of an enemy convoy.

In fact Grimsey flew with a notable degree of success in No. 14’s Marauders until as late as January 1944 - albeit with a four month “rest” back in England as an instructor in the summer of 1943 - a period of active service that witnessed him notching-up around another 30 operational sorties, gallant work that undoubtedly led to the award of his D.F.C. As outlined in the original recommendation for his decoration, most of these operations were carried out in the Aegean theatre of war, the more notable examples including a torpedo strike on a 4000-ton enemy merchant vessel off Melos on 31 January 1943 - which resulted in a 15-minute counter-attack by Ju. 88s, one of which was claimed as a probable; and, as the Squadron moved to new hunting grounds off the Albanian, Italian and Yugoslavian coasts, the destruction of an enemy radio station north of Durazzo on 2 November 1943, when Grimsey led three Spitfire squadrons and remained over the target to witness the successful conclusion of the operation, afterwards gaining photographic evidence of the same - “the Spitboys did a grand job as usual,” he later commented to a Reuters reporter. But inbetween such successes were a number of sorties that resulted in Grimsey’s Marauder coming under return fire, his flying log book referring to several close shaves (‘Fired at and hit by enemy convoy ...’; ‘Chased by Me. 109s ....’; ‘Chased by enemy fighters ...’; ‘Fired at by Auxiliary vessel and a./c. ...’; ‘Attacked by Arado Float Plane ...’, etc.). He also completed a successful A.S.R. mission on 20 October 1943, when he located a Sergeant Ritchie in his dingy in the Adriatic and circled until a Walrus aircraft had effected his rescue.

In February 1944, in the rank of Acting Wing Commander, Grimsey was appointed to the command of No. 52 Squadron, a Baltimore unit operating out of Sicily, and afterwards Gibraltar, on anti-U-boat patrols, and subsequently completed another five operational sorties. Then in May 1944, he was posted to No. 24 Squadron, a “V.I.P. Flight” Dakota unit operating out of Hendon, an appointment that he was to hold until July 1947. During this lengthy posting - as evidenced by his flying log books and subsequent A.F.C. recommendation - he flew countless missions, not least as leader of the 11 aircraft assigned to “Operation Argonaut”, the R.A.F’s part in the famous Yalta Conference, in January 1945. In fact his duties, latterly as part of Transport Command, took him to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, France (including return flights to Paris with the Secretary of State for War), Germany (including work for the War Crimes Commission at Nuremburg), Gibraltar (where, at short notice, in ‘exceptionally poor weather conditions’, he flew out the Governor and his wife, Lady Eastwood, to Northolt), India, Italy, Malta, Norway and Switzerland, among other locations.

In July 1948, Grimsey was despatched to Germany to assist with the planning and running of “Operation Plainfare”, otherwise known as the Berlin Airlift, himself participating in a number of flights with V.I.Ps or freight, prior to returning to the U.K. in September 1949 to an appointment at R.A.F. North Luffenham. He was awarded the O.B.E. His subsequent appointments included a stint at H.Q. Transport Command (Training) and as a N.A.T.O. Staff Officer in 1954. Latterly employed at the R.A.F. Record Office, and on further training duties, with the occasional ride in jets, he was placed on the Retired List in the course of 1968.

Sold with a substantial quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s Civil Flying Log Book, covering the period February to August 1939, with inserted G.B. and Northern Ireland Air Ministry Certificate of Competency and Licence to Fly Private Flying Machines, with portrait photographs (dated w.e.f. 1 August 1939), and complete run of R.A.F. Flying Log Books (3), covering the periods August 1940 to December 1944, January 1945 to November 1950 and December 1950 to December 1964; Buckingham Palace forwarding letter for his O.B.E. and related warrants (May 1949), and several congratulatory letters regarding the same; Caterpillar Club membership card in the name of ‘Sgt. H. Grimsey’; Czech Pilot’s Flying Badge certificate of award and related forwarding letter from the Czech Inspectorate, London (dated 20 April 1945); Coronation Medal 1953 certificate; M.O.D. retirement letter (dated 13 June 1968); wartime I.D. tags (2) and uniform rank insignia, “Wings” and cap badge. Also see Lot 644 for the recipient’s miniature dress medals.