Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Five: Flying Officer N. G. Baily, Royal Canadian Air Force

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals, silver issues; Canadian Volunteer Service Medal 1939-45, with overseas clasp, all in their card boxes of issue, together with related Canadian Memorial Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially inscribed, ‘F./O. N. G. Baily, J35708’, in its box of issue, extremely fine (6) £200-250

Norman Godwin Baily was born at Terra Cotta, Ontario in April 1913 and was educated at Stewarttown Public School and Georgetown High School. Employed at various branches of the Bank of Montreal from 1930-42, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the latter year and was trained as a Navigator. Commissioned as a Pilot Officer in September 1943, he embarked for England in the following month, where, in July 1944, he commenced his operational career with No. 408 “Goose” Squadron, a Halifax unit operating out of Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire.

Baily subsequently completed 27 sorties against assorted French and German targets, but was posted “missing, presumed dead” following an attack on Stuttgart on the night of 29 January 1945. He was 31 years of age and is buried in the Durnbach War Cemetery in Bavaria, Germany; sold with full research including copied correspondence to the recipient’s mother 1945-49, this latter charting the results of an official investigation into establishling her son’s identity, and a copy of K.K. Blyth’s memoir, Cradle Crew, another member of 408 Squadron.