Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Flight Sergeant G. S. Roadley, Royal Air Force, a veteran of the famous Peenemunde raid who was killed in action in August 1943, returning from a sortie to Berlin piloting a Halifax of No. 102 Squadron

1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, together with original Air Council condolence slip in the name of ‘Flight Sergeant G. S. Roadley’, and official telegram from No. 102 Squadron reporting him missing in action, dated 24 August 1943, extremely fine (3) £180-220

George Stephen Roadley, a native of Loughborough, Leicestershire, commenced pilot training at No. 4 E.F.T.S. at Brough in October 1941 and, having attended similar establishments in the U.S.A., joined No. 24 O.T.U. back in the U.K. before being posted to No. 102 (Ceylon) Squadron, a Halifax unit based at Pocklington, Yorkshire, in May 1943. Completing his first mission on the night of 23rd-24th, a strike on Essen, he and his crew also attacked targets in Essen and Wuppertal in the same month, while in July, after a month free of operations, they flew against targets in Aachen, Cologne, Essen, Gelsenkirchen and Hamburg thrice, these latter as part of the famous ‘firestorm’ raids, in addition to a trip to Mont Bielliard, during which latter sortie Roadley was compelled to land at Harwell (‘Pilot hatch blew open’). Indeed on his very next operation - against Nuremburg on the night of 10-11 August - he was forced to land at Ford, his Halifax’s starboard outer engine having been hit and set on fire. Roadley’s penultimate sortie was the famous strike against the enemy rocket research establishment at Peenemunde on the night of 17-18 August 1943, when he piloted Halifax JD-176, but, as stated above, he was killed in action while returning from a raid on Berlin a few nights later. Nothing further was heard from pilot and crew after they took-off from Pocklington at 2026 hours, or not at least until Roadley’s body was recovered from the North Sea - the remainder of his crew are commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial; sold with a photocopy of his flying log book and other copied documentation, including further telegrams regarding his fate and funeral arrangements.