PREVIEW: ORDERS, DECORATIONS & MEDALS: 9 APRIL

Few combatants have won the highest battle honours, fewer still have earned more than one. Lancaster Bomber pilot, Warrant Officer, later Flight Lieutenant, Edward Sydney Ellis was just such a hero, one of only seven to have been awarded both the Distinguished Flying Cross and Conspicuous Gallantry Medal (Flying).

Now Noonans have the honour of offering the group for sale in this auction with an estimate of £24,000-28,000. The medals are being sold by the family.

Born in Luton in May 1914, Ellis studied engineering before going to work for Vauxhall Motors. In his mid-twenties, he attested for the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in October 1940 and was mobilised in April 1941, undertaking initial training in the UK, then being posted for pilot training in the USA in March 1942.

It would be more than a year before he earned his operational wings, by which time he had trained in Georgia and Alabama before returning to the UK for further training in Carlisle, Little Rissingtonand Seighford, Staffordshire.

His posting for operational service as a pilot to 12 Squadron (Lancasters) at Wickenby came in September 1943 and he flew at least nine operational sorties with the Squadron, targets including Hanover (3); Mannheim; Bochum; Hagen; Munich; Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

A month later, having advanced to Warrant Officer, Ellis joined the newly formed 625 Squadron (Lancasters) at Kelstern. From there he flew at least 19 operational sorties over Germany, many of them during the Battle of Berlin, including the first raid of the Battle on 18/19 November.

The group of six includes his Conspicuous Gallantry Medal that was awarded after a raid on Berlin on December 2 and 3, 1943. Ellis was commanding a new crew on their first raid. Coming under flak, his rear gunner was put out of action, while an enemy fighter raked his Lancaster ‘from stem to stern’. The mid upper gunner was wounded, but despite all this Ellis pressed on with his bombing run before flying his wrecked aircraft home to effect a successful crash landing, having been hit once more by flak just before crossing the Dutch coast. “In harassing circumstances, this pilot displayed skill, courage and devotion to duty beyond praise,” his London Gazette citation read on 24 December.

The London Gazette carried the following citation of his D.F.C. on 6 June 1944: “Since the award of the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal this officer has continued to set a magnificent example of gallantry and skill to the pilots of his unit. In February, 1944, while attacking Leipzig one engine in his aircraft failed. Despite this handicap, Flight Lieutenant Ellis continued his flight and completed the sortie on three engines. He has proved himself an extremely able and courageous pilot and captain of aircraft.”

That action saw Ellis lose an engine while still some distance from the target, but again he pressed forwards, under constant attack, completing the bombing mission and returning home on three engines.

Noonans’ Medal Specialist and Associate Director Mark Quayle said: “Not only is this an extremely rare combination of gallantry awards, but it is also the physical embodiment of one man’s determination to carry out his duty regardless of personal consequence. Flight Lieutenant Ellis risked life and limb time and again with his Lancaster crew during the Second World War – no better illustrated than by flying nine bombing raids to the ‘Big City’ and back during the Battle of Berlin between November 1943 and March 1944 – this was more than half of the raids on the city during that period.”