Orders, Decorations & Medals - Australian Groups

Lot 5006    Session 18 (2.30pm Friday)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - Australian Groups

Estimate $500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $1,500

QANTAS MEMORABILIA OF HUGH MILTON BIRCH DFC, includes various documents, photos, newspaper clippings and other items such as a Dunkirk plaque, 1972, in bronze (60x77mm), obverse, arms of Dunkirk, inscribed below, 'Presented to QANTAS/by the Mayor of Dunkirk/June. 1972', reverse, Dunkirk City buildings and harbour with ship entering to pass statue, A Jean Bart La Ville De Dunkerque, in unofficial case; also E(mpire) A(irways) gilt metal pilot's wings by A J Parkes; E(mpire) A(irways) bullion pilot's wings, central design features Rising Sun over EA; Q(antas) A(irways) bullion pilot's wings, central design features Rising Sun over Q with A inside; Deputy Sheriff, San Franciso (Sheriff's Air Squadron), badge no.326 with centrepiece of winged propeller, in gilt, nickel and enamel (65mm), reverse marked, 'Ed.Jones & Co/Oakland, Cal./Gold Front'. Very fine - extremely fine. (lot)

Some other items include,

1. QEA passenger ticket for F/O H.M.Birch for Syd - London, issued 14.7.39 and valid for departure 20.7.39 together with a Return Passenger Rebate Certificate issued to him on same date for same trip and with QEA Passenger's Tickets cardboard cover/holder named to Flying Officer H.M.Birch.

2. Complete day-by-day typewritten account of QEA flying boat 'Carpentaria' VH-ABA trip from Sydney 20.7.1939 - London 30.7.1939. Included in the passenger list was Flg Off Birch and his friend Flt Lt Cohen (both to London), The Hon J V Fairbairn (to Darwin, later Minister of Air and RAAF Base Fairbairn, Canberra was named in his honour), The Rt Hon R G Casey (to Darwin and later 16th Governor General of Australia), Hudson Fysh (to Brisbane and a founder of Qantas).

3. French Exit Permit to H.M.Birch for flight to leave Port of Papeete, Tahiti 6/8/1950

4. AAPA (Australian Pilot's Assn) 1951 accredited member no.430.

5. Australia Senior Commercial Pilot Licence No.105 1/11/52 to H.M.Birch and Singapore Senior Commercial Pilot Licence No.103 18/9/52 and ID Card No.08638 to Hugh Milton Birch 26 January 1952 issued in Singapore.

6. Certification card that Capt H.M.Birch flew in prototype of America's 1st Jet transport the Boeing 707 jet stratoliner, January 18, 1957.

7. Office of the Sheriff, City and County of San Francisco, Deputy Sheriff's Air Squadron photo/fingerprint ID card for Captain Hugh M.Birch.

8. Xmas card, undated, featuring caricature of Birch in Qantas colours, flying with arms outspread with four jet engines under his arms and with V-Jet on his shoe.

9. Page cutting from mock-up of Vogue Australia, September 1970, featuring large head photo of H.M.Birch DFC in the foreground and a female model in the background.

10. Copy of The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators certificate no.671 for Master Air Pilot awarded in recognition of skill, experience and service in the profession of aviation to Hugh Milton Birch, 26 June 1986.

11. Letter dated 11 October 1988 to H.M.Birch advising that he has been granted Freedom of the City of London.

12. Letter to Hugh Birch from Ria Murch dated 4.11.94 thanking him for sending a photo of a portrait of him that her late husband, the renowned artist and wartime artist Arthur Murch, had painted in 1956 (now in Australian War Memorial).

13. Order of a Service of Thanksgiving for Hugh Milton Birch DFC, MID, 26.6.1916 - 3.1.1996, at St Mark's Church, Darling Point, 16 January 1996.

14. Westclox DAX pocket watches (2), one nickel plated brass and one brass.

15. Book, Rocketing Round The World by Milton Reynolds with long personalised note at front to Captain Hugh MIlton Birch and signed by author.

16. Dozens and dozens of other photos (one with movie star Danny Kaye), documents and clippings, including The Austral Druid Journal, Sydney, July 15, 1925 and vinyl records (2) titled, Souvenir Recording of Melbourne 1956 Opening Ceremony and Souvenir Recording of Melbourne 1956 Closing Ceremony (2).

After demobilisation from the RAAF, Smokey Birch joined W.R.Carpenter's airline and flew throughout Papua New Guinea. In 1949 Qantas acquired the W.R.Carpenter airline and Birch became their first pilot to inaugurate flights throughout the Pacific and pioneered the Catalina flying boat service from Sydney (Rose Bay) to Lord Howe Island and also flew the Noumea-Vila-Santo-Suva service. He was the captain on the first Qantas scheduled Catalina service in PNG and was also a check captain on the Sandringham flying boats and on the DC3 Bird of Paradise service. He also flew the Qantas Sandringhams that operated from Rose Bay in Sydney Harbour to Noumea, a 9 1/2 hour flight.

In 1950 Captain Birch piloted a survey flight across the South Pacific to Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti and Samoa for Qantas, which laid the foundation for the TEAL Coral Route to Tahiti. As Qantas Flight Captain Flying Boats, Hugh Birch flew the last Qantas flying boat, a Sandringham, out of Southampton for Australia, landing on the way at Malta on 4 July 1951, before final destination of Rose Bay, the Qantas flying boat base in Sydney Harbour. In the early 1950s he represented Qantas in Singapore as Area Manager for South-East Asia. He then took up a senior management position in America based in San Francisco. In 1962 after serving for four years as the North American Manager for Qantas, Hugh Birch was made an Honorary Deputy Sheriff (Air Squadron) of San Francisco for community services. He then returned to Australia to take up the position of Qantas airline manager for Victoria and Tasmania.

Operating from Melbourne, he faced the task of winning back the support of travel agents who were being enticed away from Qantas by financial incentives offered by foreign airlines. To help achieve his goal Birch set up a special room called the Sheriff's Posse and decorated it with country and western artefacts he had brought back from his time working in America. And, of course, he was an Honorary Deputy Sheriff of San Francisco, something that he played on when entertaining the travel agents that he invited to the Sheriff's Posse where, with his good stories and affable personality, he was able to win over many of the more difficult agents.

In 1972 the Mayor of Dunkirk, M.Claude Provyveur visited Sydney to present commemorative medals to those who participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940. One recipient was Hugh Birch, at this time the Qantas Public Affairs Manager, and in addition to receiving his personal medal Captain Birch also accepted, on behalf of the Qantas General Manager, Captain R.J.Ritchie, who was overseas at the time, a plaque that the mayor presented to Qantas. During his time as Public Affairs Manager, Birch, who had a reputation as perhaps the best known and certainly the most extrovert aviation executive in Australia, was used on a cover of Time magazine in a promotional campaign directed towards advertising agencies and managers.

Hugh Birch became the Regional Director for the South Pacific for Qantas until he retired in 1977. He then became the Australian tourism representative for the island of Tonga and later a public relations promoter of Alaska in Australia. In 1986 after more than 12,000 flying hours, Captain Birch was awarded a Master Air Pilot certificate by The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators and became an Upper Freeman of that Guild.

With research.

See also lots E3577, 3578 and 3579.