Orders, Decorations & Medals - Australian Groups

Lot 2490    SESSION 15 (11.30AM FRIDAY 17TH APRIL)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - Australian Groups

Estimate $3,500
Bid at live.noble.com.au

GROUP OF ELEVEN: Distinguished Flying Cross (GRI); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star with France and Germany clasp ; Pacific Star; Defence Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45; Australia Service Medal 1939-45; Belgium, Officer of the Order of Leopold II with ribbon rosette; Belgium, Knight of the Order of Leopold II; Belgium, Labour Decoration with 1st Class ribbon rosette; Belgium, Order of the Crown Gold Medal. The first medal inscribed 1945 on reverse, otherwise all medals unnamed as issued (although unnamed, the late Mr Scott's family asserted that these were the original medals issued). The first seven medals swing mounted and the last four medals also swing mounted, the fifth sixth and seventh medals with contact marks, otherwise very fine.

Together with Pathfinder eagle badge by Stokes & Sons, Melbourne; matching set of ten swing mounted miniatures (missing Australia Service Medal 1939-45); another set of miniature medals set of only five medals; flight log books from 1937 through the war years until his retirement from commercial aviation in 1977; Australian and Belgian Airline Pilot's Licences; copies of war service records; numerous wartime photographs including several of air crew members and group shots of uniformed personnel in front of aircraft, news and magazine articles plus album of mixed wartime and civilian family photographs.^Ex Australian Coin Auctions 321 (lot 2383) 4/5/2016.^DFC: LG 16/1/45, p415; C of A Gazette 25/1/45, p163, "for skill and fortitude in operations against the enemy." ^Walter Winston Gilronon Scott; born 21Oct1915 Sydney, NSW; Enl.1937 in RAAF and became commanding officer at Wagga Wagga and Deniliquin airbases training Australian pilots; WWII he was in Britain from June 1943 flying with RAF during which time he led night flight bombing raids and target marker laying with Bomber Command's Pathfinder Force; toward end of war he was given command of several Bomber Command airbases including Carnaby, Driffield and Bassingbourn; before briefly returning to Australia he made several repatriation flights to Morocco and the Middle East to bring Allied servicemen home to England; post war he flew several months with South American Airways before they were absorbed by BOAC. On 04Jan1947 he joined Sabena Belgian World Airlines flying trans-Atlantic flights until his retirement in 1977. During this time he became the first person to make 500 crossings of the Atlantic in 1957. He also came under gunfire on the tarmac as Belgian Commandos disembarked at the height of the Congolese Uprising in 1960. He also conducted emergency humanitarian flights rescuing those fleeing the atrocities. His final commercial flight was a trans-Atlantic crossing in a Boeing 747 on 30Apr1977.