Orders, Decorations and Medals

Three: Flight Sergeant E. J. Richardson, a Wireless Operator on Liberators with No. 178 Squadron in operations over Italy and the Balkans

1939-45 Star; Italy Star; War Medal, together with a photograph of a damaged Liberator and the recipient’s Observer’s and Air Gunner’s Flying Log Book for the period September 1942 to April 1946, good very fine (3) £130-160

Flight Sergeant Richardson joined No. 178 Squadron in March 1944, based in Italy, and flew 38 heavy bombing sorties against targets in Northern Italy, Austria, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary, including the raid on the Ploesti oil refinery. His aircraft was hit by flak during a raid on the docks at Genoa in April 1944, causing damage to the hydraulics, rear turret and radio equipment, possibly shown in the accompanying photograph. From December 1944 until April 1946, Richardson was based in Egypt, initially with 1675 HCU at Abu-Su Eir on Liberators and, from October 1945, with No. 216 Squadron on Dakotas.