Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare Great War Handley Page crew member’s D.S.M. group of three awarded to Sergeant B. Cromack, Royal Air Force, late Royal Naval Air Service, who, having participated in a record flight from Manston to Mudros, was present in the attack against the Goeben and Turkish War Office at Constantinople in July 1917

Distinguished Service Medal, G.V.R. (F. 9156 B. Cromack, Lg. Mechn., R.N.A.S., Mudros, 9 July 1917); British War Medal 1914-20 (209156 Sgt. B. Cormack, R.A.F.), note surname spelling; Victory Medal 1914-19 (209156 Sgt. B. Cromack, R.A.F.), the rank ‘Sgt.’ partially tooled out, contact marks, generally very fine (3) £1800-2200

D.S.M. London Gazette 31 August 1917.

Benjamin Cromack was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in July 1894. A sheet metal worker by trade, he enlisted in the Royal Naval Air Service as an Air Mechanic 1st Class in November 1915, and initially served at R.N.A.S. Hendon and Manston, gaining advancement to Leading Mechanic in at the end of 1916.

And it was in this latter capacity, in late May 1917, that he was selected to join the Handley Page 0/100 crew of Flight Lieutenant Kenneth Stevens, D.S.O. - no ordinary appointment, for said aircraft and crew were charged with undertaking a record flight from Manston to Mudros, a remarkable feat successfully accomplished after a journey of 2000 miles via Paris, Lyons, Frejos, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Otranto.

And once settled in Mudros, Stevens set about planning a strike against the Goeben at Constantinople, having already accomplished a similar attack - for which he was awarded the D.S.O. - in April 1916. Here, then, the moment Cromack shared in an equally successful operation, his Handley Page, with Stevens at the helm, carrying out a similar operation on 7 July 1917, when direct hits were obtained on the Goeben with two salvos of four 112-pound bombs dropped from a height of 800 feet - a nearby Turkish destroyer was sunk - before pilot and crew dropped two more bombs on the Turkish War Office for good measure. The full story of their gallant exploits appears in Keble Chatterton’s Seas of Adventure, but suffice to say that Stevens was awarded a Bar to his D.S.O., his co-pilot and navigator D.S.Cs, and Cromack and a fellow rating D.S.Ms.

Returning to the U.K., Cromack served in Dunkirk from October 1917 until March 1918, much of that time in ‘A’ Naval Squadron, and latterly as a Sergeant Mechanic in the newly established Royal Air Force. He was demobilised in early 1919.

Between the Wars, Cromack was winner of the Bradford to London Motorcycle and Sidecar Race sold with copied service papers.