Orders, Decorations and Medals

A Great War O.B.E. group of four awarded to Air Commodore R.B. Maycock, Royal Air Force, late Royal Navy

ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, OBE. (Military) 1st type; 1914-15 STAR (Lieut., R.N.); BRITISH WAR AND VICTORY MEDALS (Major, R.A.F.) very fine (4)

Air Commodore Richard Beauchamp Maycock, O.B.E., who was born in October 1886, originally chose the Merchant Marine as his vocation but in 1905, as with other recently qualified Merchant officers, he was enrolled into the Royal Naval Reserve as a Midshipman. Promotion to Sub. Lieutenant followed in 1910 and to Lieutenant in 1912, by which time he had completed gunnery and armament courses. Then in 1913 he transferred to the Supplementary List of the Royal Navy, subsequently joining the battleship Superb. His ensuing wartime appointments are largely unrecorded but in April 1917, presumably having transferred into the R.N.A.S., he obtained Aero Club Flying Licence No. 4539. In April 1918, on the formation of the Royal Air Force, he was gazetted as a Captain, acting Major (Aeroplane Officer) but by 1919 he was an S.O.2 in the employ of the Chief of Air Staff. Maycock returned to flying duties with No. 230 Squadron at Felixstowe in September 1921 and thereafter seems to have specialised in Marine Experimental Aircraft, holding a number of pertinent appointments during the 1920's. Promoted to Squadron Leader in 1925 and Wing Commander in 1932, he acted as Air Attache in Buenos Aires in 1931 and as Station C.O. at Upper Heyford shortly before his retirement in 1935, by which stage he was a Group Captain. He was recalled for service during the 1939-45 War, being posted to Coastal Command at Gosport as S.A.S.O. in October 1940. Then in September 1941 he became Air Attache at the British Embassy in Stockholm, a post which he occupied for the remainder of the War and which, no doubt, involved the processing of escaped P.O.W's. He finally retired as an Air Commodore in 1946 and died in Stockholm on 21 August 1951.