Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

An emotive and scarce Great War A.F.C. group of four awarded to airship pilot, Lieutenant-Commander N. ‘Grabby’ Grabowsky-Atherstone, Royal Navy and Royal Naval Air Service, who is credited with the destruction of at least 1 enemy submarine, and the damaging and possible destruction of another, whilst flying S.S. Z1 as part of the Dover Patrol. Having retired and emigrated to Australia after the war, Grabowsky-Atherstone returned to the service as First Officer of the ill-fated R. 101. He was amongst the 48 passengers and crew killed after she crashed over France, 5 October 1930

Air Force Cross, G.V.R., unnamed as issued; 1914-15 Star (Mid. N. Grabowsky, R.N.); British War and Victory Medals (Capt. N. Grabowsky. R.A.F.) mounted for display, good very fine (4) £3,000-£4,000

A.F.C. London Gazette 2 November 1918:

‘In recognition of valuable flying services performed in their various capacities - Flying instructors, Test, Ferry, and Experimental Pilots.’

The recommendation states:

‘This Officer has carried out 580 hours flying in S.S. Z. Ships ex Capel, consisting of Anti-Submarine Patrols and convoy work, and has been credited with the destruction of one enemy submarine on April 7th 1918, and, assisted by surface craft, heavily damaged of destroyed another.

A very keen and energetic Officer, and a most able airship pilot with fine seaman-like qualities.’

Noel Edward Alexander Carl Eugene Grabowsky-Atherstone was born Noel Grabowsky (a British citizen) in St. Petersburg, Russia in December 1894. He was educated at Larchfield, Helensburgh; Winton House, Winchester and Charterhouse. Grabowsky-Atherstone joined the Royal Navy as a Cadet in September 1913. He advanced to Midshipman the following year, and applied to join the Royal Naval Air Service in 1915.

Grabowsky-Atherstone advanced to Probationary Flight Sub Lieutenant in March 1917, and transferred to airships in July of the same year. He became a pilot of the non-rigid S.S. Zero and North Sea types, and advanced to Lieutenant in March 1918. Operating out of Capel Station, near Folkestone, Grabowsky-Atherstone flew in a number of Dover Patrol operations. He was recommended for a decoration for his exploits whilst piloting airship S.S. Z1:

‘On the 7th inst. [April 1918] a submarine was sighted and bombed by S.S. Z1 Capt. Grabowsky, and I feel convinced that the submarine was destroyed or damaged.

Notwithstanding the unfavourable weather a great number of patrols have been carried out especially on the 12th and 13th when special vigilance was kept owing to reduced numbers of surface craft operating in this area.’

Graboswky-Atherstone was appointed as First Officer to R. 29 in October 1918. Having advanced to Honorary Captain, he retired in June 1920, and emigrated to Victoria, Australia to be a farmer. He changed his name by deed poll to Grabowsky-Atherstone in 1919.

Grabowsky-Atherstone returned to England in 1926, and rejoined the Royal Navy as a Lieutenant-Commander (Retired). He was posted for airship duties to the Royal Airship Works at Cardington, and was employed as an airship officer in the R. 100 and R. 101 projects. Grabowsky-Atherstone was appointed First Officer of R. 101 in 1929.

The R. 101 disaster needs little introduction here, attracting as it did a mass of world wide media coverage at the time and much published material since - the airship’s roll honour listed no less than 48 names, among them a host of experienced airship pioneers like Grabowsky-Atherstone, and Brigadier-General Lord Thomson, C.B.E., D.S.O., the Secretary of State for Air. But to put the project in perspective, it was back in 1924 that the British Government had decided to build two modern rigid airships with a view to starting an airline with a preliminary route being London-India and eventually London-Australia. Constructed at the Royal Airship Works at Cardington in Bedfordshire, the R. 101 found herself under growing competition from airship R. 100, the latter being privately funded and being constructed by Vickers.

However, after much political wrangling over her size and engines, R. 101 completed her first test flight in October 1929, though she was found to be lacking in several fundamental areas, not least the fact she weighed some 23 tons more than originally intended, as a result of her complex design; so, too, the added concern of a reduction in lift. Accordingly it was argued that the programme should be scrapped, but the incumbent Labour Government had already invested a fortune in the project and was reluctant to back down. Modifications were therefore carried out, including the scrapping of a particularly costly power steering unit, while Lord Thomson, the Secretary of State for Air, pressed for a maiden flight to India - his intention being for a triumphant return to the U.K. in mid-October 1930, to attend the Imperial Conference, an intention no doubt further influenced by the fact the R. 100 had just completed her successful crossing to Canada. Further frustrated by the results of R. 101’s next test flight - one engine had to be shut down after the failure of the oil cooling system - Lord Thomson continued nonetheless to push for the flight to India and obtained R.101 a Certificate of Air worthiness without even a proper inspection of the airship being carried out; her speed trials, meanwhile, were to be carried out during the trip to India.

Thus was set in motion the ill-fated long distance flight of the world’s largest airship, R. 101’s 777 feet long airframe carrying 54 passengers - the resultant weight compelling her to ditch four tons of water to get airborne from Cardington at 7.34 p.m. on 4 October 1930. Grabowsky-Atherstone was employed as the Officer of the Watch during the first watch - the latter comprising some of the most experienced crew. Rolling and pitching a few miles out of Cardington, and consequently flying very low, the R. 101 reached the coast over Hastings at around 9.30 p.m. and thence set out over the Channel.

At 02.00 hours, having crossed the Channel and passed over Poix airfield, Flying Officer M. H. Steff entered the R. 101’s control car as the next Officer of the Watch, the airship then being battered by a ferocious storm over the Beauvais area. Steff, the Second Officer, was arguably the least experienced officer aboard and found himself in trouble. And when, about five minutes later, he received a report of damage to the airship’s forward outer covers - damage that was likely to spread rapidly - he ordered a reduction in speed. Sir Peter Masefield’s history of the R. 101, To Ride the Storm, continues the story:

‘At 0207 the new watch would have barely settled down to its three hour tasks. Steff would still be occupied with his writing up of the 0200 hours Journey Log. The height and rudder coxswains would still be getting the feel of the ship. R.101 was flying at, perhaps, a little below the mean height of 1,200 feet in heavy turbulence above ground varying in height between 200 and 300 feet.

Inevitably – and quite normally in the rough air and with fresh hands on the wheel – the nose of the ship would be hunting up and down, the height of the ship varying by two or three hundred feet around the mean. For a combination of reasons, one of these downwards surges took on a steeper tilt and then, it seems probable, entered a downwards gust in the lee of the Beauvais Ridge, which depressed the nose still further. The power of the engines, inclined downwards, would continue to drive the airship towards the ground.

In such conditions, the Height Coxswain probably took several seconds to grasp the situation. When he did, the evidence shows that he reacted with urgency and spun the wheel to wind the elevators to their full-up position. That would take about twenty-five seconds. The time would be about 0208.

‘Full-up elevator’ would have one immediate effect on an airship flying at cruising speed. It would depress the tail and so bring the whole ship nearer to the ground, squashing downwards to come gradually into a horizontal position after losing some 700 feet of height. Then, with up-elevator and under power, in normal conditions the ship would begin to climb away from a position uncomfortably close to the ground.

But there was, certainly, something else going on as well during these critical sixty seconds of time ... At that moment there was just one chance of survival, one chance to pluck safety out of disaster. Sadly, but understandably, it was not taken.

Full engine power with full up elevators would not only have continued to check the dive but would also have driven R. 101 upwards even in its dire condition. The airship would have climbed slowly away and time would have been won for jettisoning of more ballast and some of the remaining 22 tons of fuel-oil to lighten and trim the ship. The situation was desperate but not catastrophic. In somewhat similar circumstances on 27 March 1929, the vastly experienced Hugo Eckener had called for full power and had saved the Graf Zeppelin from ploughing into the ground in the Danube valley.

With such action R.101 could have regained height and then limped home, down-wind, flying on low engine power to reduce the strain on the cover and to conserve the remaining fuel.

But with an urgent report of damage forward there would, no doubt seem - as a snap judgement - to be an overriding need to reduce speed.

For Steff, relatively inexperienced, in the control car of R.101 the instinctive and obvious reaction was to shut down power. He did just that. It was the fatal step.

So, tragically, but understandably, Steff took exactly the opposite action to that which would have saved the ship. He rang the engine telegraphs for a reduction in rpm from fast-cruise to slow.

Bereft of power, bereft of forwards way, bereft of dynamic lift, R.101’s nose fell away again slowly and then more steeply. At 300 feet above the ground the airship was less than twenty seconds from disaster.

At 0209 hours at a forward speed of no more than ten miles an hour over the ground, the underside of R101’s nose drove hard into the thick undergrowth of the Bois de Coutumes on the 200 feet contour-line in a little valley just south of the hamlets of Allonne and Bongenoult.

The control-car beneath the hull was crushed up into the main structure and with it a row of calcium flares, slung along the sides, were split open against the soaking ground and brushwood. In such conditions they would instantly ignite to start the fierce fire below the passenger accommodation so clearly remarked upon by all the survivors from positions further aft.

At the same time the two forward engine cars, attached below the hull, were swung round and pushed up into the envelop where their hot exhaust pipes would ignite the mixture of hydrogen and air around the ruptured bags.

In a moment, in the high wind and the driving rain, the whole countryside was lit by the glare of flames.

Eight survivors, four of them from the three rearward engine cars, one from the fire-proofed smoking room, scrambled somehow out of the wreck and stumbled across the wet grass beside the wood; shocked, scorched, bleeding; two of them fatally injured.

They watched helplessly as the holocaust consumed R.101, consumed the future of British airships, consumed the work, the hopes, the ambitions, the wit and the wisdom, the achievements and the miscalculations too, of a gallant company of men.

In two minutes of disaster a door had closed on a chapter of aviation’s history.’

Graboswky-Atherstone was not amongst the survivors. The return of the R. 101’s dead aboard two destroyers, their lying in state in Westminster Hall, and their burial in a common grave at Cardington were yet further cause for extensive media coverage, so too the subsequent investigation in to the causes of the tragedy, a story retold in Sir Peter Masefield’s detailed investigative history. Grabowsky-Atherstone kept a personal diary from his time at Cardington throughout the constructions and trials programme. The latter is held by the Airship Heritage Trust.

Sold with copied research, including photographic images of recipient.