Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria. To coincide with the OMRS Convention

Original R.A.F. Pilot’s Flying Log Books, appertaining to Acting Squadron Leader D. V. W. Francis, Royal Air Force, a Beaufort pilot who was killed in action in December 1940, comprising one privately leather-bound volume with continuous entries for the period May 1935 to December 1940, commencing with his pilot training at R.A.F. Netheravon and ending with his death in action with No. 22 Squadron after 24 operational sorties, and the period in between with interesting attachments to aircraft carriers and service in seaplanes, complete with R.A.F. Central Depository stamps; together with related Mention in Despatches certificates (2), dated 19 January 1940 and 4 November 1940, leather gilt-titled spine detached on the first, otherwise in good condition £250-350

Dennis Victor Wilfred Francis commenced pilot training with No. 6 F.T.S. at R.A.F. Netheravon in May 1935 and received an ‘exceptional’ pilot rating on graduation. Posted to No. 32 Squadron, a Bulldog fighter unit, at Biggin Hill in February 1936, he also attended, later that year, the Catapult course at Leuchars, the Floatplane course at Calshot and a torpedo course at Gosport, where he flew Swordfish aircraft. In January 1937, Francis transferred to No. 822 (T.S.R.) Squadron at Eastleigh, flying Shark aircraft, and in the following month he was attached to the aircraft carrier Glorious and carried out his first deck-landings. Later that year he served as an instructor at the School of Naval Co-operation at Lee-on-Solent but in October he joined No. 820 (T.S.R.) Squadron, an appointment that lasted until March 1939 and witnessed further seagoing service in Courageous and Ark Royal, mainly flying Swordfish. Next posted to the Torpedo Development Unit and Flight at Gosport, where he served until July 1940, Francis flew Albacore, Beaufort, Botha, Hampden, Vildebeest and Wellesley aircraft, in addition to Swordfish, in hazardous experimental and endurance work that won him his first ‘Mention’ (and a trip to Dunkirk on 2 June 1940). Hazardous, too, because the Lufwaffe were prone to visit such stations, his Flying Log Book of the period bearing an endorsement, ‘Flying times for July and August destroyed by enemy action during raids on Gosport.’

On 1 September 1940, Francis joined No. 22 Squadron, a torpedo-bomber unit operating in Beauforts out of North Cotes, and by the end of the month he had flown six anti-shipping strikes. The latter comprised ‘shipping off Ostend. One sunk’ on the 11th; a ‘torpedoed ship in Ijmuiden harbour’ on 15th; ‘Attacked shipping in Cherbourg harbour. Intense flak. Hit 5,000-ton M.V.’ on the 17th and ‘Attacked tanker up Elbe. Missed’, on the following day.

Detached to carry out ‘Toroplane trials’ at Gosport in October, Francis returned to North Cotes in time for for a torpedo attack against a 5,000-ton ship in Emden on the 27th (‘Torpedo sank 40 yards short’) and on the following day another strike against three smaller ships (‘Miss astern’).

The first week of November saw him participating in an attack against armed M.Vs off Brest on the 6th, and on the next day in a strike against Lorient docks, where intense flak was encountered, and he shot out a searchlight. Five more sorties made up the month’s operational agenda, including, on the 17th, a successful hit on two hangers at Combrai aerodrome, the Germans having mistaken his Beaufort for one of their own, and conveniently illuminating the flare path. And on the 19th he torpedoed the 5,900-ton M.V. Patagonia. Francis had, meanwhile, received his second ‘Mention’.

In December, the month in which he was killed in action on a mission on the 27th, Francis completed another four sorties in two of which he dropped “magnum” bombs on No. 1 Basin of Bordeaux harbour. And on the 23rd, his penultimate sortie, he flew at 100 feet over The Hague and attacked an M.V. in a canal.

He was 25 years of age at the time of his death and has no known grave, being commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.