Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Property of John Wray, Esq.

The magnificent and quite unique D.S.O., M.C., D.F.C. and Bar, A.F.C. group of thirteen awarded to Air Commodore A. M. “Father” Wray, Royal Air Force, late East Kent Regiment and Royal Flying Corps, whose M.C. was an immediate award for bringing home his shot-up Nieuport Scout in May 1917, together with his knee-cap in his flying boot: an A.F.C. followed in 1919, a D.F.C. for Waziristan in 1924, and, in spite of his advanced age, an Immediate Bar to his D.F.C. in 1942 as a Group Captain and a D.S.O. in the following year as an Air Commodore, these latter for participating in Bomber Command sorties in the full knowledge that his old war wound would never have permitted him the chance of baling out and often against orders - indeed such was the Air Commodore’s appetite for flying that he qualified for the coveted “Gold C” glider pilot’s badge after celebrating his 75th birthday

Distinguished Service Order, G.VI.R. 1st issue, silver-gilt and enamels, the reverse of the suspension bar officially dated ‘1943’; Military Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved, ‘2nd Lieut. A. M. Wray, R.F.C., May 28th 1917’; Distinguished Flying Cross, G.V.R., with Bar for Second Award, the reverse of the Cross privately engraved, ‘F./O. A. M. Wray, R.A.F., 1923’, and the reverse of the Bar officially dated ‘1942’; Air Force Cross, G.V.R., the reverse privately engraved, ‘Lieut. A. M. Wray, R.A.F., 1st January 1919’; British War and Victory Medals (2 Lieut., R.F.C.); India General Service 1908-35, 2 clasps, Waziristan 1919-21, Waziristan 1921-24 (F./O., R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf; Jubilee 1935, privately engraved, ‘Sqn. Ldr. A. M. Wray, R.A.F., 6th May 1935’; Polish Virtuti Militari, 5th class breast badge, silver, with gilt and enamel centres, mounted court-style as worn (excepting the Burma Star - see below), good very fine and better (13) £30000-35000

D.S.O. London Gazette 24 August 1943. The original recommendation for an immediate award states:

‘While employed as Station Commander, Air Commodore Wray has, during the past year and a half, successfully completed 14 operational sorties as Captain of Wellington aircraft, and, having converted himself to Lancaster aircraft, took part in the raid on Hamburg on the night of 29-30 July 1943, as Captain of a Lancaster, whilst holding the appointment of Base Commander.

Air Commodore Wray, who is 47 years of age, is an extremely gallant officer who invariably captains any crew on operational flights quite regardless of their experience. On his last raid, on Hamburg, he took a crew who had only that morning passed out of the Conversion Unit, and had never before been under fire. By his keenness to operate against the enemy, his skill as a Captain of Aircraft, his personal courage and complete disregard of danger, he has set a very fine example to all the Squadrons under his command. The value of the training he has imparted to the young crews with whom he has flown on operations is inestimable, and I most strongly recommend that his splendid and gallant service be recognised by the award of the Distinguished Service Order.’

M.C. London Gazette 16 August 1917. The original recommendation states:

‘I beg to forward the name of 2nd Lieutenant A. M. Wray for your favourable consideration.

Lieutenant Wray joined No. 29 Squadron on 24 April 1917, and during the short time he has been here his conduct on at least four occasions has been conspicuously gallant. While on offensive patrol on 13 May 1917, he attacked and fired at four Albatross Scouts single-handed. He drove down three and crashed a fourth (confirmed).

On 19 May 1917, he attacked a hostile balloon at O18C. He fired at it at very close range, and drove it down. The Observers were seen to jump out with parachutes.

Again, on 20 May 1917, while on offensive patrol over Douai, he attacked two Albatross Scouts single-handed. He crashed the first - E.A’s wings being observed to fall off as it went down - and drove down the second.

On 28 May 1917, while on offensive patrol, he attacked a hostile two-seater biplane at close range south of Arras. Almost immediately after attacking, he was severely wounded in the knee, and his thigh was fractured. In this state this gallant officer - though his machine fell for several thousand feet completely out of control - eventually managed to bring it to Wagnonlieu, where he was observed to make a perfect landing without damaging his machine.

He is 20 years of age, and was a very efficient and capable officer. I submit that this record shows him to deserve fully any decoration for which you may see fit to recommend him.’

D.F.C. London Gazette 30 May 1924: ‘In recognition of distinguished services rendered with the Waziristan Field Force between January 1922 and April 1923.’

The original recommendation states: ‘For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty during air operations. In bombing attacks he has obtained excellent results mainly by reason of his daring attacks from low altitudes over difficult country, and often in bad weather. Within a period of four days he carried out six raids on targets situated over 40 miles from the aerodrome, over country which was actively hostile and devoid of safe landing places.’

Bar to D.F.C. London Gazette 10 April 1942. The original recommendation for an immediate award states:

‘Group Captain Wray is the Station Commander at R.A.F. Hemswell, from which two Polish Squadrons, No. 300 and No. 301, operate. For the operations against Essen on the night of 25-26 March 1942, I asked that a few aircraft should go rather lower than usual when marking their attack, in order to identify the exact target. This officer showed a magnificent example by attacking with his aircraft at a low altitude in the face of heavy opposition.

Group Captain Wray is a very gallant officer, with a fine spirit of leadership. In spite of the language difficulties and his own physical disability (lameness), he has operated on six occasions since November 1941, each time with a different crew, composed entirely of Polish personnel, and not confining himself to one Squadron only. This fine example of leadership and encouragement has done a tremendous amount of good in fostering the spirit of co-operation with our Allies, who now look up to him as a leader in action. I strongly recommend this Officer for an immediate Award of a Bar to the D.F.C.’

A.F.C. London Gazette 1 January 1919.

Mention in despatches London Gazette 1 January 1943; 1 January 1945 and 1 January 1946.

Polish Virtuti Militari London Gazette 24 July 1942.

Arthur Mostyn “Father” Wray was born in Brighton, Sussex in August 1896 and was educated at Monkton Combe School. Appointed a Temporary 2nd Lieutenant in the 9th (Service) Battalion, East Kent Regiment in February 1915, he subsequently resigned his commission to attend the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, from which establishment he emerged as a substantive 2nd Lieutenant in October 1916, with seniority back dated to October 1915. In early 1917, however, he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps as a Flying Officer and so commenced one of the most remarkable careers in the annals of Royal Air Force history.

Having qualified for his “Wings”, Wray was posted to No. 29 Squadron in France, in April 1917, which unit was operating in Nieuport Scouts, and quickly achieved a brace of “kills”, as described in the original recommendation for his M.C. But on 28 May, having completed nearly 50 operational patrols, he fell victim to accurate enemy gunnery and was lucky to make base, where his knee cap was found in his flying boot. Invalided home nearly four weeks later, when his wound developed ‘serious septic complications’, he saw no further action, but was back in the air as early as April 1918 at No. 55 Training School, where he had his ‘First flip for ten months. O.K. Got on all right.’ But it was for his work as a pilot instructor at the School of Aerial Fighting at Ayr, later in the year, that he was awarded his A.F.C., although his subsequent part in conveying the King’s mail from Balmoral to Buckingham Palace may have qualified him for similar reward.

In January 1920, Wray was posted to India, where, after a short stint with No. 114 Squadron at Ambala, he transferred to No. 28 Squadron, and went on to participate in the Waziristan operations, his relevant flying log books listing numerous operational reconnaissances, photographic trips and bombing raids over the period 1920-24, quite a few of them with detailed entries (e.g. 10 February 1923: ‘Contact for 7th and 9th Brigades. Two parties of snipers seen and fired at. Got a good chit from O.C. Welch Fusiliers. One hole shot through propeller’). He was awarded the D.F.C. and returned to the U.K. in January 1924, where he joined No. 15 (B.) Squadron at the Aircraft Experimental Establishment at Martlesham Heath, and afterwards enjoyed a long-standing appointment as a pilot at the Armament and Gunnery School at R.A.F. Eastchurch.

During the early 1930s Wray attended two deck-landing courses at 407 (F.F.) Flight, Lee-on-Solent, where he was rated “Exceptional”, was advanced to Squadron Leader in October 1933, the same year in which he also attended the anti-gas course at the Small Arms School, and in 1935 received his first Squadron Command, namely that of No. 43, the famous “Fighting Cocks”, with whom he participated in numerous fly-pasts and displays. Further senior appointments followed as an Armament Officer at Fighter Command, latterly in the rank of Wing Commander, and soon after the renewal of hostilities in 1939, he was advanced to Acting Group Captain (which rank became substantive in November 1943).

Wray’s extraordinary 1939-45 operational career commenced after he was posted to R.A.F. Millom in early 1941, when on the 20 July of the same year, he flew as 2nd Pilot and Front Gunner in a Whitley to Cologne (‘Splendid trip’). But it was following his appointment as Station C.O. at R.A.F. Hemswell in November 1941 that he seriously got down to operational flying, often without seeking permission from Headquarters. Keen to infuse confidence in his young Polish aircrew, who had two squadrons at Hemswell, and “nurse” them through their first “ops.”.

Wray piloted Wellingtons to Germany on at least another 13 occasions, all the while turning a blind eye to the fact that his chances of escaping a damaged aircraft were next to nil - such was the lameness caused by his Great War wound that he was now using a walking stick. He was awarded his second D.F.C. after completing six of those sorties and was decorated by the Poles with their Virtuti Militari in July 1942.

Given that operational flying for a Group Captain was unusual, it takes little imagination to weigh-up the type of opposition he faced from Headquarters in 1943, when, as a recently promoted Air Commodore, he continued - mainly without success - to snatch opportunities to fly on sorties in Lancasters from his new command at Binbrook (12 Base), which brought him into immediate contact with the young aircrew of No. 460 (R.A.A.F.) Squadron, and included responsibility for the airfields at Waltham and Kelstern, where he was also an enthusiastic visitor. Certainly he flew two more operations, the first of them to Hamburg on the night of 29 July 1943 (one of the famous “firestorm raids”), for which he was awarded an immediate D.S.O., and the second to Stuttgart on the night of 15 March 1944. An account of the latter trip is recounted below by his young co-pilot, Sergeant (afterwards Squadron Leader) Douglas Sutton. It was about this time that his relevant flying log book started to include the entry, ‘my trip cancelled by A.O.C.’, and as if to confirm the issue once and for all, he attended an “interview” with the A.O.C. on 9 February 1945, at which, undoubtedly, in no uncertain words, he was “grounded”.

Wray finished his war at Air Command, South-East Asia, but refused to wear his Burma Star, on the basis he that he ‘never entered or flew over a jungle.’ As for his potential entitlement to an Air Crew Europe Star, such was the sporadic nature of his operational career, often without seeking the permission of Headquarters, that it is near certain he did not officially qualify under the two-month rule.

Placed on the Retired List in the rank of Air Commodore in May 1946, aged 50 years, Wray did not fly again until the early 1960s, when, as retold in the below reprinted interview, he qualified as a glider pilot and, in 1972, won the coveted “Gold C.” badge. The Air Commodore died in April 1982.

An illuminating summary of Wray’s life and times - and more particularly his truly inspirational deeds in the 1939-45 War - was told to Peter Browne by Squadron Leader Douglas Sutton, D.F.C., details of which appeared in the Reader’s Digest in January 1983:

‘From the cramped cockpit of his glider, Arthur Wray looked down at the Lincolnshire farmland, scarred by the decaying runways of bomber bases he knew so well. It was late on a May afternoon in 1972, and he had already been airborne for five long, exhausting hours. Now the weather was worsening, and so was the pain from his old leg injury. Wray was tempted to give up his bid to complete the 186-mile cross-country flight that would help him earn the international “Gold C.” badge, a coveted distinction in the gliding world.

Then through the haze ahead he spotted the flashing airfield beacon of R.A.F. Binbrook, and he knew his goal was within reach. At the unprecedented age of 75, Air Commodore Arthur Wray, D.S.O., M.C., D.F.C., A.F.C., had won a victory achieved by few glider pilots. To add to his triumph, he had ended the flight at his wartime headquarters - a legendary airman returned from the sky.

I wish I had been at the welcome party Binbrook gave him that evening, not only to add my congratulations but to recall with him a very different flight we made together nearly 30 years earlier.

It was March 15, 1944. I was a young sergeant pilot with only seven hours’ flying time on Lancasters, posted a week earlier with my crew to 100 Squadron at Waltham, a wind-swept airfield near Grimsby, and one of three bomber stations making up 12 Base under Wray’s command. That morning we had been told: “You’re flying on your first operation tonight, with the Base Commander.”

We were standing nervously round our Lancaster, “J” Jig, when he drove up, a stocky figure with iron-grey hair and a blaze of medal ribands on his battledress. Arthur Wray was then 47: we were all 20, and my first impression as he limped across the tarmac was that he was so old. None of us seven Sergeants had ever seen such a senior officer before. But this one had a warm, friendly smile and relaxed manner that put us at ease. We took to him at once.

The target that night was Stuttgart, one of Germany’s most viciously defended cities, and nearly 900 heavy bombers would be sent on the raid. For a crew as green as ours it was a daunting prospect; but Arthur Wray appeared totally unconcerned. When I walked with him round “J” Jig to inspect the aircraft before take-off, he chatted away as cheerfully as though we were going on a joy-ride.

We had been flying for an hour, with the Air Commodore at the controls, when one of the gunners spotted the dark shadow of a Lancaster sliding beneath us, crossing our path. A few moments later, another crossed above. Wray immediately suspected that we were straying from the bomber stream.

As we flew on alone, it transpired that the navigator had misread the flight plan and given the wrong course. “Now I can’t get a fix, Sir,” he reported. “Our radar’s being jammed.” “All right,” said Wray mildly, “Work out a course by dead reckoning.” There was a long silence, then: “Sorry, Sir, but we’re lost. We’ll have to turn back.” With a crisp “turn back, be damned,” the Air Commodore helped us plot an approximate course, and we flew on across Germany towards Stuttgart.

We arrived 15 minutes late to find ourselves the only Lancaster over the city, and began our bombing run through an intense barrage of flak. But Wray was dissatisfied with our approach. To impress on us the need for accuracy, he coolly circled back over Stuttgart and began a second run through the flak.

Intrepid Leader

To me those few minutes seemed interminable, but Wray set an example in the heat of the action which no training school could hope to match. Bombs gone, we turned away with searchlights probing for us, and he gave me another invaluable lesson - flinging “J” Jig around the sky in the gut-wrenching “corkscrew” evasive manoeuvres which would help defend us against searchlights and night fighters.

As we neared the coast of England after eight hours in the air, he said: “I’m a bit tired. You’d better take over now.” In the Lancaster’s cramped cockpit it was a real struggle for Arthur Wray, with his lame leg, to leave his seat. I realized for the first time that if we had been hit he would have been trapped with no hope of baling out, and admired all the more his courage in choosing to fly with a raw crew.

By the time we landed back at Waltham that night, I had decided that Air Commodore Wray was the most remarkable man I had ever known.

I was not alone. For so many of us who flew with Bomber Command in the Second World War, “Father” Wray was unforgettable. Repeatedly risking his own life to shepherd novice crews half his age through their baptism of fire, he increased immeasurably our chances of returning from raids. Beyond doubt, I owed him my own survival.

Born in 1896, Arthur Wray was the son of a pioneer missionary in Central Africa. Sent to school in England, he left mid-term at 18 to join the army shortly after the First World War broke out, and after passing out of Sandhurst, transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. In April 1917, with only two months’ flying training and 30 hours’ solo, he was posted to France.


Active Service

There was no time for teaching new pilots the finer points of air fighting. Three days to learn to handle a Nieuport Scout and practise firing at ground targets, and Second Lieutenant Wray was flying over the lines. But luck was with him at the start. After his first combat he recorded laconically in his log-book: ‘Eight Albatrosses engaged. Three of them crashed, two of our own missing. Got one Hun down.’

The average life expectation for a flier in 1917 was less than three weeks. Arthur Wray had survived for exactly a month when on May 28 he dived to attack a German reconnaissance aircraft, then felt what he later likened to a kick from a horse on his knee. A bullet had fractured his thigh and shot-off the left knee-cap, which was found in his flying boot.

Surgeons gave him a choice. Either the knee joint could be repaired so that he would be able to walk relatively normally, but with a leg probably too stiff to pilot a plane - or without surgery it would retain a degree of flexibility that should make flying possible, but leave him lame for life. Wray chose to fly. Awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry, he endured a long convalescence and in April 1918 triumphantly noted: ‘First flip for ten months. O.K.’

After the war he flew Bristol Fighters in India, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for his exploits on punitive strikes against tribesmen raiding the camel caravans which came from Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass, then returned to England to become a bombing and gunnery specialist, and a star of the annual R.A.F. Display at Hendon.

By the early thirties, Wray was commanding 407 Fleet Fighter Flight, based at Lee-on-Solent, where his pilots, most at least ten years his junior, gave him the nickname by which he became known throughout the R.A.F.: “Father”.

Among them was Rodney Clarkson, who in 1933 died in a road accident. Wray flew up to his funeral at St. Paul’s Walden in the Hertfordshire countryside, found the nearest airfield fog-bound, and put his plane down in a tiny pasture near the church. After the service he met for the first time Rodney Clarkson’s sister, Margaret; the following year they were married in the same church.

In 1935 Wray was given command of the crack 43 Squadron, its elegant Hawker Fury biplanes the first 200 m.p.h. fighters. Then, as an armaments expert, he moved to Fighter Command H.Q. - and, after the outbreak of war in 1939, to bombing schools in Wales and Cumberland.

Clipped Wings

By 1941 he was station commander of R.A.F. Hemswell in Lincolnshire, in charge of three Polish squadrons. Station commanders were expected to fly a desk rather than a bomber; as a concession, they could seek permission from higher authority for one operational flight a month. But Wray, now 45 and walking with a stick, cared less for red tape than for his exiled young fliers.



He knew they often went through a psychological crisis after their first few operations over Germany had shown them the grim odds, and carefully watched for the signs. Before a raid on Bremen he noticed the edginess of one particular crew, and was not surprised when soon after take-off their Wellington turned back.

The pilot blamed a faulty magneto, but when Wray checked the engines himself, he could find nothing wrong. Pausing only to collect his parachute, he recharged the crew’s morale by flying them to the target and back.

It was one of many occasions when he earned from headquarters a reprimand for failing to ask permission, and from the Poles their deep respect. They were devoted to a man twice their age who deliberately shared the hazards they faced, and at briefings managed to find a few words of fractured Polish to wish them God-speed. Aircrew cheered him to the echo on the evening when he read them a fighting speech by Winston Churchill which he had had translated phonetically into their own language.

Cool Courage

“He was the finest kind of Englishman,” remembers a Polish pilot. “Humane, straightforward, and very brave.” As the London Gazette said when in April 1942 he won a bar to his D.F.C. after the Wellingtons attacked Essen, in the Ruhr: ‘His gallantry and exceptional leadership have set a most inspiring example.’ The Poles themselves recognised it by awarding him their highest honour, the Virtuti Militari.

In May 1943, Arthur Wray became an Air Commodore and commander of 12 Base, comprising the bomber stations of Binbrook, Waltham and Kelstern. Now he was responsible for 80 Lancasters from his headquarters at Binbrook, the home of 460 Squadron, Royal Australian Air Force.

It was almost unheard of for a base commander, let alone one of his age, to fly on operations. But Wray was soon off on his first mission with 460 Squadron, attacking Hamburg as part of a force of 740 bombers in one of the most devastating raids of the war. It brought him yet another decoration, the D.S.O., and the warm approval of the Australians.

By early 1944, when I arrived at Waltham, the R.A.F. was losing about 265 heavy bombers a month, and nearly 2000 men, with inexperienced crews the most vulnerable.

We were among the lucky ones, for during the raid on Stuttgart, Arthur Wray gave us the priceless gift of confidence, and throughout our time with 100 Squadron he kept a fatherly eye on us. For each of our next six operations, he drove over from Binbrook to stand by the runway and see us off. When we landed back at Waltham after our thirty-first raid, which marked the end of our “tour” and a brief respite from the war, a beaming Air Commodore was waiting with a crate of beer in his car to join us for a celebration.

Grounded!

Soon afterwards, he and a friend who commanded a nearby station both decided they would go with their squadrons on a major daylight raid. A few hours before take-off, Wray’s permission to fly was cancelled. His friend was shot down. Word spread that Father Wray had been summoned to Bomber Command and read the riot act: “You know too much to risk being captured. No more operational flying.”

With the end of the war he was retired from the R.A.F. at 50, and settled with his wife and three childen at Pitney, in Somerset, where he spent the next decade struggling to run a small farm. Eventually he gave up what had become a losing battle and turned to ex-servicemen through local branches of the Royal Air Forces Association and the Royal British Legion, earning a reputation of “always wanting to do something else.”

Airborne Again

The one thing he missed was flying. But there was no way an R.A.F. pension could meet the cost of hiring powered aircraft. Then, in 1961, he discovered the Devon and Somerset Gliding Club, at Dunkeswell near Exeter.

At 65 he took off for the first time in 15 years, and became enchanted with silent flight. He had piloted everything from Sopwith camels to Spitfires - but this, he said, was the finest flying of all. He would come down in a state of incredulous wonder that he had actually been able to climb without an engine, using only sun-powered thermals - “all for free!”

His bubbling enthusiasm had a great impact on the club and the young pilots he went out of his way to encourage. From the moment the hangar doors were rolled open he would be there in battered tweed hat and corduroys, sharing in the often strenuous work needed to get gliders launched - leaning heavily on his stick but refusing to admit that he couldn’t do as much as the others: “I’m as fit as anyone else!”

In 1964 he became one of the oldest pilots to earn the international “Silver C” badge, the mark of a qualified soaring pilot. It was a great achievement, but Wray soon found another challenge: the far more taxing “Gold C” , and in particular its requirement for a 300-kilometre (186-mile) cross-country flight. Summer after summer he set out to cover the distance, but ran out of thermals and had to put down in a field, often limping miles in search of a telephone to call the club.

Then at last came that epic flight to Binbrook. It was a fitting climax to 40 years of flying. He bowed to medical advice, and sadly conceded that perhaps at 75 it was time to stop. But aviation had been Arthur Wray’s life, and he would still hop into his car and chase a hot-air balloon seen drifting over his garden, still make the long drive to the Farnborough International Air Show and watch with the critical eye of one who had once thrilled huge crowds.

When he died in April 1982, three generations of airmen remembered him with real affection. To those of us who were fortunate enough to fly with him, his indomitable spirit disproved the R.A.F. adage: “There are old pilots, and bold pilots, but no old bold pilots.” Father Wray was both.’

Sold with Wray’s original Flying Log Books (6), a complete run with the first covering the period January 1917 to May 1920, with an interesting list of aircraft types flown and of 12 “prangs” (or ‘damage from other causes’) during the same period; the second August 1920 to April 1923 (with similar listings, including seven further prangs); the third April 1923 to October 1926 (with similar listings, including five further prangs); the fourth November 1926 to April 1929 (with similar listings, including two further prangs); the fifth April 1929 to September 1935 (with aircraft types flown list); and the sixth September 1935 to April 1945 (with aircraft types flown list), and three intriguing blank pages for the period 6 November 1941 to 5 May 1943, when he was Station C.O. at Hemswell with the Poles, but from where, by the admission of his D.S.O. recommendation, he did actually take-off on no less than 13 operational sorties; together with assorted wartime newspaper cuttings and a good selection of photographs (10), covering childhood to retirement.