A Collection of Awards to the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force

Pair: Lieutenant E. R. Prideaux, Royal Air Force, late Royal Flying Corps, who was shot down and killed by German ace Oberleutnant Harold Auffarth, C.O. of Jasta 29, in May 1918

British War and Victory Medals (Lieut. E. R. Prideaux, R.A.F.), extremely fine (2) £300-350

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Awards to the Royal Flying Corps, Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force.

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Edwin Ravenhill Prideaux was born in Johannesburg in January 1893, the son of an estate broker, and was educated at Bromsgrove College, Worcestershire. Enlisting in the Royal Flying Corps at South Farnborough in May 1917, he was appointed to a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant that August, after taking his Aviator’s Certificate at Reading, and, in mid-April 1918, was posted to No. 203 Squadron (ex- 3 Naval Squadron) out in France.

As verified by official records, he subsequently participated in at least 20 operational sorties until his death in action on the morning of 17 May. Having taken off in Sopwith Camel B-6408 from Izel-le-Hameau on an offensive patrol with three other aircraft, the whole under Flight Commander “Titch” L. H. Rochford, D.S.C., D.F.C., the British aircraft intercepted 15 Triplanes and Pfalz Scouts north-east of Estaires, an incident recalled by Rochford in his memoir I Chose the Sky, who shared in the destruction of one of the Pfalz DIIIs with Prideaux before the latter was shot down and killed by the German ace Oberleutnant Harold Auffarth, C.O. of Jasta 29.

Prideaux has no known grave and is commemorated on the Arras Flying Services Memorial; sold with copied research.