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

An outstanding Great War ace’s D.S.C. group of three awarded to Captain C. B. Ridley, Royal Air Force, late Royal Naval Air Service, who completed in excess of 200 operational sorties in Sopwith Triplanes and Camels of No. 1 Naval Squadron and No. 201 Squadron, a remarkable record that included at least 40 air-to-air combats and undoubtedly more “kills” than his official total of 11: moreover, he was renowned for his low-level strafing activities, once dropping to 10 feet to support our advancing troops - they waved and cheered him and the enemy fled in a ‘complete panic’

Distinguished Service Cross, G.V.R., hallmarks for London 1917, unnamed as issued; British War and Victory Medals (Capt. C. B. Ridley, R.A.F.), good very fine (3) £8000-10000

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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D.S.C. London Gazette 17 April 1918:

‘For distinguished services as a pilot and for courage in low-flying expeditions during which he attacked enemy trenches with machine-gun fire from a height of 30 feet. On 9 March 1918, he attacked a formation of enemy scouts, selecting one which was attacking one of our machines. The enemy aircraft dived down with a quantity of smoke issuing from it, but it appeared to flatten out at 2,000 feet and disappeared in the mist. He has previously destroyed several enemy machines, and has at all times led his flight with great skill and courage.’

Cyril Burfield Ridley, who was born in Esher, Surrey, in January 1895, was living in Toronto, Canada, at the time of the outbreak of hostilities. Subsequently commissioned as a Sub. Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service in June 1916, after qualifying for his aviator’s certificate (No. 2474) at Hendon earlier in the year, he was posted to Dover and thence to No. 1 Naval Squadron at Dunkirk, where he completed a number of fighter patrols and bomber escort sorties before the year’s end.

But it was not until April 1917 that he opened his account with a shared Albatros DIII over Villers les Cagnicourt on 29th and, as confirmed by accompanying extracts from squadron records, he was thereafter regularly engaged in combats, sharing in an Albatros DV east of Messines on 17 July, and claiming solo ‘kills’ of another Albatros DV near Ypres on 14 August, after ‘a very hot engagement with six enemy scouts’, and a DFW over Zillibeke on 10 September. Of this action, he wrote in his report:

‘One two-seater observed approaching our formation over Zillibeke at 16,000 feet at 5.05 p.m. On being observed it immediately dived east and I fired a short burst into it, whereupon it dived vertically and turned west, eventually appearing to flatten out at 1,000 feet over Ypres. I followed it down firing continuously at it from point-blank range until my gun jammed over the enemy trenches. The E.A. was last seen going down low over the trenches with puffs of smoke emitting from its engine. Following signal received from 1st Anzac Ground Observers: two-seater was driven down out of control by triplane.’

And as had been the case back in June, he fought many more inconclusive combats, including driving down an enemy scout to 900 feet over Wyschaete on 3 September, strikes being seen entering the fuselage and wings. Three days later, north of Lille, he shot-up an enemy kite balloon from point blank range with Buckingham ammunition, the enemy Observer taking to his parachute and Ridley being lucky to clear ‘very intense A.A. fire’ while climbing away from the target. Even so, the relevant combat report states only that ‘the balloon appeared to be hit (looked flabby) but did not catch fire’, though the true result of the combat might be reflected in an intriguing margin note: ‘Balls’.

Ridley was promoted to Flight Lieutenant and continued to add to his score on the unit converting to Camels, namely an Albatros DV near Passchendaele on 6 December, which plunged down vertically from 18,000 feet. He then returned to Dover, where he carried out home defence duties until mid-February 1918, including a night patrol over London. And back in France he shared an enemy kite balloon over Ypres on 12 March 1918 which, on coming down near Kemmel, was observed to be a decoy-balloon with a straw Observer.

His unit then having been re-titled No. 201 Squadron, R.A.F., that April, he added another balloon to his tally east of Boyelles on the 8th, this time the real thing with the enemy Observer taking to his parachute, followed by four further enemy aircraft in the period leading up to his appointment as a Flight Commander, these comprising a Pfalz DIII near Villers Brettoneaux, two Fokker Dr. Is over Albert and Pozieres in May, and finally a Fokker DVII over Foucaucourt on 4 July, which was seen to go down ‘completely out of control’.

But the truth be known - and once again as confirmed by squadron records - Ridley was fighting combats on virtually a daily basis, and sometimes against appalling odds. Thus a run-in with 10 enemy scouts on 21 April 1918, from which he somehow emerged unscathed even though his guns jammed. In fact, a quick survey of relevant records reveals he flew well over 200 operational sorties in the period April 1917 to April 1918, many of them ‘special missions’, including a combat with Gothas off Westende on 13 November 1917, flown with fellow Naval ace, a South African, Flight Lieutenant S. M. “Kink” Kinkead - one of around 40 recorded combats he fought in this period. No surprise then that one version of his D.S.C. recommendation credits him with 17 enemy aircraft destroyed (T.N.A. AIR 1/74/15/9/165 refers).

Yet his gallantry in air-to-air combat was also matched by his low-level ground work, as cited in the opening lines of the citation for his D.S.C. - a strafing attack in September 1917, delivered from 30 feet and one that resulted in him receiving the personal thanks of General Birdwood. The following extracts taken from the Squadron Record Book reveal further daring low-level attacks, including one delivered from 10 feet:

13 July 1917:

‘Flight Lieutenant Ridley attempted an attack on Rechem. He fired 150 rounds from 250 feet at troops on the ground in a small town probably near Menin, being unable to find the aerodrome. He experienced very severe machine-gun and A.A. fire and flying onions. He encountered E.A. in mist and returned with his machine riddled with bullets’.

20 September 1917:

‘Flight Lieutenant Ridley observed bodies of troops in shell holes and trenches just in front of our advancing troops near Becelaere. He went down to within 10 feet of the ground and was much below the level of the trees at times. He dived at these batches of troops who ran from shell hole to shell hole pursued by the triplane. Our troops waved and cheered as the pilot flew over them and dived towards the enemy who were in complete panic.’

26 September 1917:

‘Flight Lieutenant Ridley saw a block-house behind which were about 100 men. Some appeared to be climbing over the top or perhaps sniping our troops. He fired 150 rounds at these men and took several dives at them until too close to the ground, when he had to pull off. Apparently some of these troops were shot. Position N. of Becelaere.’

Rested from operations in July 1918, Ridely’s immense experience was quickly put to use in testing new aircraft, among them a flight in R.A.M.B. 8783, and he was as uncompromising in his subsequent report as he had been with the enemy:

‘Having flown this machine, I consider it very slow, exceedingly heavy on controls, and unmanageable for manoeuvring near the ground. I therefore consider it unsuitable for low-flying and ground strafing work. After I had been in the air for fifteen minutes, the engine failed, owing to a broken piston liner, and I was forced to land.’ A few days later, in a memorandum to the Air Ministry, the Brigadier-General, R.A.F., in the Field, concluded there is ‘little doubt that this machine is unsuitable for any military purposes.’

Remaining in the newly established R.A.F. after the War, he was killed in a flying accident at Cologne on 17 May 1920, while serving in No. 12 Squadron, his aircraft colliding with that of Captain J. D. de Pencier.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s commission warrants for the rank of Flight Sub. Lieutenant, R.N.A.S., dated 25 June 1916, and Captain, R.A.F., dated 1 April 1918, several portrait photographs and newspaper obituaries, and an extensive file of research, with photocopied flying log book entries for 1918-19, and an evocative array of copied photographs taken from an old album (approximately 40 images), the whole relative to Ridley’s active service.