A Fine Collection of Medals to Officers Who Died During The Two World Wars

Three: Lieutenant (Pilot) F. R. Cook, No. 58 (Training) Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, and East Yorkshire Regiment, killed whilst flying on 22 February 1918

1914-15 Star (Lieut., E. York. R.); British War and Victory Medals (Lieut.); together with memorial plaque (Francis Richardson Cook) all contained in an attractive contemporary mahogany display frame, the top surmounted with an East Yorkshire Regiment officers cap badge, nearly extremely fine (4) £350-400

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Fine Collection of Medals to Officers Who Died During The Two World Wars.

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Francis Richardson Cook was born in 1898 and educated at Rugby College. He was gazetted to the 7th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment in September 1914, and was promoted to Lieutenant the following December. He proceeded with his regiment to France in July 1915, and was wounded in the Ypres Salient on 28 August following. During his convalescence in England he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, but was transferred to the 1st Garrison Battalion of his regiment and sailed for India in February 1916. He volunteered twice for service in Mesopotamia, but was rejected as medically unfit, and in December he was accepted for the Royal Flying Corps. He was gazetted as Observer in February 1917, and while stationed at Risalpur, on the North West Frontier, saw a good deal of tribal fighting and took part in two expeditions against the Waziris at Tonk. He was subsequently transferred to Egypt, where he arrived in October 1917. After serving as a Pilot, he was employed as Instructor, and it was while giving instruction that he was accidentally killed in collision with another aeroplane at Suez, on 22 February 1918.

The following was written by a brother officer, and is extracted from the Rugby Roll of Honour: ‘Although his career as a Pilot was brief, he nevertheless had already created a considerable reputation. He did extremely well at the School of Military Aeronauticsand took his “Wings” in almost record time. Two stories are still quoted by everyone: one, how, being forced to come down through engine failure, he landed a machine down the centre street of a camp without damaging anything; the other, how he landed, again through engine trouble, in a nullah just wide enough to take the under-carriage of the machine, also without damaging it. He was always universally popular wherever he went.’