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

Three: Captain (Pilot) R. J. Tipton, No. 40 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, and Royal Field Artillery, shot down whilst on a bombing raid against a German airfield at El Arish and made a prisoner of the Turks in June 1916, subsequently participating in an incredible escape and journey home, before returning to active service on the Western Front, and being mortally wounded in aerial combat on 9 March 1918

1914-15 Star (Lieut., R.F.A.); British War and Victory Medals, with M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt.) contained in a contemporary leatherette fitted box, the outer lid inscribed in gilt lettering ‘R. J. Tipton’, extremely fine and an exceptionally emotive group (3) £1200-1500

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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Despatches twice London Gazette 21 June 1916 (France) & 1 December 1916 (Egypt).

Richard James (Dick) Tipton of Oxton, Cheshire was born on 25 April 1892 and joined the 3rd West Lancashire Brigade, R.F.A., (T.F.) into which he was commissioned. In May 1915 he transferred to the flying corps, and, obtaining his wings on 19 June 1915, went to Egypt as a pilot with 14 Squadron in the autumn of the same year. He was subsequently mentioned in the despatches of Sir John Maxwell and Sir Archibald Murray. On 18 June 1916 he took part in a raid against the German airfield at El Arish as a reprisal for a bombing attack on the camp of the Anzac 1st Light Horse Brigade. Eleven B.E.2cs participated, two of them flying with observers, the rest being flown solo so that more bombs could be carried. Tipton and the rest took off from Qantara and approached El Arish from the sea at 600 feet. There was stiff opposition from the ground and one British aircraft immediately crashed into the sea. Tipton was among those who reached the hostile airfield, where he released his bombs just before being shot down. He crashed outside the airfeld but managed to set fire to his machine before Turkish troops arrived to take him prisoner.

He was detained for fourteen months with 120 British officers, mostly from the Kut garrison, at Kastamuni about 260 miles east of modern Istanbul. He escaped with three compatriots, one of them a Turkish speaker, on the night 8 August 1917, each man carrying 30lb of escape kit in homemade rucksacks, as well as a patchwork sail to propel the boat which they hoped to steal on the Black Sea shore. Donning fezes at night and homemade German military headgear by day, they escaped attention of any Turk sufficiently interested to turn them in for two weeks by which time they had walked some 200 miles to reach the Jerse on the Black Sea coast, where, they were suspected of being escaped British officers by the crew of a Government vessel and handed over to the Gendarmerie. They gave German names to the the Turkish commandant who asked Tipton to speak German on the telephone to a German officer at Sinope. Tipton who knew only a few words, pretended the phone was ‘kaput’.

A guard of nine soldiers was assembled to march them back to Kustamuni. On 27 August, near Sinope, the party was ambushed apparently by bandits. One guard was killed, two others wounded and the rest surrendered. In the meantime one of Tipton’s companions took to his heels as the bullets were flying and despite a thorough search of the roadside was not seen again. The outlaws, or ‘comrades’ as they referred to themselves, proved to be dissidents rather than brigands and were equally anxious to make the Black Sea crossing to Russia. But Turkish troops were drafted into the area and the Gendarmerie reinforced, and for over a month Tipton and his companions, Captain (later Lt-Col. Sir) E.H. Keeling, I.A.R.O., and Lieutenant H.C.W. Bishop (the author of A Kut Prisoner) lived a hazardous life with the ‘comrades’ in the mountains of Anatolia until a small boat could be secured to carry them across to the Crimea and safety. ‘September 21’, wrote Keeling in a long account of the escape for Blackwood’s Magazine, ‘was the most eventful of our whole journey. At dawn we were hurried down to the boat, which was waiting for us close to the shore, about half an hour from our hiding place. It was a fishing boat, about 25 feet long and of about two and a half tons, with dipping lug-sail and four oars ... By 6.15 a.m., just after sunrise, everything was ready, and we pushed off. There were fourteen of us on board, namely seven Circassians, two Georgians, one Turk proper, one Armenian, and three Englishmen. All our friends were Turkish subjects. While embarking, another felucca somewhat bigger than ours had been creeping along the coast from the west, and the ‘comrades’ resolved to board her and thus anticipate any attempt she might make to stop us. Accordingly they rowed along side and levelled their rifles.’

Thus the voyage proceeded into its second day, with prisoners of their own and two vessels, both of which soon displayed serious defects and it was determined to abandon one of them. After much argument and the transfer of the captured boat’s boom to the original vessel the former was left to her fate complete with her cargo of parafin. On the third day of the voyage the captured skipper shot a dolphin which was cooked on a fire made from the deck. ‘At 5.30 a.m. on the fourth day the voyage of hope became a certainty,’ Keeling continues, ‘and we were all raised to the seventh heaven of joy by the definite view of the mountains on the north west horizon. The captured crew, who cherished an idea that they would be sent back to Turkey, and were quite as eager to land as any of us, began to row vigorously ... Without a wind several hours elapsed before we could reach the [Crimean] shore; but our friends at once began to don their bandoliers, and we had some difficulty in persuading them that if they tried to land in Russia with rifles and ammunition misunderstanding might arise.’

Throughout practically the whole course of the escape Tipton had been suffering from some unspecified ailment. A Russian surgeon operated ‘not before time’, and the arrival of the British officers was communicated to the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Black Sea fleet who arranged passage to Yalta by car. From Yalta they continued to Sebastopol by sea, then onwards via Odessa, Kieff, Petrograd, Stockholm, and Christiana to England. In spite of wholly complimentary remarks, demanded no doubt as an exigency of the time, in the Blackwood’s article about the Russians, Tipton and the others in fact experienced considerable difficulties as well as co-operation arriving as they did shortly after the Russain Revolution and during the Kerensky regime. It is further known that Keeling for one assisted Russian intelligence and endeavoured to organize a naval expedition to return to Turkey to liberate their comrades at Kastamuni. An unsuccessful attempt was made; after which, during the period of the Bolshevik coup d’etat, he returned to Britain after great difficulties and only through the clemency of Trotsky.

On Tipton’s return home he was given the honour of a private interview with the King at Buckingham Palace. He turned down the offer of three months’ home leave and applied to immediately rejoin the R.F.C., first going to the C.F.S. at Upavon, and then to 40 Squadron (S.E.5a’s) in France in early 1918. On 6 March he shot down Leutnant Walter Conderet of Jagdstaffel 52, but was mortally wounded in aerial combat on 9 March by a machine-gun bullet. He nevertheless managed to fly his machine back to British lines and land without mishap. An A.S.C sergeant reported, “At about 4-45 pm I saw an SE5a coming in very low from the direction of Lens. He circled over Calonne Road and made a good landing behind our billet ... I found Captain Tipton, the pilot, was badly hit in the abdomen but was conscious. He gave me the number of his Squadron and said he didn’t mind much, because he got the Hun who hit him, and was quite cheerful owing to that fact.’ He was removed to a Canadian casualty clearing station but succumbed to his wounds two days later and was buried at Barlin Communal Cemetery, Pas de Calais.

Reference sources: Blackwood’s Magazine No. MCCXXXI, May 1918, Captain E. H.Keeling, Adventures in Turkey and Russia, E.H. Keeling, 1924 (An original bound copy of this is included with the lot). Sold with a large quantity of copied research material, including a copy of a privately printed memorial volume, entitled ‘Richard James Tipton’.