A Collection of Medals to the North Staffordshire Regiment

An outstanding Great War C.M.G. group of nine awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel R. A. Bradley, Royal Air Force, late Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, North Staffordshire Regiment and Royal Flying Corps, who flew operationally as a pilot in France, Egypt and Mesopotamia, including in support of the relief of Kut operations, prior to being appointed C.O. of the R.A.F. in Mesopotamia and Persia 1918-19

The Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George, C.M.G., Companion’s neck badge, silver-gilt and enamel; Queen’s South Africa 1899-1902, 4 clasps, Modder River, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Transvaal (Lieut. R. A. Bradley, N. Staff. Rgt.); King’s South Africa 1899-1902, 2 clasps, South Africa 1901, South Africa 1902 (Lt. R. A. Bradley, N. Staff. Rgt.); Africa General Service 1902-56, 1 clasp, S. Nigeria 1902-03 (Lieut. R. A. Bradley, S.N. Regt.); 1914-15 Star (Major R. A. Bradley, N. Staff. R.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. R. A. Bradley, R.A.F.); Defence and War Medals 1939-45, cleaned and lacquered, enamel damage to blue wreaths on the first, edge bruising and contact marks, otherwise generally very fine or better (9) £3000-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Medals to the North Staffordshire Regiment.

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C.M.G. London Gazette 3 June 1919.

Robert Anstruther Bradley was born in Malta in February 1879, eldest son of Brigadier-General C. E. Bradley, C.B., who onetime commanded the North Staffordshire Regiment.

On the outbreak of the Boer War, young Robert ran away from home and enlisted in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, seeing action at Modder River, Paardeberg, Poplar Grove and Driefontein. He was subsequently commissioned in the North Staffordshire Regiment in January 1901 and served in the 2nd Battalion in the operations in Cape Colony until May 1902, including time in the Mounted Infantry (Queen’s Medal & 4 clasps; King’s Medal & 2 clasps).

In January 1903, Bradley was seconded to the West African Field Force and quickly found himself on active service, attached to the South Nigeria Regiment in Colonel A. F. Montanaro’s punitive expedition against the Uris and Omonoha (Medal & clasp). He was advanced to Lieutenant in February 1904.

Bradley was embarked for service in the 1st Battalion in France in December 1914 but was evacuated home a few days later with influenza.

Kut

Shortly afterwards he was seconded to the Royal Flying Corps, taking his aviator’s certificate (No. 1237) in May 1915. Posted to No. 30 Squadron in Mesopotamia that September, he was quickly in action in the unit’s B.E. 2s, flying as a Flight Commander in bombing and reconnaissance sorties, in addition to vital supply missions to Kut in March-April 1916.

The latter activity was conducted under the auspices of Major Broke-Smith, his ‘air force’ by now comprising just eight B.E. 2s, one Voisin, one Henri Farman and four Short Seaplanes. The extraordinary efforts made by him and his fellow pilots - including Bradley - are the subject of the following tribute from Millar’s Kut: Death of an Army:

‘Broke-Smith's mechanics set about fitting food racks to the aircraft. The B.E. 2c's carried a fifty-pound bag, lying fore and aft, on each lower wing, resting against the fuselage. Underneath the aircraft, lying between the wheel chasis struts where the bomb rack was normally fitted, were two twenty-five-pound bags. These were slung over a metal bar, pivoted at one end and secured by a removable pin at the other. The pilot could withdraw the pin and release the load from inside his cockpit. The Voisin, Henri Farman and the Short seaplanes each carried a 250-pound load secured below the fuselage by a similar arrangement.

As the pilots waited for the weather to change at their airfield at Ali Gharbi they had their own misgivings about the air drop. The weight of the supplies made it necessary for the aircraft to be flown without observers and their defensive Lewis machine-guns, making an encounter with the enemy force of three fast heavily-armed Fokkers extremely undesirable. The only defensive weapon allowed the pilot was a revolver.

15 April 1916 dawned perfectly. The rain had ceased and the clouds had sped away to the north-east. Just a faint breeze ruffled the palms at Kut. The convalescent British and Indian troops at the serai dozed on their blankets and picked lice. The active soldiers stood in their water-filled trenches in bare feet. A row of drying boots and socks appeared along the parapets of the fire trenches. The men leaned listlessly against the earth walls, searching for lice, seldom speaking. Even the sergeants seemed to have lost heart. A thousand yards away across the flooded land the Turks were silent too. The Anatolians had completed their digging and were dozing in the sun. In just over four months they had dug thirty-one miles of trenches around Kut. At first there was a single rifle shot, then a crackle and then an avalanche of fire from the Turkish entrenchments. Whistles shrilled in the British trenches, the men knocked their drying clothing from the parapets into the muddy water. It was thought the long-awaited enemy infantry assault had come at last. The British and Indian soldiers stared through their loop-holes. The long-silent Turkish artillery opened up with vigour. Strangely, something seemed wrong; few shells were falling in or near Kut. Then over the tumult came the drone of aircraft engines. Studding the blue sky was Broke-Smith's crazy squadron.

The patients at the serai, ignoring the few shots from the equally amazed snipers, shouted in glee and pointed skywards. From the leading aeroplane, a Farman, came a tiny speck, turning over and over, getting larger and larger. A faint white plume of flour followed its descent. The bag landed with a 'whump' near the Brick Kilns. The air drop had begun. On the first day 3,350 pounds of supplies thudded into Kut but the furious Turkish cannonade kept the aircraft at 6,000 feet, making accurate drops difficult. The following day only 1,333 pounds were collected. To the chagrin of the hungry watchers many sacks of supplies dropped into the Tigris, on the Turkish side of the river and even as far away as the Turkish lines. The troops, unable to appreciate the difficulty of obtaining accuracy from that height with the pilots having to operate the makeshift release equipment and fly the aircraft at the same time, complained bitterly. The main target of their abuse was the naval pilots in the short aeroplanes who seemed to make a large number of 'boss shots' as the inaccurate drops were called.’

By the end of April, Bradley and his fellow aviators had flown 140 missions and dropped 19,000lbs. of food and supplies.

Senior command

He was embarked for the home establishment in the following month, where he was appointed a Squadron Commander and joined No. 52 Squadron, an Army co-operation unit which was deployed to France that November; so, too, No. 48 Squadron, which was re-equipping with Bristol’s new two-seater scout, the F.2a.

Having then been appointed to a brace of reserve units, Bradley was ordered back to Mesopotamia in November 1917, where he took command of No. 63 Squadron and remained similarly employed until May 1918. He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 12 January 1918, refers).

Thereafter, until the war’s end, he commanded the R.A.F. in Persia and Mespotamia in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He received a further “mention” (London Gazette 7 February 1919, refers), and was awarded the C.M.G.

Having retired to France in the interim, Bradley came home on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939 and - at the age of 60 - joined up in the Home Guard. He died at Cheltenham in June 1965; sold with copied research.