Revealed...story of RAF hero’s 200-mile dash to rescue bomber crew
THE gallantry medals of a courageous RAF officer who drove 200 miles behind enemy lines to rescue a crashed bomber and its crew have been put up for sale.
The Wellington was damaged and trapped in the North African desert in 1942 after a forced landing.
So Group Captain Clive Stanbury sprang into action, loaded a captured German lorry with a spare propeller and undercarriage parts and drove through the night deep into enemy territory to reach the stricken aircraft.
Gp Capt Stanbury and the bomber crew, who had been on a raid on Benghazi in Libya, carried out emergency repairs and managed to take off just as German soldiers closed in.
They then made it back safely to the Allied landing ground near El Alamein in Egypt. Gp Capt Stanbury had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross after completing 61 sorties and added the Distinguished Service Order for his heroics in Libya.
The citation for his DSO said he had “no regard for his personal safety and is always first to volunteer for hazardous tasks”. He later parachuted secret agents deep into Nazioccupied France from unmarked aircraft. At the end of the Second World War he was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for helping to liberate the country.
In 1953 he was honoured with the Air Force Cross for being the first British pilot to fly a Canberra jet bomber over the North Pole.
His medals are being sold on behalf of his family by auctioneers Charterhouse of Sherborne, Dorset, on June 22. The pre-sale estimated price is £30,000.
Gp Capt Stanbury, of Southall, Middlesex, joined the RAF aged 24 in 1939. He went on to fly Wellingtons, Halifaxes, Hurricanes, Mosquitoes, Lancasters and Spitfires.
He stayed in the RAF after the war and completed more than 3,600 flying hours in total. In 1963 he was made a CBE.
His three flight log books are part of the auction lot. It also includes letters of commendation and gratitude from senior British and American commanders in the war and photo albums include pictures of Winston Churchill visiting one of his stations.