Medals of Battle of Britain pilot shot down five times go on sale
MEDALS have emerged for sale of a Battle of Britain ace who survived being shot and forced down five times, only to die on a peacetime test flight.
Sqn Ldr Trevor “Wimpy” Wade destroyed up to 19 German planes, including three in one day in 1940.
In one crash-landing he was trapped upside down in wreckage on Lewes racecourse in East Sussex, fearing his Spitfire was about to explode.
Sq Ldr Wade, of 92 Squadron, survived the Second World War only to be killed in 1951 when the sole Hawker P1081 prototype jet fighter he was testing crashed near Ringmer, East Sussex. He was 31.
Weeks before he had confided in his friend Tony Bartley, a fellow member of The Few, that he had “lost his nerve”.
An unpublished letter from Flying Officer Bartley, who went on to be a Hollywood producer, is included in the auction. He wrote: “I told him to, for God sakes, quit while he was ahead. But he obviously disregarded my advice.”
Sq Ldr Wade’s seven medals, including his Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Force Cross, are being sold for a private collector by London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb. Mark Quayle, its medal specialist, said: “Wade was a pilot’s pilot and a member of what is recognised as one of the elite squadrons of the Battle of Britain.
“A Spitfire ace who survived multiple
dices with death during the war, but tragically succumbed to a peacetime test flight.”
Sq Ldr Wade had been born in Tonbridge, Kent, in 1920. He joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at 18 and was commissioned into the RAF in April 1940, marrying Josephine Gibbins four months later.
His first kill was a shared Junkers 88
on August 19 but his Spitfire was hit and he landed at Selsey,West Sussex.
His report reads: “Flames were coming from my engine and fumes filled my cockpit. I got out unhurt, and eventually the aircraft blew up.”
Between September 10 and October 29 1940 he destroyed or damaged 11 more German planes.
The medals are tipped to fetch up to £70,000 in the December 8 sale.