The highly emotive Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot's campaign group of three awarded to...

The highly emotive Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot’s campaign group of three awarded to Pilot Officer W. H. G. ‘Scotty’ Gordon, 234 Squadron, Royal Air Force, who shot down at least one enemy aircraft, and shared one enemy aircraft probably destroyed during the height of the Battle - only to succumb to the guns of a German ‘Ace’, whilst trying to fend off the attack of three enemy fighters over Beachy Head on 6 September 1940. His remains were believed to be retrieved from the wreckage of his Spitfire in Sussex shortly after the crash, and buried by his family in Scotland. Permission was gained for the site to be excavated again in 2003, and amongst the surviving wreckage of the aircraft were the remains and most of the named uniform belonging to William Gordon - he was finally laid to rest some 63 years after his death 1939-45 Star, 1 clasp, Battle of Britain; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, with named Air Council enclosure and ‘ticker tape’ entitlement slip, in card box of issue, addressed to ‘Major W. Gordon, D.S.O., M.C., St. Mary’s, Duffton, Banffshire’, nearly extremely fine (lot) £5,000-£7,000 --- William Hugh Gibson Gordon was born in Aberdeen in 1920, and was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel William Gordon, D.S.O., M.C. [whose medals were sold in these rooms in April 2003]. Gordon was educated at Mortlach Primary School, and joined the Royal Air Force on a short service commission in 1939. He carried his initial training as pilot at No. 6 F.T.S., Little Rissington, between May and November 1939, and was posted as a Pilot Officer to the recently reformed 234 Squadron at Leconfield in November 1939. The Squadron began to re-equip with Spitfires in March 1940, and became operational on 8 May 1940. Gordon moved with the Squadron to St. Eval, Cornwall, on 16 June 1940, and became actively engaged during the Battle of Britain. Gordon shared in the probable destruction of a Ju.88 on 12 July 1940, when the latter ‘dropped bombs on the aerodrome it was immediately engaged by P/O Lawrence and P/O Gordon, chased out to sea and damaged.’ (Squadron’s Operations Record Book refers) Gordon was involved in multiple daily patrols and interceptions over Devon and Cornwall throughout July and August 1940. He moved with the Squadron to Middle Wallop, Hampshire, on 14 August 1940. Gordon was involved in an inclusive combat four days later: ‘I was in Yellow section in squadron formation proceeding South over Isle of Wight when we met about twenty aircraft - Me.109’s at 1430 hrs. on 18/8/40. We went into the attack and on approaching to within 150 yards of one enemy aircraft I gave him a burst of three seconds. I saw bits fall from his machine. On being attacked myself I broke away violently. I remained on patrol but did not engage again.’ (Recipient’s Combat Report refers). Gordon shot down a Me. 109E of 6/JG2 piloted by Feldwebel Gerhardt Ebus, 24 August 1940. The Squadron’s Operations Record Book gives the following for that date: ‘One interception scramble by 12 aircraft to raid approaching Portsmouth. S/Ldr O’Brien destroyed 1 Me. 109, P/O Gordon destroyed 1 Me. 109, P/O Olenski claimed 1 Me. 109 as probable. P/O Lawrence damaged 1 Me. 110.’ A witness of Gordon’s combat, over the Isle of Wight, was reported thus by the Isle of Wight Chronicle: ‘I first saw the Messerschmitt just as the fighter had got on its tail and was pumping tracer into it. The next moment the Nazi plane went into a steep dive and there was a tiny puff of white as the pilot baled out.... The Messerschmitt came screaming down from a tremendous height. It crashed into a thickly wooded copse within 500 yds of where I stood [in Shanklin Chine]. Members of the Home Guard and Military rushed up. All of us were mystified at the uncanny silence which reined immediately after the plane crashed through the tree tops. A column of smoke guided us to the spot and a fantastic scene provided explanation to the mystery. A few fragments of tail and wings were all that remained above the ground. The fuselage and most of the wings and tail had plunged headlong into a disused well. The force of the impact with the well rim must have crushed the wings in against the body, as there was no sign of any of the main structure of the plane beyond the part of the tail which bore the swastika. Flames and black smoke vomited from the well and twice the ground shook beneath our feet as explosions rumbled far below... An officer arrived and to him a policeman handed over the grotesque crumpled fragment carrying the swastika...’ Gordon’s luck, however, was to shortly run out. He was shot down and killed whilst flying Spitfire I X4035 ‘G’, by an Me.109 over Hadlow Down, Sussex, at 9.10am on 6 September 1940. Gordon piloted one of 12 Spitfires that engaged an enemy formation sighted off Beachy Head near Eastbourne. Initially thought to be only six enemy aircraft, the force turned out to be part of a much larger force escorting a formation of Dornier bombers. Gordon was apparently shot down whilst trying to engage three enemy fighters, and after the War, records indicated that there was a strong possibility that he fell under the guns of the German Ace and Knights Cross holder Gustav Sprick. Regardless of the above - Pilot Officer Gordon’s remains were supposedly recovered at the time from the crash site: ‘When Amalia and Linda [relatives of William Rhodes-Moorhouse, D.F.C. - looking for his body] had discounted and left the crash site at Howbourne Farm, near Hadlow Down, they could not have known that the family of its pilot were also engaged in a similar quest for a lost loved one. Pilot Officer William Gordon came from a well known distilling family and his kin travelled from Scotland to find news of their missing son who had been lost in 234 Squadron Spitfire - also on 6 September 1940. Whatever the trail was that led them to Howbourne Farm we cannot now be certain. However, suffice to say that it ultimately led to the realisation that their missing son was still trapped in the buried wreck of his Spitfire. By good fortune it turned out that civil engineering contractors, Messrs Mowlems, were engaged on government work in the adjacent fields constructing anti-invasion measures such as pill boxes and tank traps. On site with them was a drag line excavator and the machine was quickly put to work extricating the wreckage. Sure enough, the sad remains of Bill ‘Scotty’ Gordon were extricated with the wreck of his aeroplane and he was ultimately laid to rest in the parish church at Mortlach in Banff, Scotland.’ (Finding The Few, by A. Saunders refers) Despite the Army and the RAF spending approximately 10 days excavating the crash site in 1940, it appeared many years later that all was not as it seemed. Permission was gained for the site to be excavated again in 2003, and amongst the surviving wreckage of the aircraft were the remains and most of the named uniform belonging to William Gordon. Ultimately this led to an exhumation of the original grave, and a reburial including the extant remains. This was carried out with full military honours for a second time on 26 June 2003. Sold with the following contemporary items: Commission appointing William Hugh Gibson Gordon as Acting Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force, 13 May 1939, in OHMS delivery tube addressed to ‘Pilot Officer W. H. G. Gordon, No. 234 Squadron, Royal Air Force, Leconfield, Beverley, Yorks’, dated 11 March 1940; Buckingham Palace condolence enclosure, this framed and glazed; a copy of The History Of British Aviation 1908 - 1914, by R. Dallas Brett, insid...