Beschreibung:

The John Chidzey Collection A rare Second World War M.B.E., D.S.C. group of five awarded to Commander N. K. Cambell, Royal Navy, a Fleet Air Arm pilot who was decorated for his gallant deeds in Swordfish operating out of Malta up until his capture after ditching off North Africa in May 1941: his subsequent work in sending back valuable coded messages to the U.K. from assorted P.O.W. camps in Italy and Germany resulted in the award of his M.B.E. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type breast badge; Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1941’, hallmarks for London 1940; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, mounted as worn, good very fine (5) £4000-5000 Footnote Provenance: an original accompanying letter from the recipient to John Chidzey, dated 29 February 1980, states, ‘We had some correspondence three or four years ago after you had purchased my medals from Rothery’s’; see below, too, further accompanying correspondence and the recipient’s hand written memoir. M.B.E. London Gazette 19 February 1946: ‘For outstanding services whilst a Prisoner of War.’ D.S.C. London Gazette 12 August 1941. Neville Kenneth Cambell entered the Royal Navy as a cadet at Dartmouth in 1925, among his fellow students being Guy Burgess, afterwards the infamous spy - ‘He was a most amusing person. I had been at Prep School in Southsea with him’ (Cambell’s hand written memoirs refers). Appointed a Midshipman in May 1929, after serving in the mighty Hood, and in common with his brothers, Dennis and Brian, he afterwards opted for pilot training, and was posted to R.A.F. Leuchars in September 1933. Duly qualified, and advanced to Lieutenant, he joined the carrier Courageous in May of the following year, flying Fairey Seals, and, in 1936, joined the Cumberland off China, flying Walrus aircraft - here, then, the occasion that he ‘walked through an armed Chinese camp at 2 o’clock in the morning, in a dinner jacket, with my hands above my head’ (his memoirs refer). By the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, however, Cambell was serving aboard the carrier Argus and, with the entry of Italy into the War, he was ordered to join No. 830 Squadron, a Swordfish unit based at Hal Far, Malta, in the summer of 1940 - ‘Soon after getting to Malta, we did a raid on Augusta and then one on the airfield at Catonia but as these produced even more raids on Malta (with only the three Gladiators Faith, Hope and Glory to oppose them), it was decided to stop and instead we carried out sea searches hoping to come across some Italian warships.’ Cambell continues: ‘At the start of 1941, we were allowed to become more aggressive and went to attack shipping in Palermo, Sicily; a memorable flight. We went round the coast to get there but came back across the island in brilliant moonlight and still air; it was really most exhilarating. Sunderlands were operating from Kalafeona in Malta and did recces and one day spotted a convoy of three ships travelling south off the coast of Tunisia - between Sfax and the island of Lampedusa. We took four Swordfish - I was leading with two bombs the others had torpedoes - and we found the convoy and sank one ship. It was then decided we should do sweeps along this convoy route which was also being watched by submarines. Having no fighter cover we flew at night and because the majority of the aircraft - in fact I think all except mine - had no artificial horizon instruments (and were equipped with little more than aircraft were in the 1920s), we only flew during periods of moon rise. We also did a raid on Tripoli (Libya), where most of the convoys went. So our programme then became searching for convoys or dropping mines in the entrance of Tripoli harbour. For the latter I used to fly behind the harbour at three or four thousand feet and drop flares, and the others came in from the sea to drop their mines. The excitable Italians opened up a sizeable barrage, mainly