A fine collection of Awards to the Royal Naval Air Service, Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force 1914-18 (Part I) 902
The extremely rare and important Great War D.S.O. and Bar group of five awarded to Major A. M. Wilkinson, Royal Air Force, late Hampshire Regiment and Royal Flying Corps, who gained a total of 19 victories in D.H. 2s of No. 24 Squadron and Bristol Fighters of No. 48 Squadron, nine of them in “Bloody April” 1917 and at least four of these in a single day - statistics that made him only second to Albert Ball, V.C., in attaining a double figure score and being awarded a “Double D.S.O.”
DISTINGUISHED SERVICE ORDER, G.V.R., in silver-gilt and enamel, with Second Award Bar; BRITISH WAR AND VICTORY MEDALS, M. I.D. oak leaf (Major A. M. Wilkinson, R.F.C.); DEFENCE AND WAR MEDALS 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf, enamel slightly chipped on obverse wreath of the first, generally good very fine (5)
£18000-20000
Approximately 25 “Double D.S.Os” were awarded to pilots in the Great War, five of whom were also holders of the Victoria Cross.
D.S.O. London Gazette 20 October 1916:
‘For conspicuous gallantry and skill. He has shown great dash in attacking enemy machines, and, up to the end of August, he had accounted for five. On one occasion, while fighting a hostile machine, he was attacked from behind, but out manoeuvred the enemy and shot him down. Finally he got back, his machine much damaged by machine-gun fire.’
Bar to D.S.O. London Gazette 26 May 1917:
‘For great skill and gallantry. He came down to a low altitude and destroyed a hostile scout which was attacking one of our machines, the pilot of which had been wounded, thereby saving it. In one day he shot down and destroyed six hostile machines. He has destroyed eight hostile machines during the past ten days and has displayed exceptional skill and gallantry in leading offensive patrols.’
Alan Machin Wilkinson was born in Eastbourne, Sussex in November 1891 and was educated at Repton and Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a soccer Blue, and toured Argentina with the university side. Having then briefly been employed as a schoolmaster in Winchester, he was commissioned in the 9th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment (Territorial Force), on the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, but quickly transferred to the fledgling Royal Flying Corps and took his Aviator’s Certificate (No. 1398) in July 1915.
No. 24 Squadron
Going out to France with No. 24 Squadron in the Spring of 1916, he became one of the first pilots to fly fighting scouts in action, largely on the Somme front, and for a time at least, before higher authority intervened, had a second Lewis gun fitted to his D.H. 2 No. 5966 (a.k.a. “Wilkie’s Bus”). He also became one of the R.F.C’s first aces and for a period reigned as the highest scoring scout pilot, achievements that surely pleased his gallant C.O., Major Lanoe Hawker, V.C., D.S.O., who would be killed in action on a squadron sortie later in the year.
The first of Wilkinson’s numerous victims fell to his guns over Peronne early on the morning of 16 May, when he claimed a brace of enemy aircraft out of control within half an hour of each other. Then in the following month, on the 17th, he claimed a Fokker E and an Albatross C in combats over Miraumont and Grevillers, together with an Albatross C over Achiet le Grand on the 18th and a Fokker E over the Bapaume-Peronne Road on the 19th. As a result of one of these combats, his aircraft returned to base ‘riddled with bullets’ - he was recommended by Brigadier-General E. B. Ashmor, 4th Brigade, R.F.C., for the Military Cross and was advanced to Flight Commander, though in the event the former distinction was not forthcoming.
Slightly wounded in a combat over Coloncamps on 22 June, he nonetheless continued to raise his score, a Fokker E falling to his guns over Le Sars on the 19 July, and four more assorted enemy aircraft types over the Somme front in August, including a brace on the 31st, as recounted by Major Hawker in his subsequent combat report:
‘About 11 enemy aircraft were observed attacking three
F.Es and some B.E. 12s near Grevillers, but the de Havillands were underneath. Climbing, Captain Wilkinson attacked the nearest, a Roland, which was engaged with an F.E. He fired 50 rounds at about 80 yards and the enemy aircraft, leaving the F.E., dived east under the de Havilland. Captain Wilkinson followed, but was attacked from behind by another Roalnd. This he succeeded in outmanoeuvring by spiralling upwards, finally getting on the enemy aircraft’s tail, firing 40 rounds at about 80 yards. The enemy aircraft dived almost vertically, and was afterwards seen on the ground near Villers.
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