Beschreibung:

A superb Second War escaper’s M.C. group of four awarded to Warrant Officer S. K. Gordon-Powell, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, who, on the occasion that his Halifax was shot down by Germany’s top scoring night-fighter ace, Leutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, over Belgium in June 1943, was fortunate to survive - evading capture until betrayed in Paris and imprisoned in Stalag IVB. After five escape attempts and the threat of execution if caught once more, he immediately began plans for his sixth - a successful bid for freedom via Berlin and occupied Denmark in March 1945 Military Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1946’, and additionally engraved ‘W/O 1332785 S. K. Gordon Powell 35 Sqdn RAF’, in Royal Mint case of issue; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45; together with the related miniature awards, good very fine (4) £1,800-£2,200 Footnote Just 68 Military Crosses (and one Second Award Bar) were awarded to Royal Air Force personnel in the Second World War. M.C. London Gazette 8 March 1946: ‘On the night of 28th June, 1943, Warrant Officer Gordon-Powell was the navigator of a bomber aircraft that was shot down over Liege. He at once took steps to evade capture and joined up with some members of an underground movement who attempted to take him to Bordeaux. Whilst passing through Paris, the party was ambushed and Warrant Officer Gordon-Powell was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Stalag IVB. During his captivity, covering a period of nearly two years, he made several attempts to escape. On four occasions he managed to travel some miles from the camp and only by experiencing bad luck was he recaptured. His fifth effort was made in company with another prisoner in January, 1945. Both managed to reach Berlin, having secured civilian clothing and, posing as French workers, they ultimately reached the Danish frontier where, owing to a dense blizzard, they inadvertently walked into a German customs guard who arrested them. Warrant Officer Gordon-Powell was sent back to Stalag IVB where he was told that if he attempted to escape again he would be shot. In spite of this threat, he made a sixth effort on 21st March, 1945. With the same companion who accompanied him on the previous attempt, he again reached Berlin. Here the two escapers made contact with a Dutch doctor who fed and hid them for two days. Both subsequently travelled by train to the Danish frontier which they crossed by wading through a swamp which almost enveloped them. After walking some miles into Denmark they sought refuge with a resistance movement the members of which facilitated their passage to Sweden. Both reached Helsingborg where they were met by the Danish Vice-Consul who arranged for their journey to Stockholm in April, 1945.’ Stanley Kiran Gordon-Powell was born in Foxford, County Mayo, Ireland in 1923, of an Irish mother and an English Father, who was awarded an M.C. at Gallipoli with the Royal Artillery. Educated at Stonyhurst College, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve on 3 February 1941 and was posted to Canada and, subsequently, Maxwell Field, Alabama where he qualified as an Air Navigator on 27 September 1942. He joined No. 10 Squadron, based at R.A.F. Melbourne, Yorkshire, in the rank of Flight Sergeant, on 24 March 1943, completing eleven sorties over Germany as a Navigator before being transferred in June 1943, with his crew, to No. 35 (Madras Presidency) Squadron, a Pathfinder unit. After completing a further four successful bombing raids with his new squadron, Gordon-Powell departed from R.A.F. Graveley in Cambridgeshire on the night of 28 June 1943, in Halifax HR812, detailed to bomb and drop marking flares on Cologne. Shot down, 7km north-east of Liege, by German night fighter ace Leutnant Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer’s Messerschmidt Bf 110, he managed to bale out at an altitude of almost 10000ft. Gordon-Powell was one of three out of a crew of seven to survive. Schnaufer was the highest scoring night f