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| Signatures on this item | |
| *The value given for each signature has been calculated by us based on the historical significance and rarity of the signature. Values of many pilot signatures have risen in recent years and will likely continue to rise as they become more and more rare. | |
| Name | Info |
  Air Chief Marshal Sir Lewis Hodges KCB CBE DSO DFC* (deceased) *Signature Value : £45 | Lewis Hodges flew with 49 Sqn from June 1940 until he was shot down over occupied France in Sept 1940 and taken prisoner by the Vichy French. He managed to escape and made his way back to England, rejoining 49 Sqn. He took part in the attacks against the German Channel dash operation in Feb 1942. In Nov of that year he joined 161 (Special Duties) Sqn, flying Halifaxes, Lysanders and Hudsons landing and parachuting agents into German occupied territory. Among the people he brought out of France were two future Presidents - Vincent Auriol and Francois Mitterand. He died 4th January 2007. |
| Captain George Millar, D.S.O., M.C. (deceased) *Signature Value : £25 | George Reid Millar, was born on September 19 1910 near Glasgow, Scotland. In June 1941 Millar landed in Egypt with the 1st Battalion the Rifle Brigade and crossed Libya to the Tripolitanian frontier. His scout platoon was captured by the Germans in January 1942 while on patrolling duties and he was taken to Rommels HQ. After interrogation, he met Rommel who told him that he had no option but to hand him over to the Italians. Millar was sent to Campo 66 at Capua before being transferred to a Carthusian monastery at Padula. He made several attempts to escape, and was sent to Campo 5 at Gavi, a high-security PoW camp where Colonel David Stirling was a fellow inmate. In September 1943 and after the Italian Armistice George Millar along with other PoWs were loaded into trucks and moved north. Shortly after a change of trains in Germany, he and a burly comrade, Wally Binns, went to the lavatory together - Millar crawling between Binnss legs to escape detection. Once inside, Binns tore out the window frame and both men threw themselves out. Millar and Binns went to Munich, where they made contact with some Frenchmen who were doing forced labour at the main railway station. They concealed Millar and Binns in a goods train for about 60 hours until they were approaching Strasbourg. in the marshalling yards the two men jumped out of the train. In Strasbourg, he made contact with the local escape organisation, which supplied him with false papers in the name of Georges Millard, a house-painter. He lived in a cafe among the underworld until he was smuggled across the border into France, where he made his way to Paris and then Lyon, where there was a strong resistance movement. Millar worked in a black market restaurant in Lyon as a deaf and dumb waiter until, at the end of November, he moved to Annecy, where he lived in a maison de rendezvous. He then hid up in a safe house at Perpignan and, after two failed attempts, in December 1943 he crossed the Pyrenees with a number of American airmen and reached Barcelona. After returning to England, he was subjected to a rigorous de-briefing for three days by MI5 and MI9, the escape organisation. To them his escape from the middle of Germany seemed little short of miraculous, and they had to satisfy themselves that the Germans had not captured him and he was a double agent. He was awarded the MC. Parachuted secretly into France as an SOE agent on 1st June 1944. He was dropped north of Dijon to organise and train local Resistance groups to harass the enemy in support of the forthcoming D-Day landings in Normandy. His incredible book, Maquis, tells of their many daring exploits which included the destruction of the giant railway turn-tables on the important rail junction at Besancon. He vividly describes his day to day survival and the disruptive operations carried out on the German supply lines. He also depicts with understanding the characters of the ordinary men and women of the French Resistance who selflessly served with him to play their heroic part in the final liberation of France. Emile and his Maquis are still remembered in the quiet villages of the Ognon Valley. He died 15th January 2005. |
 Captain Murray Anderson DFC* (deceased) *Signature Value : £20 | Commissioned in the Royal Tank Regiment from RMA Woolwich in 1939, Murray Anderson was seconded to the Royal Air Force in 1940. He flew Spitfires with No.1 Photo Reconnaissance Unit at RAF Benson until 1943. He then joined 161 (Special Duties) Squadron flying Lysanders, and was the most successful pick up pilot for the whole of that year even though in May 1944 he was posted to 65 Squadron 2nd Tactical Air Force, flying Mustangs. After a rest period he was posted to 52 Sqn at Dum Dum in May 1945. Murray Anderson died in April 2016. |
| Donald Dunstan *Signature Value : £15 | Trained as Flight Mechanic working on Fairy Battles then transferred to 103 Squadron, Bomber Command on Wellingtons. After a Fitter 2E course he joined 161 Squadron at Tempsford with their Lysanders. During the 'Moon Period' often working at Tangmere. He serviced the aircraft of Wing Commanders Pickard and Hodges. |
 Flight Lieutenant Peter Arkell (deceased) *Signature Value : £45 | For his first tour Peter flew Mustangs and Spitfires with 26 Squadron on intruder and low lever photographic sorties over France, before joining 161 Squadron as Tempsford in 1944, flying Lysanders into occupied Europe. He then accompanied the Lysanders to Burma where he flew 35 successful but hazardous missions supplying Force 136 behind the Japanese lines. He was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 1997 for his work as chairman of the Anglo-American community relations committee at RAF Fairford. Peter Arkell passed away on 27th August 2010. |
  Flight Lieutenant R G (Bob) Large, DFC, Legion d Honneur (deceased) *Signature Value : £25 | Learned to fly in Scotland in 1940 and in 1941 joined 616 Squadron as part of the Tangmere Wing, commanded by the famous legless pilot Wing Commander Douglas Bader. The Squadron flew Fighter and Bomber sweeps over Northern France. The remains of Bobs Spitfire lie at the bottom of the sea ten miles off Hythe (where he now lives) after being bounced by eighty plus ME 109Gs over the English Channel. Having learned of the activities of 161 SD Squadron he was interviewed by the CO, Wing Commander Lewis Hodges, and joined the Lysander Flight. He then flew many important missions into occupied France in single, double and a memorable treble pickup when his excuse for being late at the rendezvous was that he had had a haircut in the firms time because it grew in the firms time! After D-Day he returned to Fighter Command and later flew Meteors. (Bobs dog, Patrick, became the first dog in the Allied Forces to fly in a jet which took place in a Meteor 3 on 11th May 1946 and is now recorded in the Guinness Book of Records!) We have learned that Bob Large died on 29th December 2015. |
| Flying Officer J A Tommy Thomas *Signature Value : £20 | Trained in 1941/2 as a winch operator on Fairy Battles and Lysanders, target towing for Spitfire OUT. In 1942 Tommy remustered as Air Gunner and in 1943 he joined 161Special Duties Squadron at Tempsford on Halifaxes B flight, He later detached to A flight on Hudsons and Lysanders for mail pick-up duties. His training and quick thinking saved him and Bob Large when on one memorable flight Tommy reacted instantly to a tow wire fouling the elevators of their Lysander. Between July 43 and July 45 he completed 33 Ops. out of Tempsford and Tangmere. |
| Major E H Van Maurik *Signature Value : £20 | Trained SOE agents in sabotage, use of weapons and survival. Accompanied agents to Tangmere for their flights by Lysander to and from occupied France. In January 1944 parachuted in to the Maquis de l'Ain to verify their readiness for combat when the invasion of Europe took place. Smuggled himself into Switzerland to send his report back to SOE in London. 'The longest telegram ever'. |
 Nancy Wake (deceased) *Signature Value : £30 | The most decorated servicewoman of WW2, Nancy(Codename- Helene) organised an escape route over the Pyrenees before she was forced to use it herself. Following training with SOE, she returned to France to organise her own Resistance Group in the Auvergne. Involved in many dangerous subversive missions, she won the everlasting respect of 3500 members of her Maquis. November 1939 - Wake married Henri Fiocca, a French businessman. 1940 - 1942 - Nancy Wake and Henri Fiocca joined the French Resistance. Nancy Wake worked manning the dangerous escape routes through France helping to save the lives of many Allied troops and Jewish refugees. She was given her code name 'The White Mouse' by the Gestapo. 1943 - Wake became one of the Gestapos most wanted resistance leaders and Wake was forced to flee France. June 1943 - Wake arrived in England where after convincing the British Government to train her as a professional spy she began work in the French Section of the Special Operations Executive. August 1943 - Henri Fiocca was killed by the Gestapo, a fact Nancy did not discover until the liberation of france from the German invasion. April 1944 - Wake and another member of the Special Operations Executive were parachuted into the Auvergne region in central France where they worked to distribute weapons among the resistance fighters in hiding in the mountains before D-Day. September 1944 - Wake left the Resistance and went to Special Operations Executive Headquarters in Paris. October 1944 - Went to Special Operations Executive Headquarters in London. 17th July 1945 - Awarded George Medal (GM). 1949 - Wake later returned to England where she married John Forward a RAF officer. 1957 - Returned to Australia. Settled in Port MacQuarie with her husband. 6th December 2006 - Wake returned to England. Sadly, we have learned that Nancy Wake passed away on 7th August 2011. |
| The Aircraft : | |
| Name | Info |
| Lysander | The first Lysanders entered service in June 1938, equipping squadrons for army co-operation and were initially used for message-dropping and artillery spotting. When war broke out in Europe, the earlier Mk Is had been largely replaced by Mk IIs, the older machines heading for the Middle East. Some of these aircraft, now designated type L.1, operated with the Chindits of the British Indian Army in the Burma Campaign of the Second World War. Four regular squadrons equipped with Lysanders accompanied the British Expeditionary Force to France in October 1939, and were joined by a further squadron early in 1940. Following the German invasion of France and the low countries on 10 May 1940, the Lysanders were put into action as spotters and light bombers. In spite of occasional victories against German aircraft, they made very easy targets for the Luftwaffe even when escorted by Hurricanes. Withdrawn from France during the Dunkirk evacuation, they continued to fly supply-dropping missions to Allied forces from bases in England; on one mission to drop supplies to troops trapped at Calais, 14 of 16 Lysanders and Hawker Hectors that set out were lost. 118 Lysanders were lost in or over France and Belgium in May and June 1940, of a total of 175 deployed. With the fall of France, it was clear that the type was unsuitable for the coastal patrol and army co-operation role, being described by Air Marshal Arthur Barratt, commander-in-chief of the British Air Forces in France as "quite unsuited to the task; a faster, less vulnerable aircraft was required." Nevertheless, throughout the remainder of 1940, Lysanders flew dawn and dusk patrols off the coast and in the event of an invasion of Britain, they were tasked with attacking the landing beaches with light bombs and machine guns.[9] They were replaced in the home-based army co-operation role from 1941 by camera-equipped fighters such as the Curtiss Tomahawk and North American Mustang carrying out reconnaissance operations, while light aircraft such as the Taylorcraft Auster were used to direct artillery. Some UK-based Lysanders went to work operating air-sea rescue, dropping dinghies to downed RAF aircrew in the English Channel. Fourteen squadrons and flights were formed for this role in 1940 and 1941. In August 1941 a new squadron, No. 138 (Special Duties), was formed to undertake missions for the Special Operations Executive to maintain clandestine contact with the French Resistance. Among its aircraft were Lysander Mk IIIs, which flew over and landed in occupied France. While general supply drops could be left to the rest of No. 138's aircraft, the Lysander could insert and remove agents from the continent or retrieve Allied aircrew who had been shot down over occupied territory and had evaded capture. For this role the Mk IIIs were fitted with a fixed ladder over the port side to hasten access to the rear cockpit and a large drop tank under the belly. In order to slip in unobtrusively the Lysanders were painted matte black; operations almost always took place within a week of a full moon, as moonlight was essential for navigation. The aircraft undertook such duties until the liberation of France in 1944. The Lysanders flew from secret airfields at Newmarket and later Tempsford, but used regular RAF stations to fuel-up for the actual crossing, particularly RAF Tangmere. Flying without any navigation equipment other than a map and compass, Lysanders would land on short strips of land, such as fields, marked out by four or five torches. They were originally designed to carry one passenger in the rear cockpit, but for SOE use the rear cockpit was modified to carry two passengers in extreme discomfort in case of urgent necessity. The pilots of No. 138 and from early 1942, No. 161 Squadron transported 101 agents to and recovered 128 agents from Nazi-occupied Europe. The Germans knew little about the British aircraft and wished to study one. Soldiers captured an intact Lysander in March 1942 when its pilot was unable to destroy it after a crash, but a train hit the truck carrying the Lysander, destroying the cargo |
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Hodges, Lewis 
