AIR FORCE BRAVERY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 72, 22 February 1940, Page 7

AIR FORCE BRAVERY.

AWARDS DISTRIBUTED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Feb. 20. The British Air Ministry announces awards of three Distinguished Servjce Orders, 16 Distinguished Flying Crosses and 14 Distinguished Flying Medals to members of the R.A.F., and one D.F.M. to a corporal of the Royal New Zealand Air Force; also 45 officers and 35 of other ranks receive special mentions in dispatches. The awards ' have been granted in respect of various types of operations and in some cases for conspicuously good work on a number of occasions.

Among the operations for which the awards have been granted are reconnaissance flights over various parts'of Germany, including Berlin, raids on Borkum, Brunsbuttcl, Heligoland, Wilhelmshavcn, and Schilling Roads, the destruction of enemy aircraft in various engagements, offensive and reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea and elsewhere, attacks on submarines, and various acts of individual bravery during actions. Wing-Commander William Ernest Staton, who is the first Great War pilot to win an award in the present conflict, gained the D.S.O. He brought down 28 ’planes, nine of them in five clays as a Royal Flying Corps lieutenant in 191 S, at the age of 17, and won the Military Cross and the Distinguished Flying Cross with a bar. Ho now commands a North of England bombing squadron with which he has made raids and reconnaissance flights over the North Sea.