Other Properties - Australian Groups

Lot 4085    SESSION 10 (9.30AM FRIDAY 27TH NOVEMBER)    Other Properties - Australian Groups

Estimate $25,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $31,000

DFM AND BAR GROUP OF EIGHT: Distinguished Flying Medal (GVIR) with Bar; 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; Africa Star; Pacific Star; War Medal 1939-45; Australia Service Medal 1939-45; Bomber Command Medal 1985. AUS 404005. Sgt. F. L. Curr. R.A.A.F. on first medal, 404005 Curr F.L. on second to seventh medals, last medal unnamed. All named medals engraved. Mounted for display, the Bar to the DFM is a replacement copy and the second to seventh medals are official replacements (see note below), otherwise toned good very fine - extremely fine.

Only 2 awards of the DFM and Bar to Australians.

Together with Pathfinder badge; aluminium dog tags (2, one round, one hexagonal), the latter fitted with a wrist chain, both with his details impressed on one side and scratched on reverse is his name again but with his previous RAAF Citizen Air Force No. A4005.

Note: With copies of correspondence from Curr's Service File showing that replacement service medals were issued officially to his brother who was in possession of F.L.Curr's original DFM but without the Bar.

DFM: LG 2/10/1942, p4274 to 404005 Flight Sergeant Francis Lawrence Curr 5Sqn (RAF) (note name on Promulgation Notice incorrectly recorded as Francis Laurence Curr). Insignia presented by HM The King at Buckingham Palace, London on 21Nov1942.

Citation: This captain of aircraft has completed numerous operational sorties. In each case, Sergeant Curr has pressed home his attacks from a low level to ensure success. His courage and energetic devotion to duty have been an example to others and are worthy of the highest praise.

Bar to DFM: LG 9/2/1943, p702; CAG 18/2/1943, p469 to 404005 Flight Sergeant Francis Lawrence Curr 156Sqn (RAF). Forwarded to The Governor of Queensland and subsequently forwarded to F.C.Curr Esq. (Father).

Citation: This airman has completed a large number of operational flights in the course of which he has invariably displayed the greatest keenness and courage. Since he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal he has participated most creditably in raids over Germany and Italy giving evidence of utter fearlessness and determination in reaching and bombing his target whatever the opposition.

Francis Lawrence Curr, jackeroo and also studying accountancy, age 19 at Brisbane, Qld; Enl.26Apr1940 as AC2, LAC 27May1940, Sergt (T) 17Dec1940, F/Sgt (T) 01Sep1941, WOff 01Mar1942; mustering as Air Crew 27May1940 and Airman Pilot 17Dec1940; Emb.03Feb1941 after completing various training courses for service in Middle East; granted a commission as Pilot Officer 18Oct1942 and Flying Officer 18Apr1943; duties as Pathfinder 19Mar1943.

Extracts from Curr's Flying Log Book as recorded in his Service File show he served with 38Sqn in Middle East flying Wellingtons 26Apr-27Dec1941; 1483Flt in Wellingtons 28Jul1942 Hamburg, 31Jul1942 Dusseldorf; 75Sqn flying Wellingtons in 19 ops over Europe 27Aug-24Oct1942; 156Sqn flying Wellingtons in 7 ops over Europe 27Nov1942-14Feb1943; 33Sqn flying C47s as a Transport Captain in New Guinea 27Mar-30Jul1944.

Flying Officer Curr was flying a non-operational Tiger Moth flight from 33Sqn, Milne Bay between Daru at Papua and Horn Island with Army Warrant Officer II N.D.Kellas (VX75426) of ANGAU (Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit) as a passenger when the aircraft and both men vanished without trace on the night of 24 September 1944, both men presumed dead. It was noted that the aircraft had been delayed due to a serviceability problem, and it had no flotation gear and only one parachute. Flying Officer Curr's family, with the approval of the Australian Prime Minister, offered a five hundred pounds reward to anyone who located his body but it was never found. Both men are commemorated at the Port Moresby Memorial, PNG.

After Flt Sgt Curr was awarded the DFM, the following was reported in The Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld) on 27 October 1942, p4.

'Flight-Sergeant Frank Curr, RAAF, who is attached to a New Zealand Wellington bomber squadron, has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal. He has carried out 64 raids, 50 of them in the Middle East, has sunk three ships, and has once bombed Naples.

Flight-Sergeant Curr was awarded the DFM after a raid on Frankfurt, when only two aircraft bombed the target. He went down to 1,300 feet to release his bombs. Flak hit the tailplane of the fuselage, putting the hydraulic landing gear out of action, but he got back to the home base, where he crash-landed successfully. He is the son of Mr and Mrs F.C.Curr, Corinda.'

Then, after he was awarded a Bar to his DFM, the following was reported in the Truth (Brisbane, Qld) on Sunday 28 February 1943, p9.

'LONDON, Saturday. - You've heard of Pilot-Officer "Screwball" Buerling, D.S.O., D.F.C., D.F.M., famous Canadian fighter ace, who shot down, some 28 Jerry kites over Malta. But maybe you don't know that the Bomber Command has its own "Buerling" also; he is Warrant-Officer Francis Lawrence Kerr (sic), D.F.M. and Bar, of Toowoomba. Kerr's (sic) record is outstanding. Like Buerling, he is no spick and span, immaculately dressed pilot, who looks as if he's just walked out of a tailor's shop, but is a somewhat untidy individual, with the same disregard for the usual Air Force conventions which Buerling displayed.

But he's a great pilot, utterly fearless, and possessed of grim determination. He lives for his job of bombing, as Buerling lived for his job of fighting. And he holds a record unequalled among R.A.A.F. bomber boys, for he's made something like 78 operational sorties, which is 20 or 30 more than any other Aussie serving in this theatre has to his credit, and a record which few British airmen have eclipsed.

There is a Squadron Leader who made over 100 raids, and an English air-gunner who has carried out 110, but only a mere handful of airmen have topped Kerr's (sic) total. He has served in the Middle East, and later joined a New Zealand "Wimpey" squadron in Britain. He was awarded the D.F.M. last October, the citation specifically mentioning his "outstanding courage" and energetic devotion to duty, and when he recently added a bar to it his "utter fearlessness" was again stressed.

He is now serving with an R.A.F. Pathfinder Squadron, but would be an ideal man for the R.A.A.F. to take back to Australia in order to tell the people what the Australians in the B.A.F. (British Armed Forces) are doing over here. He knows that story intimately, and has written many of its chapters himself.'

With research.