Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry

A fine post-War M.B.E. group of eight awarded to Flight Lieutenant J. C. L. R. Labelle, Royal Air Force, late Royal Canadian Air Force, who flew operationally in Wellingtons of 38 Squadron and Mitchells of 98 Squadron in the Second War, participated in the Berlin Airlift, and was decorated for his gallantry after his aircraft ditched in the sea west of Tangier in March 1951

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, M.B.E. (Military) Member’s 2nd type breast badge, silver; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, 1 clasp, North Africa 1942-43; Italy Star; France and Germany Star; Defence Medal, Canadian issue in silver; Canadian Volunteer Service Medal 1939-45, with overseas clasp; War Medal 1939-45, Canadian issue in silver, mounted as worn, together with the recipient’s gilt R.C.A.F. Operational Wings with Bar, and embroidered ‘S’ Brevet, generally good very fine (8) £600-£800

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Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, September 2009.

M.B.E. London Gazette 7 September 1951:
‘Flight Lieutenant Labelle was the Signaller aboard an Anson aircraft which was forced to alight on very heavy seas in the Atlantic west of Tangier on 10 March 1951. Without warning from his captain he originated an S.O.S. message on the W./T. before the aircraft struck the water. The aircraft sank before the “J” type dinghy was fully inflated, all six occupants being swept into the sea, one becoming entangled, head downwards, in a dinghy rope. Despite the fact he was carrying the dinghy radio in one hand, Flight Lieutenant Labelle assisted the captain to free the entanglement, to right the dinghy and to assist into it all but one of the crew who was swept away and subsequently found drowned, only relinquishing the radio when it was taken aboard. He then played a very full part in making the dinghy seaworthy and for more than three hours, during which he was almost continuously seasick, he alternately attempted to work the radio, to bale out and to throw himself about the dinghy in order to prevent it capsizing in the 30-40 foot waves. When located by a French destroyer, he gave the captain every assistance in the hazardous operation of boarding this ship. Throughout the incident, he remained calm and efficient and lived up to the highest standards of the Service. There is little doubt that his bravery under very trying circumstances was instrumental in the survival of five of the six occupants of the aircraft.’

Joseph Charles Laurier Roger Labelle was born in Montreal in March 1919 and, having originally enlisted in the Canadian Army, transferred to the Royal Canadian Air Force in February 1941. Having qualified for his Wireless Operator’s Badge in February 1942, he was embarked for the U.K., and thence to the Middle East at the end of the same year, where he remained employed until returning to the U.K. in October 1943, in which period he flew operationally in Wellingtons of 38 Squadron from March to September and competed 43 sorties, several of them on U-Boat searches.

Labelle returned to the operational scene with 98 Squadron in December 1944, a Mitchell unit of 2nd Tactical Air Force operating out of a forward base in Brussels, and remained employed in that capacity until the end of hostilities, his Flying Log Book bearing testimony to a further 40 sorties against assorted enemy communications and troop concentrations - and resultant flak damage, sometimes of a severe nature.

Released from the R.C.A.F. in December 1946, Labelle shortly thereafter joined the Royal Air Force and experienced an eventful post-war career, including service in the Berlin Airlift and a coupe of ‘close calls’ in the 1950s, on one occasion the elevator jamming on his Viking and, more notably, his baling out of a Valiant in September 1957, when he was injured and four fellow crew killed. He was placed on the Retired List in September 1961, having notched up over 4,600 hours flying time, and died in Montreal in July 1993.

Sold with the recipient’s original Flying Log Books, bound in one volume, covering the period January 1942 to July 1961, together with his Operational Wings and Bar certificates, both dated August 1945, and copied research.