Groups and Single Decorations for Gallantry

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

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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 fighter ace, not only of the Second World War, but in the whole history of aerial warfare. This was his 16th victory of the War. He ended up with 121 confirmed victories, nine of which were achieved in a single night, and was awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak leaves, swords, and diamonds.

Gordon-Powell linked up with a resistance unit and evaded capture for two months until betrayed and captured by the Gestapo in Paris on 15 July 1943. After being held at Fresnes for a month, he was interrogated at Dalas Luft in September and from there was sent to Stalag Luft IVB. Between September 1943 and January 1945, he made five escape attempts, the last of these, in the company of Private Alfred A.M Kuhn, 1st South African Brigade. Making it as far as the Danish border, in a severe blizzard, they stumbled into a German guard, were arrested and returned to Stalag IVB. Now classed as ‘dangerous’, Gordon-Powell was threatened with being shot if caught escaping again. Nonetheless, after completing his customary spell in solitary confinement, he and Private Kuhn immediately set about planning their next escape attempt, a remarkable story told by Tony Vercoe in Survival at Stalag IVB:
‘New sets of papers were supplied by Sergeant Joe Seddon of the escape committee and their battledress was exchanged for civilian cloth­ing acquired from two Polish internees from Warsaw. They then joined a Dutch work group sent outside the camp. The date was 21 March, 1945.
Leipzig via Riesa was chosen as the route, since Dresden had been severely bombed. At Bitterfeld near Leipzig they were able to spend the night at a French Arbeitslager and received chocolate, raisins and cigarettes from some British prisoners also working there. With help from the French and some good luck they were able to reach a hospital at Berlin where friendly Dutch doctors found both accommodation and Berlin police passes for them.
Colonel R. Sutton-Pratt, then British Military Attaché in Stockholm, recorded their stories for the official records: "These passes did not suffice to get them out of Berlin, however, and before being allowed to buy a ticket for Flensburg, a special pass from the railway police was necessary. After getting to the head of the long queue they were refused, but in the next queue they were successful, although outside there were hundreds of bombed-out people who had been refused and were trying to force their way into the office.
"They bought a ticket direct to Flensburg and travelled via Hamburg­-Neumünster. When they arrived in Flensburg they hoped to make a good contact and found a German Catholic railway worker, who put them up in his house and said he would help them. After trying for two days to board a goods train they left him to find help elsewhere."

Now without food coupons, having eaten nothing for two days and suffering from malnutrition, Kuhn and Gordon-Powell tried their luck first with a German Catholic priest and later with other German people, but all were too afraid to help. They had no option now but to try to cross the frontier with Denmark. Near Niehaus they found this and four other p...