LOT Auctions Imperial  /  Auctions Imperial Arms and Armor 2015  / 

476

THE SWORD OF J.R. JUNOR- ASSOC. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:NA Estimated At:5,000.00 - 7,000.00 USD
THE SWORD OF J.R. JUNOR- ASSOC. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA
Auctions Imperial is pleased to announce our 2013 sale, to be held March 16 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Timonium, Maryland. Over 300 lots of choice antique arms and armor including armor, helmets, shields, swords, daggers, battleaxes, maces, halberds, matchlocks, flintlocks and percussion pieces will be offered. Our fine selection for 2013 includes broadswords, baskethilts, shamshirs, shashkas, palas, kindjals, khanjars, tulwars and spears, as well as chain mail and breastplates. This sale will also include important swords and daggers from the Greek War of Independence and the armor of the K...
A British M1897 officer’s sword with the large, nickeled steel hilt pierced with VR cypher and applied gilt copper badge of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC crowned and supported by a laurel wreath.) With knurled backstrap and wooden grip covered with sharkskin, the grip wires intact. Original leather washer intact, the M1892 blade with central fuller, the left side elaborately etched with flowering vines containing the maker’s name, HILL, NORFOLK STREET, SHEFFIELD, the crowned cypher of George V, and ROYAL FLYING CORPS. The right side marked, PROVED within a six-pointed star, and bearing the British coat of arms, together with H.R. JUNOR. In its original field scabbard of wood, covered in leather with nickeled locket and frog intact. Beginning of the 20th century. Untouched, with minor wear, leather frog lacking part of one strap. Hugh R. Junor, DFC, X SQUADRON RFC, was commissioned from the ranks of the Royal Horse Artillery into the Royal Flying Corps. He was a member of X Squadron, the small group of planes that were assigned to assist T.E. Lawrence in the campaign against the Turks. Junor alone answered Lawrence’s call for air support at Deraa on September 17, 1918, throwing himself at eight enemy aircraft in an inferior machine and drawing them off. Though finally downed, Junor continued to fight, pulling the machineguns from his fighter and racing to the front, where blew up a section of the railroad singlehanded. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions. Hugh R. Junor held the rank of Flight Lieutenant upon his death as a test pilot in 1926. T.E. Lawrence described Junor’s valor in detail and also included a portrait of him in his renowned book, THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM (1926: London, Cape.) P. 596-597: “While we hesitated, things were marvellously solved. Junor, the pilot of the B.E. 12 machine, now alone at Azrak, had heard from the disabled Murphy of the enemy machines about Deraa, and in his own mind decided to take the Bristol Fighter’s place, and carry out the air programme. So when things were at their thickest with us he suddenly sailed into the circus. We watched with mixed feelings, for his hopelessly old-fashioned machine made him cold meat for any one of the enemy scouts or two-seaters: but at first he astonished them, as he rattled in with his two guns. They scattered for a careful look at this unexpected opponent. He flew westward across the line, and they went after in pursuit, with that amiable weakness of aircraft for a hostile machine, however important the ground target. We were left in perfect peace. Nuri caught at the lull to collect three hundred and fifty regulars, with two of Pisani’s guns; and hurried them over the saddle behind Tell Arar, on the first stage of their march to Mezerib. If the aeroplanes gave us a half-hour’s law, they would probably notice neither the lessened numbers by the mound, nor the scattered groups making along every slope and hollow across the stubble westward. This cultivated land had a quilt-work appearance from the air: also the ground was tall with maize stalks, and thistles grew saddle-high about it in great fields. We sent the peasantry after the soldiers, and half an hour later I was calling up my bodyguard that we might get to Mezerib before the others, when again we heard the drone of engines; and, to our astonishment, Junor reappeared, still alive, though attended on three sides by enemy machines, spitting bullets. He was twisting and slipping splendidly, firing back. Their very numbers hindered them but of course the affair could have only one ending. In the faint hope that he might get down intact we rushed towards the railway where was a strip of ground, not too boulder-strewn. Everyone helped to clear it at speed, while Junor was being driven lower. He threw us a message to say his petrol was finished. We worked feverishly for five minutes, and then put out a landing-signal. He dived at it, but as he did so the wind flawed and blew across at a sharp angle. The cleared strip was too little in any case. He took ground beautifully, but the wind puffed across once more. His under-carriage went, and the plane turned over in the rough. We rushed up to rescue, but Junor was out, with no more hurt than a cut on the chin. He took off his Lewis gun, and the Vickers, and the drums of tracer ammunition for them. We threw everything into Young’s Ford, and fled, as one of the Turkish two-seaters dived viciously and dropped a bomb by the wreck. Junor five minutes later was asking for another job. Joyce gave him a Ford for himself, and he ran boldly down the line till near Deraa, and blew a gap in the rails there, before the Turks saw him. They found such zeal excessive, and opened on him with their guns: but he rattled away again in his Ford, unhurt for the third time.” Overall length 98.5 cm.
Condition III
Sign In to Bookmark Lot