Ops Night: Medals of the Royal Flying Corps & the Royal Air Force, a talk by Mark Smith (19-7-2018)

That great friend and supporter of the Branch, Mark Smith, stepped in at fairly short notice to give us a fascinating and entertaining talk on the medals of the RFC and RAF, in this the one hundredth anniversary of the formation of the Royal Air Force.

Drawing on his legendary and encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, Mark took us through the early history of British campaign and gallantry medals to set the context for the new arm that would appear in the Great War, before going on to look at the distinctive features of aviation related medals, illustrating throughout with a succession of wonderful examples and their companying stories.

Needless to say, there were plenty of questions to follow, with Mark's 'Antiques Roadshow' experience being heavily drawn on.