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Auction: 25113 - Orders, Decorations and Medals - e-Auction
Lot: 337

An unusual balloonatic's campaign group of three awarded to Flight Commander L. D. Morrison, Royal Naval Air Service, who was drowned when C.11 crashed into the river Humber

1914-15 Star (S.Lt. L. D. Morrison. R.N.R.); British War and Victory Medals (Flt. Cdr. L. D. Morrison. R.N.A.S.), good very fine (3)

Louis Duncan Morrison was born on 31 August 1890, he served with the Royal Naval Reserve before entering the Royal Naval Air Service on 20 April 1916. Posted to RNAS Wormwood Scrubs, the headquarters for the RNAS armoured car detachment on 1 May 1916 he was appointed Flight Lieutenant there on 27 May. He undertook additional training courses at Crystal Palace and RNAS Kingsworth before being posted to the airship base Howden on 7 November 1916.

There he was posted to the Coastal Class Airship C.11a flying anti-submarine patrols off the coast. This vessel was in patrol on 21 July 1917 when they developed a leak over the North Sea, they made it as far as the Humber before it came down in the river, killing three of the crew. Oddly there are two versions of the crash, one of which suggests a different crew crashed in C.11a. However Morrison's death in the tragedy is confirmed in his service records and the book Airmen Died in the Great War. He is buried at Hull Western Cemetery; sold together with copied research.

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Estimate

Starting price
£170