Help with DFC winner

Joanne,
Thank you for the information about your Granfather’s war record its men like him that we must all thank for our survival.

Joanne

I have sent you a private message, can you e-mail me please.

Thanks for the detailed response, i am sure there are others here who would like to hear more stories from your Grandads time on Halifaxes.

Mike

Philip Bentley DFC

Hi Everyone,

All is not lost!
I am Philip Bentley’s granddaughter, and yes Mike it is the very same!
He has been in hospital but is home again now.

The piece on the Antiques Roadshow was lovely to see. I was fortunate to be at the reunion when the lady from the factory was a guest, and remember all the veterans signing the picture. Being a humble man, grandad simply signed it ‘Philip Bentley’ and only added the DFC on my insistence!

He was notified of his DFC in 1944, and it was awarded in 1945. Unfortunately the King was unable to present it personally (and sent an apology letter).
As you’ve gathered, he didn’t talk about his time in the RAF/war – to the point where his wife only found out about his DFC when her aunt came round with the local newspaper article detailing it in February 1945.

For those of you who are interested in the DFC itself, here is the article from the newspaper:

“Throughout his tour of operations, Pilot Officer Bentley, has shown
himself to be a cool and determined Air Bomber. On one occasion in
September 1944, his aircraft was detailed to attack an important target
at Gelsenkirchen Buer. Intense anti-aircraft fire was encountered as
the Ruhr area was approached. Three shells exploded under the front of
the aircraft. One engine was rendered unserviceable and other damage
was sustained. Despite this, Pilot Officer Bentley, with calm courage,
continued at his allotted task and the target was successfully bombed”.

What it doesn’t tell you is that the aircraft suffered 40 flack holes in addition to losing an engine…..and that they went out again the very next day to exactly the same target. Grandad’s role meant he was not only the navigator and bomb aimer, he also assisted the pilot with take off/landing the halifax.

There are so many stories that grandad has told us in recent years which have astounded all of us……let me know if you want more! I can also get the text from the citation as it has been kept in pristine condition (as you’d expect if you know him!).

Thankyou all for your interest and kind comments.
Bye for now
Joanne:o

Thanks very much for all the info you guys have provided, the reason this all started was because on the Antiques Roadshow a couple of weeks ago was a lady with a painting of a Halifax with loads of signatures on it from aircrew.
A chap i work with saw the program and the camera zoomed in on a name on the painting ‘Phillip Bentley DFC’, he recognised the signature as someone he worked with years ago at Pan Am Cargo at LHR, Phillip was the manager there.
But in all the years of Phillip working there he had never mentioned a DFC or even flying in the war, apparently he did have a painting of a Wellington on his office wall but never spoke about why.
There are many people still working there with me who knew Phillip from many years ago and are really surprised to find this all out from a chance sighting of a signature on TV.
Thanks again for your help.
Mike

As the above posts I’m afraid that the answer to exactly how isn’t going to come easy. There is a two volume work ‘The Distinguished Flying Cross and How It was Won’ by Carter (Get it from the library as it’s well over £100- if you can find a set), if a citation has been found and commercially published it will be in there; but chances are it will repeat the Gazette details already listed above.

About 21,000 DFC’s were awarded in WW2, not all citations were recorded in the London Gazette and not all of the remainder have survived. Those that exist are held at the National Archives but unfortunately they aren’t listed alphabetically in one section- they are spread amongst other files by Theatre, Command or Group. If you really wanted to go down the research route at the very least it would be a trip to the National Archives or you could employ a private researcher to do the work for you. Looking at the Squadron Operations Record book may give some clues, but again you will need to visit the National Archives and spend some time looking through it.

It’s not impossible to achieve but at the end of this effort I would suggest that you’ll probably end up with something along the lines of: ‘This Officer has completed X number of sorties over enemy territory and at all times has shown exemplary leadership and coolness’

None of the above in any way whatsoever minimises the amount of courage shown by your friend or other DFC winners. To quote an oft used phrase ‘there was a war on’, keeping paperwork for future generations simply wasn’t high on the agenda.

For info,

The DFC register doesn’t record a citation, just the LG date, etc.

No we cant really ask him, he is in hospital quite ill, there is noone we can really ask.

Can you not ask him? Apologies if he has died.

He may not want to be reminded. DFC at the cost of a lot of his pals. I’m sure you know the score. My father was like that.

Thanks very much for the info so far, very helpful and very interesting, is there anywhere i can go to to find out exactly why the DFC was awarded ?
Mike

I think Ian is spot on with his identification. Honour The Air Forces (roll of WW2 RAF awards) shows only one Phillip Bentley
187574 Philip John BENTLEY. P/O 158 Squadron London Gazette 27/3/45 page 1645. (General citation)

In Brave Company by Chorley (158 Squadron History) lists Bentley on its roll as an Air Bomber. He isn’t indexed as featuring in the text but the book may be of interest anyway- probably second hand or your local library should be able to order a copy for you to borrow.

I may be putting two and two together and making five but Air Bombers weren’t usually first in the queue for either commissions or awards so I’d go for recognising a large amount of operations flown rather than one act of bravery.

These might give some clue to start with if this is the correct person:

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/37131/supplements/3127

http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/37001/supplements/1655

and 158 Sqn was equipped with Halifaxes so seems a good possibility

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/158_wwII.html