LONDON - It was April 1944 when flight engineer Norman Jackson clipped on his parachute, grabbed an extinguisher and crawled out onto the wing of his Lancaster bomber flying through the night at 20,000 feet to put out a fire.
Still under attack from a German fighter after a bombing raid on the town of Schweinfurt, the 25-year-old sergeant's parachute partially opened, caught fire and dragged the badly burned man from the wing into the 200 miles an hour slipstream.

He tumbled to earth, breaking his ankle, was captured and spend 10 months in hospital before being transferred to a prisoner of war camp.

For his extreme courage, King George VI presented Jackson with the Victoria Cross, Britain's top military medal in 1945.

Sixty years after his act of bravery, his children reluctantly put the medal up for sale through auction house Spink, where it sold on Friday for a record 235,250 pounds. ($417,110)

The previous record for one of the rare Maltese Cross-shaped medals which bear the simple inscription "For Valour" and are traditionally made from the metal of Russian cannon captured during the Crimean War, was 178,250 pounds.

Jackson, who later achieved the rank of Warrant Officer, died in 1994 and left the medal to his wife Alma.

But on her death last year her children, who wanted to give the VC to the Royal Air Force Museum, found that because she had not specified which of them was to receive the medal they could only either store it or sell it as part of her estate.


Has anybody here ever heard of this story?
Dave  8)

Due to a balls-up in the mothers will no-one in the family specifically owned the VC. A man of true valour who earned his medal... Its just sad to see a family torn apart by something as petty as this
Like Woody said several members of Wellington aircrew earned deocrations for valour for similar efforts, I think this was the only VC but several George Crosses were issued for similar things.

Ozzy

I hate to go off on a tangent but just because the law states that something has to be sold it doesn't follow that it has to be sold for market value.  I cannot remember the exact statute/case but there is the well known peppercorn principle.  If the family of the VC recipient had truely wished to "give" the medal back to the RAF they could.

The Executer of the Will is usually a family member and could have stated that the value of the medal was four boiled sweets.  The Executer then gives each beneficiary a boiled sweet for their share of the medal.  He then hands the medal (now his property) to the RAF.

This may not be 100% spot on but I personally don't believe that a family were "forced" to sell something because of probate law.  It wouldn't have been an issue if it was worth £2.50, I imagine that they will have donated this money to the RAF benvolent fund if they wanted it to go back to the RAF so desparately.

No?  Thought not...

On a lighter note I am glad the medal is worth so much, it shows in our modern capitalistic fasion that our society still values the sacrifices made by heroes like Sgt Jackson.

Will