A WW2 POSTHUMOUS AIR CREW EUROPE STAR GROUP TO AN AIR GUNNER IN 57 SQUADRON WHO WAS KILLED ON 26 AUGUST 1940 WHEN HIS BLENHEIM IV FAILED TO RETURN FROM A MISSION

1939-45 STAR; AIR CREW EUROPE STAR; WAR MEDAL 1939-45, WITH ‘TICKER TAPE’ MEDAL ENTITLEMENT, NAMED SECTION AND MEDAL PACKETS, IN CARD BOX OF ISSUE, ADDRESSED TO HIS FATHER.

639949 Sergeant Royston Charles Edward Stiles, aged 18, served as an air gunner with 57 Squadron.

On 26 August 1940, Blenheim IV (P6928) in which he was one of the crew, ‘took off from Elgin to attack airfields and searchlight batteries’ missing believed killed; presumed shot down.

https://www.rafcommands.com/database/wardead/details.php?qnum=113445

57 Squadron operational logs for August 1940 with show’s Sergeant Riley’s (Stiles’s pilot) crew taking part in 3 operations that month but is at variance with above, saying Stiles’s aircraft was on a North Sea Sweep when it went missing. He is commemorated on the Runneymede Memorial.

Royston was the son of Archibald and Evelyn Laura Stiles, of Brockhurst, Hampshire. Archibald was an early member of the Royal Flying Corps, service in France with 5 Squadron with the B.E.F. from August 1914 (1914 Star and bar). His medals appear elsewhere on the Jager Medals website.

Condition EF. Sold with a small amount of research including 57 Squadron operational logs for August 1940 with show’s Stiles’s crew.