Transport and Glider Clasp, with hanging flight pendant for 500 Operational Flights : Luftwaffe

Transport and Glider Clasp, with hanging flight pendant for 500 Operational Flights. A zinc coloured circular wreath. Protruding from either side of the wreath a zinc coloured sprig of oak leaves. Within the wreath a silver eagle holding a Swastika. Suspended from the bottom of the wreath is a zinc hanging pendant, representing 500 Operational flights. The rear securing clip is missing.

Collected by 402215 Flight Lieutenant George Alfred Archer, a shipping clerk with the Cunard Line, who enlisted in the RAAF in Sydney on 22 July 1940 and sailed for flight crew training in Canada on 28 December. After qualifying as an Observer the following May he embarked for the United Kingdom. He was attached to 104 Squadron RAF based at Driffield, and then 158 Squadron at Eastmoor, near York.

Archer, flying as the Observer in Halifax II bomber W1040 NP-G was shot down near the farming village of Schoonrevoerd, near Utrecht in the Netherlands during a raid on Duisberg on the night of 21/22 July1942. His aircraft had been attacked by a German Me 110 night fighter which had already killed the mid-upper and rear gunners. Archer later reported that the Halifax was diving rapidly but under control, although the fuselage and a port and starboard engine were on fire. The captain ordered the surving crew to bale out and remained in the aircraft to try to hold it steady as they jumped clear. Although the co-pilot did not survive the crash, Archer was later amazed to find that the captain, Flight Lieutenant F Hardy, had done so, although his injuries were so severe that he was repatriated by the Germans to England in 1943.

Although Archer hid after his successful bale-out he was discovered by two Dutch men and handed over to the German authorities. Archer was imprisoned in a number of prisoner of war camps at Dulag Luft Oberursal near Frankfurt, Stalag Luft 3, Luckenwalde, and Oflag XXIB at Schubin, Poland. The Russian Army liberated the camp on 21 April 1945. On a routine scavenging detail for food at the end of April Archer souvenired a number of German badges from an abandoned shop in the local town. He returned to Australia and after medical rehabilitation was discharged on 5 June 1946.