Flight Lieutenant Frank Butterfield's DFC and 85 Squadron photograph

Flight Lieutenant Frank Butterfield's DFC and 85 Squadron photograph

Reporting on a WAAF sending her fiancée Flight Lieutenant Frank Butterfield to rescue an American pilot who had ditched off the French coast. He was later awarded the DFC for his actions and collected his honour at Buckingham Palace.

A photograph of 21 airmen in three rows; four seated on the ground, four in director's chairs and the remaining standing. All arranged either side of the motto badge. Annotated '85 Squadron West Malling'.

1943

Newspaper cutting and one b/w photograph in an album

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She helped her husband to earn his D.F.C.

“Daily Mirror” Reporter

[photograph]
Flight Lieutenant Butterfield and his wife outside Buckingham Palace.

MRS Mary Butterfield, 25, ex-Waaf, went to Buckingham Palace yesterday to see her husband, Flight-Lieutenant Frank Butterfield, 32, receive the D.F.C. – and if she watched with normal pride it was because she helped him win it.

It happened back in 1943, when Mrs. Butterfield had just returned from her honeymoon to her job of plotter for a Fighter Command Station at Exeter.

Reporting for duty she was told “You’re to plot the course of a Walrus pilot [indecipherable word] searching for an airman adrift in a dinghy a mile off the French coast. Pretty dangerous mission . . . plenty of Jerries about.”

The pilot was her husband. Her face grew white as she began to plot and she saw just how near he was to German planes on the look-out for something to ambush.

But she stuck grimly to her job.

It wasn’t until Pilot-Officer Butterfield returned safely to base with the young American that he learned it was his bride who had guided him.

“It was one of the most wonderful moments of my life when he got back safely” Mary said.

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[Photograph]
85 Sqdn. WEST MALLING.