A HIGHLY IMPORTANT ROYAL FLYING COPRS OFFICER'S CAP
(Belonging to a famous 56 Squadron "ACE")
2/Lt ROBERT HUGH SLOLEY
( 8 kills )
Once the uniform cap of the Late 2/Lt Robert Hugh Sloley RFC who was Killed in Action on 1st October 1917.
2/Lt Sloley was a close friend of Captain James Mc Cudden VC ann of Lt Arthur Rhys-Davids and fellow 56 Squadron pilot.
Lt Xavier Dannhuber, Jasta 26 who shot down Sloley on 1st October 1917
Seldom does one encounter RFC uniform items with such a rare and historically important provenance. Robert Sloley flew SE5a's with the crack 56 Squadron RFC and was a close friend of Captain James B. Mc Cudden V.C. and other famous squadron member Lt Arthur Rhys-Davids, who himself shot down Verner Voss of Richthofen's Flying Circus. Robert Sloley was the son of eminent parents Sir William Herbert Cecil Sloley K.C.M.G. (Resident Commissioner, Basutoland) and Lady Sloley, then living in CapeTown, South Africa.
2/Lt Sloley is mentioned in Captain Mc Cudden's famous book "Flying Fury"
"1st October 1917"
"Very soon the Huns came down on Rhys-Davids and me, and then Maxwell's patrol came down on the Huns, and now we were all mixed up in a real dog fight. Just then I saw out of the corner of my eye an S.E. circling inside four Albatros Scouts, and as I glanced I saw a Hun, who was turning insidethe S.E. at 25 yards range, shoot the S.E.'s left wings off and the British machine went down in a spin, with one pair of wings left. IT WAS POOR SLOLEY, WHO WAS, AS USUAL, WHERE THE HUNS WERE THICKEST.
Provenance : Ex-Alan Thomas collection (15th May 2006)
(1) Letter from Mr J Mitchell.(previous owner)
Alan, This RFC officer's peak cap was given to me about 22 years ago by a man who's father served in the RFC in No.56 Squadron as a rigger. His name was ALBERT WALKER. Mr Walker kept several momentos, one being the cap worn by "His Pilot", as he called him, Robert Sloley, who was sadly killed in 1917. The cap was given to me when Albert died in the 1980's along with several other RFC mementos.
( Apparently as related to me by Mr Mitchell after a conversation with the late Albert Walker, 2/Lt Sloley was in the habit of leaving his cap with Walker on a chair in the hangar and always told Walker to take the cap as a gift and as a memory of him should anything ever happened to him in the air.)
Walker became the owner of his officer's memento cap on 1st October 1917 when Sloley failed to return from combat. He is remembered on the Arras Flying Memorial and has no known grave.
(2) Early (purple) spirit duplicated letter (printed on period S.O. Crown cypher, watermarked paper, just after the war) of notes about 56 Squadron compiled by the late Mr Walker. This detailing the squadrons history and awards of the pilots. Also a very interesting list of the kills of many of the 56 Squadron pilots including Sloley who is shown as having just 6 1/2 kills. (his final score was 8 (some sources give 9 ) with his final kill being on 29th September just two days before his death.
DO YOU OWN ROBERT SLOLEY's MEDALS ? (or) do you know the Sloley family, if so please get in touch with us as I'm sure you or the current family would love to have Robert'c cap from World War I.
UNIQUE
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