Distinguished Flying Cross awarded to Captain Albert James Enstone DSC (Sea Patrol). The citation from the ‘London Gazette’, 20 September 1918 reads as follows: ‘Has been engaged for 18 months on active service flying (10 months as Flight Leader). Has destroyed 12 hostile machines and brought down six more out of control. During the past month Captain Enstone attacked an enemy gun which was firing on one of our crashed machines and succeeded in blowing up the ammunition dump alongside the gun, causing a great explosion with flames reaching to a height of nearly 300 feet’. Enstone transferred from the RNAS to the RAF in 1918.

The medal is in the form of a silver cross flory. On its obverse side, the cross arms are terminated with bombs, an aircraft propeller appears vertically and feathered wings horizontally. In the centre within a wreath of laurel is a roundel with the letters ‘RAF’ surmounted by a crown. The reverse is plain with the Royal Cypher in the centre above the date, ‘1918’. The cross is suspended from a straight bar by a violet and white diagonally striped ribbon.

The Distinguished Flying Cross was instituted in June 1918 and awarded to officers and warrant officers of the Royal Air Force, ‘For an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty performed while flying on active operations against the enemy’.