He was a trailblazing fighter ace and veteran of two world wars who left a tantalising mystery trailing in his heroic wake.
Cromer-born hotelier’s son Louis Jarvis was credited with seven aerial victories during an incident-packed spell flying with the most successful British fighter squadron on the Western Front.
And more than 20 years later he crowned an already outstanding operational career by helping integrate the exiled Polish air arm into the Royal Air Force in time to play a key role in defeating the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain.
His administrative ability earned him one of Poland’s most prestigious honours - the Order of Polonia Restituta - but it was the failure to reward his gallantry during the First World War that has left medal experts puzzled.
Just days before Group Captain Jarvis’ remarkable nine-strong medal group go under the hammer today (April 27) with an estimated price-tag of £2,500-£3,000, Spink’s head of medals Marcus Budgen admitted to being baffled by the awards that ‘got away’.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “it’s an extremely impressive group of medals - a quirky group and very rare of its kind in that it recognises service in two world wars as well as between the wars and features a highly collectable top foreign honour.
“But there is something of a mystery about the absence of a bravery award to mark his impressive First World War record. After all, anyone who achieved five victories and official ace status was virtually guaranteed a Military Cross or a Distinguished Flying Cross, depending on the period of the war.
“To have not got either meant you either didn’t get on with somebody, you rubbed someone senior up the wrong way, or you left the squadron at a difficult time and the question of an award just got overlooked.”
Whatever the reasons, there is little doubt that until now his wartime achievements have gone largely unheralded since his death at Wroxham in 1951.
His circuitous journey to the warring skies over France and Flanders started in Cromer where his wealthy family owned the cliff top Hotel de Paris and nearby Tucker’s Hotel and progressed to Gresham’s where he shone at all sports but most notably as an award-winning member of the school shooting team.
Working at Lloyds of London when war broke out in 1914, he was one of four brothers to serve ‘King and Country’, seeing action with his younger brother Alan in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign before transferring from the Middlesex Regiment to the Royal Flying Corps.
Already noted for his “ability, complete reliability and remarkable attention to detail”, Louis was posted as a 26-year-old captain to 56 Squadron, an elite fighter unit, in October 1917, just two months after Alan had been killed in action.
It was an enviable appointment. As Budgen observed: “He was rubbing shoulders with some of the greatest British aces of the war, swapping stories, sharing drinks and probably cigarettes with men who have become flying legends.”
They included the likes of James McCudden, whose 57 credited victories were climaxed by the award of a Victoria Cross, 32-victory ace Geoffrey ‘Beery’ Bowman and Arthur Rhys-Davids, whose dazzling career was tragically cut short during one of Louis’ early sorties.
Though not quite in their league, Louis proved himself a bold and proficient fighter pilot. In the course of seven months of near-relentless frontline service over the killing fields of Passchendaele, Cambrai and the Somme.
He bore a charmed life, surviving crashes and countless combats as well as desperate attacks on heavily defended observation balloons and death-defying strafing sorties.
He achieved his first victory on February 19, 1918. Following an inconclusive tussle with a German fighter, he spotted four more enemy machines and immediately dived to attack.
In his characteristically prosaic account of the combat that followed, he stated: “I fired 30 rounds… at an Albatross two-seater… The observer fired about six shots at me and then disappeared in the bottom of the fuselage.
“The EA [enemy aircraft] then turned about halfway through my burst and went down out of control in a slow lopping spiral.”
Three more victories followed in March, a month of swirling dogfights and hazardous low-level sorties that helped slow the enemy’s spring offensive. As the titanic battle raged below, 56 Squadron was at full stretch with Louis and his comrades flying as many as two patrols a day when ever conditions allowed.
Casualties rose sharply and on April 12, just a day after scoring a fifth success to ensure his official ace status, Louis came perilously close to disaster when bullets struck his engine resulting in a crash-landing from which he was lucky to escape uninjured.
His progression from novice to veteran was marked by promotion to command C Flight, the section that had previously been led with great distinction by his friend and mentor ‘Beery’ Bowman.
He duly celebrated by notching two victories during a single patrol on May 2. Leading his flight in a diving attack on a 10-strong enemy formation, he took just 20 rounds to send one of three Fokker triplanes crashing to earth before sharing in the victory over a second aircraft that was last seen falling away ‘decisively out of control’.
Though he continued, in the words of one of his junior pilots, “to amuse himself playing hide-and-seek” with the enemy, he was unable to add to his score before his eventful if exhausting operational career ended with him being posted back to the UK for a well-deserved rest.
His frontline service over, he ‘soldiered on’ from war to peace, earning further distinction with the RAF in an imperial policing role in Iraq during the 1920s.
But it was as a senior officer during the darkest days of the Second World War that he earned the highest accolades of his long service.
Tasked with assimilating the large contingent of Polish airmen who had reached Britain following the collapse of France in 1940, he was pivotal in ensuring their successful integration into the RAF.
Their subsequent influence on the outcome of the Battle of Britain and the air campaign that followed were due in no small measure to his “energy and tact” as subsequently noted in 1943 when he was made a Commander of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
It was a fitting climax to a distinguished career worthy of far greater recognition.
The sale takes place at Spink’s London auction rooms today starting at 10am. For more details visit spink.com.
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