Jim Auton MBE holds the following awards - Presidential Gold Order of Merit (Poland), Presidential Gold Medal for Merit (Czech), Polish Cross of Valour, Czech Military Cross, Warsaw Uprising Cross, Armia Krajowa Cross and four Slovak and Russian medals. He was appointed as British Honorary Pilot of the Czechoslovak Air Force and he holds an Attendance Diploma from the Polish Senior Officers' Flying School at Deblin. After retirement in 1980 he became an authorized researcher in the archives at the Auschwitz death camp. He is the founder of the Air Bridge Memorial adjacent to the Polish war graves at Newark on Trent.