A rare Second World War prisoner of war’s M.M. group of seven awarded to Warrant Officer 1st Class R. “Ronnie the One” MacDonald, Australian Regular Army, late Cameron Highlanders: having been taken P.O.W. near Abbeville in June 1940, he proved uncompromising in his attitude to his captors and was regularly incarcerated in the “cooler” for persistent escape attempts - he displayed a similar attitude towards the recruits he had to train after joining the Australian Army in the 1950s, a fact confirmed by Clive James in his Unreliable Memoirs - and was awarded the Commonwealth of Australia M.S.M. for his troubles

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (2927087 W.O. Cl. 2 R. MacDonald, Camerons); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; War Medal, M.I.D. oak leaf; U.N. Korea; Army L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 2nd issue, ‘Regular Army’ (2927087 W.O. Cl. 1, M.M., Camerons); Commonwealth of Australia Army Meritorious Service Medal, E.II.R. (24767 W.O. 1, A.R.A.), the sixth with officially corrected number, contact marks, very fine and better (7) £2000-2500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Meritorious Service Medal Groups from the Collection of Ian McInnes.

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M.M. London Gazette 11 October 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘Captured at St. Valery on 12 June 1940, Company Sergeant-Major MacDonald first attempted to escape while on the march to Germany. He slipped away from the column unobserved and hid in an empty building. Later the same evening the Germans made a search of the premises and he was discovered.

In April 1942, whilst imprisoned in a working camp at Sernberg, he and a companion escaped by cutting the bars of the hut bathroom. They had made maps and compasses and planned to make their way to Greece and thence to Turkey. Eight days later, on the outskirts of Bratislava, they were arrested by German police.

For three years MacDonald was in charge of the other ranks at Oflag IX A/Z and did valuable work for the Escape Committee. He has been highly commended for this work by the Senior British Officer and two other officers.’

Ronald MacDonald was born at Aird, North Uist in March 1912 and enlisted in the 4th Battalion, Cameron Highlanders (Territorials) in March 1930, prior to transferring to the Regular Army in June of the following year. Having gained advancement to Company Sergeant-Major by the outbreak of hostilities, he went out to France in ‘B’ (Islands) Company of the 4th Camerons in 1940, and was taken P.O.W. at “Hedgehog Ridge”, Abbeville that June:

‘The Germans, by unlucky coincidence, had also mounted an attack for the morning of the 4th, and on their left - our right - their infantry moved out a few minutes before our barrage opened. When ‘B’ Company of the 4th Camerons advanced upwards towards the “Hedgehog”, they encountered, in a field of rye well in front of the hill, a German battalion quite unscathed by gunfire. There was stern fighting there. The Germans had sited numerous machine-guns in the corn, and ‘B’ Company had many casualties ... ’

Among those killed was ‘B’ Company’s C.O., Captain the Viscount Fincastle, and in his ensuing years in captivity MacDonald kept his late C.O.’s clan kilt, eventually returning it to the officer’s widow at Dalness, North Argyll, at the end of the War.

Latterly held at Oflag 9A at Spagenburg, MacDonald was ‘completely uncompromising in his attitude to the Germans and his resistance earned him six months in solitary confinement ... He was liberated before the end of the War and is believed to have served in N.W. Europe, this qualifying him for the France and Germany Star’ (accompanying regimental letter refers). He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 28 February 1946), and received his M.M. from the hands of General Auchinleck at a special parade held in January 1946.

After the War, MacDonald was R.S.M. of the 1st Battalion in India and Japan, 1946-47, and again from 1949-50, in which latter year he retired. But his military career was not yet over, for having emigrated to Australia he joined the Regular Australian Army and was quickly back in harnass as a Regimental Sergeant-Major, this time at Duntroon Military Academy and other training establishments, where he gained a reputation for being a disciplinarian and the sobriquet “Ronnie the One”.

No better illustration of this chapter in his career may be recommended than Clive James’ Unreliable Memoirs, in which he makes frequent reference to MacDonald’s ferocious temperament (‘When Ronnie was really annoyed his face swelled up and turned purple like the rear of an amorous baboon’). His orders, too, were delivered in a high-pitched ‘almost supersonic’ scream, the more terrifying ones ending in a verb, but he led by example - ‘His brass gleamed like gold and his leather like mahogany’. On one occasion, after a young recruit had put a live mortar round upside down in the barrel, everyone was seen to scatter for cover - ‘some tried to dig themselves into the earth. Some started climbing trees. But most of us ran’. But not “Ronnie the One”, who ‘picked up the mortar, base plate included, shook out the live round’ and promptly ordered the offending recruit to go back through the motions - ‘The mortar coughed. There was a crackle in the sky and a blast on the hill. Then we all marched thoughtfully back to camp.’

MacDonald, who was awarded the M.S.M. (Commonwealth of Australia Gazette 30 August 1962, refers), settled in Adelaide and died there in October 1993; sold with a large file of research.