Auction Catalogue

25 & 26 June 2008

Starting at 10:00 AM

.

Orders, Decorations and Medals

Washington Mayfair Hotel  London  W1J 5HE

Lot

№ 1110

.

26 June 2008

Hammer Price:
£500

A well-documented Second World War Commando’s group of six awarded to Trooper T. R. Jones, Royal Artillery, attached No. 3 Commando, who captured an Italian flag during the first raid on Sicily and was taken prisoner but escaped after the desperate fight at the Punto Malati 13-14 July 1943, later renamed “3 Commando Bridge” on the orders of General Montgomery

1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals,
mounted as worn, very fine and better (6) £600-800

Thomas Richard Jones, who was born in Shrewsbury in 1922, fought with No. 3 Commando from late 1941 to the end of the war. During the first Commando raid on Sicily in 1943 he captured an Italian flag, as related in an accompanying copy of a wartime Shrewsbury newspaper report, which includes a photograph of Jones:

‘An Italian flag that can be seen flying in a shop window in the borough in connection with “Salute Week” is one of the first two captured from the enemy in the Sicilian campaign. It was taken by Trooper Thomas Richard Jones, aged 22, of the Commandos, eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. T. G. Jones, 13, Old Heath Square, Harlescott. In the town where the Commandos landed two Italian flags were flying, and the one captured by Jones was over the post office. Jones came home early this year bringing the trophy with him and, in view of the “Salute” campaign, it was lent to the Mayor. Jones was one of a force which captured a vital bridge in Sicily and held it until nightfall but eventually they were taken prisoner, and Jones, with others, was held under a German guard in a wood for 36 hours. When our guns shelled the wood the prisoners overpowered the guard, and Jones was one of the men who escaped. Before the outbreak of war he was employed by the Chatwood Safe Company and in August 1939, joined the Royal Artillery. As he was too young to go overseas he was posted to an anti-aircraft unit and nearly two years later volunteered for the Commandos.’


No. 3 Commando was the first Army Commando to be raised during the Second World War and took part in all the great raids, Dieppe among them, spearheaded the invasion of Sicily, fought through Italy, and landed in France on D-Day to link up with the Airborne. Fortunately for posterity’s sake, two of the best Commando memoirs of the 1939-45 War were written by ex-3 Commando Commanding Officers - Commando by Brigadier “Jock” Durnford Slater, D.S.O. and Bar, and Storm from the Sea by Brigadier Peter Young, D.S.O., M.C. and two Bars; see, too, the catalogue entry for the M.M. won by Troop Sergeant-Major E. G. “Lofty” King (Dix Noonan Webb, 5 April 2006), an entry with full details regarding the Commando’s activities at Dieppe and on D-Day, for Jones was surely present in these operations, in addition to the costly engagements in Sicily. At Dieppe, the Commando was charged taking an enemy battery near Bernaval Le Grand, a small village about half a mile from the sea, but, as it transpired, only a few of them ever reached the beaches, their Eureka landing craft and H.Q. ship running into five E-Boats. As one survivor put it, ‘Our flotilla was dispersed over a wide area, smoke and the smell of cordite was everywhere, dawn was breaking and a heavy curtain of fire was coming from the shore where the enemy had been alerted. We were sitting ducks.’ Only six of their landing craft eventually put men ashore on Yellow Beach 1, where they assaulted the enemy batteries until overwhelmed. The Commando suffered 140 casualties during the raid.

Sicily and No. 3 Commando Bridge

No. 3 Commando's opening raid on Sicily was made with the objective of destroying the coastal battery and defences near the town of Cassibile, thus allowing the vanguard of the 8th Army to land - a successful operation carried out on the night of 9-10 July 1943, but only after carrying out a frontal assault on the battery and much bitter fighting. And it was in Cassibile that Trooper Jones captured his Italian flag. The Commando was then re-embarked on the Prince Albert for its next task - the capture of the Punta dei Malati Bridge - Durnford Slater being given just a few hours notice of a plan that also involved a separate attack on another bridge at Primasole by the Airborne. Moreover, he was dubious about intelligence reporting ‘some easily discouraged Italian toops’ as the only opposition, for if the bridge was worth taking, it was equally worth defending - and he was right, his Commando eventually running into the 1st German Parachute Division after landing under fire several miles behind enemy lines at Agnone at 2200 hours on 13 July. First of all, however, operations at the bridge went well, the defenders being knocked out and the 350-strong Commando deployed in captured pill-boxes, surrounding orange groves and ravines. But, as Robin Neilland's The Raiders - The Army Commandos 1940-46 explains, elite German forces were on their way to do battle:

‘Until dawn 3 Commando had a marvellous time, shooting up everything which came along, until the road approaches to the bridge were littered with overturned or burning vehicles, but their arrival had been detected and the Germans began to mortar their positions heavily and, never slow to react, soon brought up a Tiger tank, which began to flay the Commando positions with its 88mm gun, while staying sensibly out of range of their only anti-tank weapon, the infantry PIAT. A party, sent to stalk the tank could not get close enough over the open ground, and German paratroopers were moving up to box in the troops, causing a steady stream of casualties.

By 0430 hours, with no sign of 50th Division, the Commando position was becoming untenable. They had many wounded, their positions in the open valley could be overlooked and enfiladed, enemy infantry were arriving in ever increasing numbers and the tank kept rumbling about behind the ridges, appearing at regular intervals to put down more fire. The only thing missing was 50th Division, held up by the enemy at Lentini some miles away. Around 0500 hours, Durnford Slater gave the order to withdraw from the bridge in small parties, either to lie up in the hills until the Eighth Army finally arrived or, if possible, infiltrate back to their own lines. Widely deployed and still under tank fire, the Commando withdrew. They were forced to leave the wounded behind, to be captured by parachute troops from the 4th Brigade of the Hermann Goering 1st Parachute Division, who looked after them well - a kindness No. 3 Commando was able to repay a few weeks later at Termoli.’

No. 3 Commando, which was slowly reformed over the next few days, lost a total of five officers and 23 men killed, four officers and 62 men wounded and eight officers and 51 men missing - some 45% of the unit’s strength. So impressed was Montgomery, that he later ordered Durnford Slater to have a slab of stone, carved with the unit name, cemented into the Punta dei Malati Bridge, where it remains to this day.

D-Day and beyond

After seeing more action in Italy, particularly at Termoli, No. 3 Commando returned to the U.K in January 1944, in readiness for the coming Allied invasion at Normandy. The Commando’s allotted task on D-Day was to land with 1st Commando Brigade at La Breche to the west of Ouistreham. They were then meant to advance four miles to the bridges over the River Orne, and if the bridges had been destroyed, they were to ferry themselves over in rubber boats. They were then to continue their advance in a north-easterly direction, seizing the high ground near Le Plein. And what actually happened to the Commando on that memorable day, and in the period following until it was withdrawn to the U.K., is vividly described by Peter Young, the run-in to the beach attracting enemy fire that was ‘far too accurate to be pleasant’ - three of the Commando’s landing craft received direct hits from high-velocity shells, causing 20 casualties before anyone had even stepped ashore. The survivors, having then assembled under the cover of houses between the sand dunes and coastal road, covered much ground “at the double”, with occasional halts for clearance purposes, and made their way to “Pegasus Bridge” on the River Orne, where they linked up with the Airborne before proceeding to the vital high ground around Le Plein. The Commando remained actively employed in the Normandy operations until late August, when the whole returned to the U.K. in readiness for deployment to the Far East in 1945: an indication of the severity of the fighting encountered in France may be gleaned from the Brigade’s casualties - of the 146 officers and 2252 other ranks that had landed on D-Day, 77 officers and 890 other ranks became casualties.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation and photographs, including the recipient’s baptism certificate from All Saint’s Church Shrewsbury, dated 7 May 1922; a pre-war photograph album (approximately 40 images), together with around another 20 loose photographs mainly of the same period; a wartime copy of Brigadier R. “Bob” Laycock’s no-nonsense disciplinary instructions to members of the Special Service Brigade prior to going into action in the Middle East; a wartime pamphlet
Soldier’s Guide to Sicily, together with a much used map of the Catania region, as printed in May 1942; his Commando Service Certificate, inscribed to ‘917570 Gnr. Jones, T. R. (Royal Artillery)’ and dated 31 December 1945; and a quantity of post-war Commando reunion literature; together with several related artefacts, including an Italian flag, as taken by the recipient in an action fought at Cassibile on 10 July 1943 ; the recipient’s Fairbairn-Sykes “fighting knife”, the point cut for safety purposes; his Mk. III, 1940 field compass and an officially stamped military issue pocket watch; assorted uniform patches, including No. 3 Commando shoulder flashes (2), a pair of puttees; and family 1914-15 Star and Victory Medal 1914-19 pair to 16507 Pte. T. G. Jones, K.S.L.I., and a Memorial Plaque inscribed to Thomas Howell Jones.