Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

“I’m not exaggerating, there were hundreds of rounds coming close to all of us on any given day. Hundreds... You wouldn’t be able to count the number of times you could have died.”

The superb Conspicuous Gallantry Cross group of five awarded to Lance Corporal Justin R. Thomas, 40 Commando, Royal Marines who was awarded the first C.G.C. of the Iraq War for his extreme bravery in a commando attack in the early days of the campaign - pinned down by hostile fire and with many of his comrades in exposed positions, he ran from a place of comparative safety and climbed onto an open top vehicle where he manned the mounted machine gun, single-handedly returning a heavy weight of sustained fire for a continuous period of nearly 15 minutes whilst small arms and rocket propelled grenades landed all around him - a chapter detailing his exploits appears in the book, ‘In Foreign Fields’

Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, E.II.R., reverse officially inscribed ‘P055390C Mne J R Thomas, RM’ and dated ‘2003’; General Service 1962, 1 clasp, Northern Ireland (Mne J R Thomas, P055390C RM); Operational Service Medal 2000, 1 clasp, Afghanistan (Mne J R Thomas P055390C RM); Iraq 2003, clasp, 19 Mar to 28 Apr 2003 (Mne J R Thomas P055390C RM); Jubilee 2002, mounted loose style as worn; together with Royal Mint case of issue for first and named card boxes of issue for the four campaign medals, nearly extremely fine (5) £40000-60000

The Conspicuous Gallantry Cross was instituted as a result of the 1993 review of the British honours system and is second in seniority only to the Victoria Cross. The C.G.C. was awarded for the first time as a result of the Bosnian War in 1995 and to date 33 such awards have been made, including one awarded collectively to the Ulster Defence Regiment. During the Iraq War the C.G.C. was awarded on 13 occasions, Lance Corporal Thomas’ C.G.C. being the first such award of the war. The C.G.C offered here is believed to be the only example to have appeared on the market to date.

C.G.C. London Gazette 31 October 2003. The original recommendation states: ‘Lance Corporal Thomas deployed on Op Telic as a GPMG section commander in Manoeuvre Support Group of 40 Commando, Royal Marines. Despite his lack of formal command training, his leadership in combat has been of the highest order. Yet it as an individual act of immense bravery that stands him out from his contemporaries as worthy of lasting recognition.

On 30 March [2003], a Commando attack was mounted against an enemy in battalion strength in the Abu-al-Khasib area near Basrah. Lance Corporal Thomas’ troop was tasked with securing a key junction on the vulnerable western flank. After initially good progress, it was just after first light when they were ambushed in the open by continual volleys of RPG and small arms fire from a well disguised enemy position in the cover of date palms some 250 metres away. This initial contact lasted three hours during which the troop managed to extract safely to a reorganisation location ready to meet and brief reinforcements from 42 Commando.

At this critical juncture in the battle, the assembled troops came under sustained and effective RPG and small arms fire from a new undetected location of 15-20 enemy troops some 350 metres away. Realising that many of his comrades were now exposed, Lance Corporal Thomas ran from his position of comparative safety and climbed onto his open top vehicle to man a pintle-mounted GPMG. With his No.2 feeding ammunition and with no protection afforded by the vehicle, Lance Corporal Thomas single handedly returned a heavy weight of sustained fire for a continuous period of nearly 15 minutes to enable 20 other members of his troop to safely move into cover and to regroup. As small arms and RPG’s landed all around him, his determination to suppress the enemy did not waiver, nor did his courage in the face of considerable threat to his own life. This singular act of selfless bravery ensured that his troop were able to extract safely from effective enemy fire without loss in order to launch a successful counter attack. Had casualties been taken, the progress on the Commando’s western flank would have been slowed and potentially placed the remainder of the Unit in a vulnerable position. Lance Corporal Thomas’ section had a further three contacts that day as they set about achieving their mission, yet his leadership and personal example were never found wanting.

Lance Corporal Thomas’ extreme bravery in the face of a well-armed and determined enemy undoubtedly saved numerous lives that day and was fundamental to mission success. Throughout a demanding sequence of operations, his section’s performance has been invariably impressive, due largely to his natural command presence. Categorically, his exceptional courage and inspirational leadership under effective enemy fire deserve lasting public recognition.’

A chapter comprising a 17 page interview with Lance Corporal Thomas appears in the book In Foreign Fields, by Dan Brown, from which the following in relation to the action for which he was awarded the C.G.C. is extracted: ‘They opened up with mortars at first. They knew what they were doing: they wanted to keep our heads down, and mortars do that to you. It’s dispiriting stuff, mortar fire, like artillery, because there’s often not much you can do except sit there and take it. It ceases to be amusing after about ten minutes and it can actually break you. If they’re close, you might hear the shell going into the barrel, with a ‘dunk’ sound, or you might hear it whistling through the air. Sometimes you can even see it. Then it whizzes in and there’s a ‘crump’ when it impacts. If it lands on a road, you’re looking at death anywhere within 20 or 30 metres, possibly even further. If it lands in sand and mud, the blast radius is much reduced, so we were immediately getting off the road and taking cover. Then they started hitting us with anti-tank rockets, probably the Russian Spigot, which is a wire-guided thing not dissimilar to Milan – the missile is actually trailing a wire behind it, and the operator watches through his scope and navigates it in to the target…

By now, there’s lots of small arms coming in. There’s a heavy machine gun firing at us from somewhere and they’ve got a sniper going as well. And there are the RPGs. I remember, just above me there were some electricity wires and a lot of the RPGs were being fired too high, coming in and hitting these cables. Sparks would be flying everywhere and these 3ft missiles would just spin off at crazy angles and explode somewhere. Funnily enough, the lads were pissing themselves laughing about it all, despite how serious it was. There was a British journalist with us – not attached, he got left with us by others – and I remember him saying how nuts he thought we were. We were lying in these ditches, RPGs were just missing us, people were taking rounds in their day sacks, and we were all pissing ourselves. It was just so funny - I can’t explain why, it just is for some reason.

But it was actually starting to look pretty bad. We’re still pinned down by the mortars. They’d suppressed us good and proper. A few of the lads were trying to return off bits of fire with their personal weapons but we had our heads down so we couldn’t see the target and were basically ineffective. I never thought they’d overrun us, because they’d have had to come into the open and stop their own fire, and we’d have cut them to pieces. But it was only going to end one way at this rate: sooner or later, those mortars or the RPGs or the sniper or the machine gun were going to find us and we’d start taking serious casualties…

I thought, Hang on…there’s nobody firing here. They’re hammering us, and that’s wrong. So I ran to the nearest wagon and just climbed up on to it and started looking for them, basically. As soon as I was up there, I could see where some of their firing points were and I was able to engage them with the GPMG. Just putting a belt of ammunition on and hosing it down. Picking where I was firing, and giving it a good long burst, either until the belt ran out or the gun had a stoppage. Stoppages are the nature of the beast with a belt-fed weapon - it can be a case not extracting properly, or a bit of link falling down into the working parts, or a problem with the propellant…the GPMG fires better dirty, with bits of carbon on the gas regulator, but you still get stoppages. So I’d clear it, start again and carry on until I ran out of the belt…

The Iraqis were in houses but that was providing them with next to no cover. The rounds from a GMPG will go through concrete and keep going. Most of the time, I couldn’t see whether I was hitting people, but I was firing into machine gun positions and RPG points. I’d see their tracer coming out, or RPG flashes, so I’d fire a long burst in there and everything would stop. Then it would start up again somewhere else. I remember I saw a large group of enemy in a house so I let them have a really long burst; it literally demolished the house, like sawing through the stone.

After a few moments, Gary Lancaster jumped up next to me and started feeding the ammo to me, which made me more effective… At one point, I saw an RPG flash about 300 metres off, at about 11 o’clock from us. Like I say, there’s no time to react, other than to think, Oh no. And this bloody thing passed right between me and Gary and exploded off in the distance behind us. We were only three feet apart and I saw it pass. Unbelievable.

It was probably round about then I thought, F***ing hell, enough’s enough now…I’ve got to get down from here. It was getting stupid, the amount of fire that was coming towards me and Gary, and I was just thinking, It’s only a matter of time. We were just a massive, immobile target. It wasn’t just the RPGs, though more of them were being aimed at us. There was a machine gun I couldn’t find which was walking fire towards us. I know about machine guns and if someone has tracer rounds loaded it’s only a matter of time before they click onto the fact that they’re firing high or short or whatever. There were numerous strikes on the road and he was getting closer, and we weren’t going to have any second chances if he found us. There were small arms as well, and a distinctive sniper weapon, single shots, a bit louder than an AK, so it wasn’t really a tenable position for much longer.

We’d been lucky really. There’ve been plenty of people in history who have done that kind of stuff and been slotted straight away, before they even touched a trigger. So I shouted to Gary and we jumped off and rejoined the section. By now, the rest of the lads had started coming into it anyway, and the enemy’s weight of fire stated dropping. And it was hell for leather, then. We dropped a number of houses with the Milans and called in a helicopter strike to hit the sniper’s building. That was destroyed, and it took the sniper with it. And within a matter of minutes the fight had turned right around and it was game over.

I have no idea how long the whole thing went on. Time loses its meaning when you’re in that sort of situation. What I do know is the ammo supply for the next day was 47,000 rounds of 7.62. That is a phenomenal amount of ammunition, and it takes a while to get through that much; it’s not a quick thing, with stoppages and changing belts and so on. One of my mates, Andy Gibson, put down about 11,000 rounds on his own. I think I used up 7,000 or 8,000 myself by the end.

To cap it off, the boss put in for artillery and some sort of air strike went in, Harrier GR7s I think. As soon as that was done, about half an hour later, we were back on the wagons and went straight back up to where we’d been surrounded and started fighting again, and we went on until 2am or 3am the next day. We were only a couple of hours short of being 24 hours in contact.

I think the whole day did show the Royal Marines in pretty good light. Initially, we had a team of US Marines with us, Forward Air Controllers. I remember they were talking about bringing in a B52, rerouting it from Baghdad, believe it or not, and basically dropping bombs. We were only 350 metres away from the enemy! They were virtually calling an air strike on themselves, and us. We said, ‘No thanks…you’re having a laugh. We’ll enjoy the rest of the party on our own, ta.’ They couldn’t handle it. I’m not bigging our lads up but, like I say, we were laughing half the time during the contacts….

In terms of the medal, I didn’t actually think I’d done anything all that special. I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards saying. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Lads were saying, ‘ I wouldn’t have got up there for the world.’ My opinion was….well, my mate Gary Lancaster got up there of his own free will, with no means to fight back, and that was more amazing, in my book. The sole thing in his mind was just to hand me ammunition in a totally exposed vehicle, with all the Iraqi attention drawn to us. So he had plenty of time to think about all that, whereas I’d just gone and done it without thinking.

I knew a few of us had been written up for things though Gary didn’t get anything, which was a real shame. I thought I might get a Mention in Dispatches and while, to be quite frank, it wouldn’t have bothered me if I’d got nothing to be awarded a CGC was pretty amazing. The troup boss, Capt Lynch, and Cpl Pete Watts each received Military Crosses, and there was a DSO and a handful of MiDs. I think that shows the ferocity of the fighting, where to a lot of people they think the invasion was a walkover. In the big picture, maybe it was. But down on the ground, little units of blokes were fighting very hard indeed.

Sometimes I wonder whether I did enough to earn it. There were plenty of other guys going forward in the assaults, who never ever took a backward step, and who got nothing. Other times I think, Well, I didn’t write myself up for it. Regardless of the medal, what your peers think of you is much greater in my eyes. I knew I was alright as a corporal, I was quite experienced and all that kind of stuff, but the one demon I wouldn’t have wanted is to get up in the morning and not be able to look at myself in the mirror. To wonder deep down, whether I really did the best I could for my mates. You prove yourself to yourself, and you’re happy.’

The following information is extracted from a typed testimonial written by Lance Corporal Thomas’ Commanding Officer upon his leaving the Royal Marines, the original of which is included with the lot: ‘Lance Corporal Thomas joined the Royal Marines on 12 February 1998. He successfully completed 30 weeks Royal Marines Recruit training, culminating in the Commando course which he successfully passed. The training syllabus engenders team spirit, a sense of self-reliance and teaches a wide range of military and survival skills.

Immediately after initial training he joined the Fleet Protection Group Royal Marines and served here from November 1999 to January 2001. Initially he was involved in the operational boarding of vessels used to smuggle terrorist arms into Northern Ireland...

In January 2001, Lance Corporal Thomas joined 40 Commando, Royal Marines and became a section commander; a responsible appointment and a tribute to his conscientious nature. Once established, he assisted his troop commander with building a cohesive machine gun section in order to deploy on the Amphibious Ready Group. He was then tasked to deploy as part of the first coalition troops entering Afghanistan on Operation Oracle and Veritas. After a short period of time back in the UK he returned to Afghanistan for an additional three months between March and May 2002. This operation required Lance Corporal Thomas and his gun line to support coalition forces in the stabilisation of Kabul...

During the war in Iraq, Lance Corporal Thomas delivered a phenomenal performance. The Manoeuvre Support Group, within which he was deployed, was deeply involved in several ferocious encounters with the enemy. His dogged determination and courage under fire inspired all those around him, again proving his maturity, sense of duty and ability to use the skills he has been taught. After the cessation of hostilities Lance Corporal Thomas was a key player in the ensuing Peace Support Operations, where his calming approach assisted in helping to consolidate the progress made with the local population. The experience gained over this period was put into practise when instructing the younger members of the Troop all of whom became as professional and assured as their mentor.

Lance Corporal Thomas is a very fit and measured individual. His quietly confident approach belies his wealth of experience and professionalism. As a result of his performance on Op Telic Lance Corporal Thomas was awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross second only to the Victoria Cross. Trustworthy and loyal he has made a significant contribution in his short period of service with the Royal Marines.’

The following items are sold with the lot:

i) Copy of the original recommendation for the award of the C.G.C.

ii) Congratulatory telegram from H. R. H. The Duke of Edinburgh: ‘Many congratulations on your recent award for distinguished service in Iraq. I was very pleased to hear about it and send my best wishes.’

iii) Letter of congratulation from Lieutenant General R. A. Fry, CBE (Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence), dated 30 October 2003:’... I saw all the citations at the end of hostilities and so feel I am reasonably placed to judge the contribution you personally made to the success of the campaign... Of all the citations I saw yours was probably the most remarkable. Your performance was a credit to us all.’

iv) Letter of congratulation from Rear Admiral M. W. G. Kerr, dated 21 October 2003 (Naval Secretary and Director General Human Resources).

v) Letter of congratulation from Admiral Sir Alan West, DSC, ADC, dated 31 October 2003.

vi) Letter of congratulation from Lieutenant General Sir John Reith (Chief of Joint Operations), KCB, CBE, dated 31 October 2003.

vii) Letter of congratulation from Major General R. V. Brims, CBE, DSO (Deputy Chief of Joint Operations), dated 8 November 2003.

viii) A superb series of 39 captioned photographs, dated 6 March 2003 to 30 March 2003 taken both shortly before and after the invasion of Iraq, including several taken of the recipient on the day he gained the award of the C.G.C. and several other miscellaneous photographs of the recipient.

ix) Royal Marines Company Record Book and Kit Record Book.

x) Infantry Training Centre Catterick Certificate of Achievement, dated 7 September 1996.

xi) British Forces Active Service Identity Card; ‘Aide Memoir on The Law of Armed Conflict’ and ‘Ten Commandments of Survival in The Desert When Lost or Stranded.’

xii) Enclosure letter for Operational Service Medal, dated 5 March 2004.

xiii) Enclosure letter for Jubilee 2002 Medal, dated 8 March 2004.

xiv) Military issue map of the Abu Al Khasib area (the location of Lance Corporal Thomas’ C.G.C. winning exploits), with written annotations as used by the recipient on active service.

xv) Invitation letter, Investiture Program and enclosures to investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace on 25 February 2004.

xvi) Copies of various reports, etc.

xvii) Four pieces of cloth Royal Marine Commando insignia.