Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

‘SWIMMING DAREDEVILS FORGE ROAD TO MANDALAY

Second Bridgehead over Irrawaddy

By Arthur Helliwell, Herald War Reporter, on the Irrawaddy, Sunday

A death-or-glory squad of champion swimmers, led by a daredevil ex-Irish Guardsman and commando, Captain Mick Muldoon of Newcastle, swam naked across the river here last Monday night ... ’

The London Daily Herald, 19 February 1945.

A rare Second World War Middle East operations M.C. group of seven awarded to Major E. H. “Mick” Muldoon, Special Boat Squadron, late Irish Guards and Gold Coast Regiment, and a founder member of the S.B.S’s Sea Reconnaissance Unit - a.k.a. “The Surfboard Commandos”

Military Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1941’ and privately inscribed, ‘Major E. H. Muldoon, Commandos’; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Burma Star, Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Army L.S. & G.C., G.VI.R., 1st issue, Regular Army (444405 W.O. Cl. II E. H. Muldoon, I. Gds.), good very fine (7) £4000-5000

M.C. London Gazette 1 January 1941:

‘For distinguished services in the Middle East during the period August 1939 to November 1940.’

The original recommendation states:

‘Captain Muldoon has consistently displayed great coolness and gallantry and has proved himself an outstanding leader in action. His Company has taken part in all the more serious operations in which his battalion, or sub-units thereof, have been engaged. His name is particularly brought to notice for courage and leadership at British El Wak on 9 September 1940, and at Wal Garis on 12 September 1940. His example to his men is infectious.’

Edward Henry “Mick” Muldoon, a pre-war regular soldier who enlisted in the Irish Guards in 1926, was commissioned as a Lieutenant on the General List in November 1939 and gained attachment to the 1st Battalion, Gold Coast Regiment, shortly thereafter. As part of 24th (Gold Coast) Brigade, 2nd (African) Division, the Battalion fought series of early engagements against the Italians in British Somalia in 1940, some of them of a guerilla warfare nature, gallant work that won Muldoon his M.C.

Surfboard Commando

Advanced to Captain in September 1942, Muldoon volunteered for employment of a clandestine nature in the following year, when he enrolled in the Sea Reconnaissance Unit (S.R.U.), and he was appointed Executive Officer by its founder and organiser Lieutenant-Commander Bruce Wright, R.C.N.V.R., a swimmer of Olympic standard who first developed ‘his idea of assault swimmers after recalling an article on the Californian divers who went down, without breathing equipment, for the edible abalone’. And of Muldoon, he later wrote in The Frogmen of Burma:

‘He had a very short fuse. He was the sort of man who would lead a bayonet charge until the last man dropped ... On the other hand he was a splendid disciplinarian and the liberty parties used to sing: “If we don’t get home soon, We’ll get ---- from Muldoon!” ’

In September 1943, with the full backing of Mountbatten, Muldoon was one of 40 members of the S.R.U. sent to the United States for training at an U.S.M.C. base at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, Southern California. Despite every man having been hand picked by “Blondie” Hasler of the Cockleshell Heroes fame, and as such representing the best material of those volunteering for ‘hazardous service’ from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army and R.A.F., Wright was dismayed by their poor physique when compared with American Marines.

Sharks and Barracudas

Having been instructed in the use of the unit's main means of projected water-borne travel - the 14 foot paddle board - as well as explosives, camouflage, unarmed combat, and, among a myriad of other skills, how to fend off the attentions of sharks, barracudas, killer whales and estuarine crocodiles, the unit completed its training at Salt Cay, Nassau, with a top secret and impressive demonstration of their capabilities before a suitably impressed H.R.H. the Duke of Windsor. A glimpse of the Great White Sharks may be found in The Burma Frogmen:

‘On January 8, 1944, Captain Muldoon, my Executive Officer, and I were walking along the path that runs the length of Salt Key. We were planning an exercise. I was standing looking over Hanover Sound and my eyes settled on a white patch in the green sea. It was a submerged sandbar a short distance offshore. Suddenly a great fin rose about three feet out of the water and mighty swirls disturbed the water behind it. At once an area of water larger than the bar was full of churned-up sand and lashing water. A huge shark had run aground on the bar. Yelling to Mick Muldoon to follow I sprinted for the lagoon where our boat lay alongside the jetty. By the time we cleared the lagoon's narrow entrance and turned up toward the sandbar all was quiet. Our mighty visitor had gotten himself afloat again and departed. I measured the depth of water on the bar. It was an even four feet.

These huge sharks, almost 40 feet long and weighing about 3,000 pounds, usually remain in the deep water during the day and rise to the surface at night to hunt. This one was apparently trapped in the shallow waters of Hanover Sound and had not been hunting there the previous night.  I wondered no more about what had taken down my 45-gallon oil drums.’

Then there was “Horace”, a giant Barracuda, who nearly claimed the life of Captain “Jock” Elder - but for the prompt action of his fellow surfboarders who closed a protective ring around him. “Horace” was eventually claimed by Muldoon:

‘One day Mick Muldoon came in with a glint in his eye, seized a carbine and loaded a clip and set off down the beach with long strides. Shortly three shots rang out in rapid succession. It was dead low tide and someone had found Horace lying in a crack between two coral heads. His back was just below the surface. Mick had approached cautiously from behind and finally stood with a foot on each coral head and Horace lying literally between his feet. “I gave him one at the base of the skull and two more spaced six inches apart down the back. Still he was off like an arrow.” We never saw Horace again.’

Burma Operations

Despatched to the U.K., the unit, now unofficially known as the “Surfboard Commandos”, qualified as parachutists at Ringway, and in October 1944 proceeded to the Far East. By January 1945 Muldoon, in command of No. 1 Section, S.R.U., had made his first reconnaissance across the Irrawaddy for 19 Division. Then transferred to 20 Division further south and attached to 100 Indian Infantry Brigade, his Section was employed on their paddle boards reconnoitring the long stretches of river prior to the intended crossing, ‘mapping sandbanks, examining landing beaches, and charting currents, all matters of vital importance since the crossing was to be made at night.’

On the afternoon of D-Day the river rose unexpectedly, and new embarkation points and landing places had to be selected and surveyed at the last minute. When it came to the night of 100 Brigade's cross river assault, on 13 February, Muldoon and his men guided the first wave over at 0400 hours, using buoys and shaded torches. Some grounded on sandbanks, but the majority landed directly though under fire. And by 0800 hours the whole Brigade was safely over. Muldoon's Section duly rejoined 19 Division, where Wright found them in poor shape:

‘They had been in the field continuously for ten weeks, and the nature of their living conditions had brought about physical deterioration. Both Muldoon and Elder had become medically unfit to enter the water. As Wright pointed out to the fiery Major-General Pete Rees, the Division Commander, when asking for the Section to be withdrawn to refit, they had had to march with the soldiers during the day and work under arduous conditions in the river throughout the night during the advance.’

Following the fall of Rangoon, when Wright turned over the command of the S.R.U. to the rehabilitated Muldoon, it was his proud boast that ‘Forty men went into Burma and forty men came out.’ However, during the course of the S.R.U’s operational tour, Wright was horrified to see tales of his unit’s activities appear in the British press:

‘I had never seen, much less talked to, a war correspondent in Burma, so I was amazed when handed two clippings from the British press. The first was from the London Daily Herald, 19 February 1945:

SWIMMING DAREDEVILS FORGE ROAD TO MANDALAY

Second Bridgehead over Irrawaddy

By Arthur Helliwell, Herald War Reporter, on the Irrawaddy, Sunday

A death-or-glory squad of champion swimmers, led by a daredevil ex-Irish Guardsman and commando, Captain Mick Muldoon of Newcastle, swam naked across the river here last Monday night ...

The second was in similar vein, headed:

CHAMPION SWIMMERS MAKE NEW CROSSING POSSIBLE

The cat was really out of the bag. The Axis contacts in Dublin read the English papers every night, and the pertinent facts were passed on. The very first of all our crossings of the Irrawaddy was No. 1 Section at Myinmu which these write-ups referred to; so the supposed secret of our use of swimmers had been blazoned all over the English papers while the operations were actually under way.

I called on the Chief Censor. He was a very senior Air Force officer. I explained as coldly as I could that this breach of security, which he must have approved, had exposed my men and me to enemy retaliation on an already highly dangerous mission. His special correspondent had not spoken to any of my officers, and I did not know where he got his story. He had scrounged it from an unauthorised source. I told the Chief Censor quite frankly that if his correspondent was found with any of my Sections in the future without proper authorization, signed by me, he would be shot. The Censor seemed a little contrite, but the damage had already been done. Still, I meant every word and I think he knew it. I felt it was a heavy enough burden to face the enemy and the hazards of the country without having also to protect our rear against somebody telling the enemy our plans in advance for the sake of a byline. In wartime, with operations still in progress, this was only slightly removed from treachery, and the penalty for treachery is death - a very simple matter to arrange in Burma in 1945.’

Notwithstanding such unwelcome coverage, Wright duly installed Muldoon as the new C.O. of the S.R.U. on his departure to the U.K.