Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The Palestine and Second World War campaign group of four awarded to Corporal A. Drongin, Special Air Service (S.A.S.), formerly a Sergeant-Major in the Scots Guards, who died of wounds received in ‘L’ Detachment’s raid on Benghazi in September 1942: recalled by other old comrades as a ‘very hard soldier, with a harsh voice, who would take no nonsense’, and as ‘one of Stirling’s ideal selfless men’, he displayed indomitable courage during his final ordeal, telling the M.O., “I’m sorry to have given you so much trouble, sir”
General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine (2695218 Gdsmn. A. Drongin, S. Gds.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; War Medal 1939-45, mounted for display, nearly extremely fine


A Second World War M.M. group of six awarded to Sapper F. Z Drongin, Royal Engineers, who was decorated for gallantry during the siege of Tobruk on the night of 9-10 November 1941 - he subsequently died of wounds in Burma in April 1944, while attached to Wingate's Chindits in 77th Infantry Brigade
Military Medal, G.VI.R. (1878357 Spr. F. Z Drongin, R.E.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted for display, nearly extremely fine (10) £4,000-£6,000

Provenance: Dix Noonan Webb, May 2016.

Anthony Drongin - actually Antanao Dronginis - was born at Wishaw, Lanarkshire in February 1915, the son of a Lithuanian miner, Leopolda Drongonis and his wife, Anna.

Enlisting in the Scots Guards in Glasgow in June 1935, Anthony witnessed active service in Palestine in 1936 and gained rapid advancement to Lance-Sergeant in the following year. By the outbreak of hostilities he was serving as an Instructor on the Regimental Depot Staff but in November 1940 he transferred to No. 8 Commando as a Company Sergeant-Major.

Re-designated 4 Special Service Battalion, the Commando embarked for the Middle East in February 1941, where it became part of ‘B’ Battalion of ‘Layforce’. On the force’s disbandment towards the end of the same year, Drongin was appointed a Staff Sergeant in the Military Provost Staff Corps. Having then rejoined the Scots Guards on 4 June 1942, he transferred to ‘L’ Detachment, S.A.S. on the 22nd, on which date - at his own request - he reverted to the rank of Corporal.

Thus his subsequent part in Operation “Bigamy” in September 1942, when ‘L’ Detachment was charged with capturing and holding Benghazi until a relieving force arrived by sea from Malta.

Operation “Bigamy”

Allocated to ‘X’ Force with 45 jeeps and 33 trucks, the S.A.S. men were divided into three patrols, namely an advance party under “Paddy” Mayne and two larger parties under David Stirling and Captain W. J. “Bill” Cumper (see DNW, 19 September 2003, Lot 1247). Drongin accompanied Stirling’s patrol.

Of subsequent events, as the attacking force reached the perimeter of Benghazi, Fitzroy MacLean takes up the story in Eastern Approaches:

‘For the first hour or two the country was familiar. We were following the route that Melot and I had taken to the edge of the escarpment. The maps were inaccurate and we found our way through a maze of wadis largely by the help of landmarks; a burnt-out German truck; a Mohammedan shrine; the unusual outline of a hilltop.

Clearly it was going to be no easy matter for a convoy the size of ours to negotiate the precipitous escarpment, especially as our choice of routes was limited by the latest enemy troop dispositions. Melot's Arab, who claimed to know a good way down, was brought up to the front of the column and used as a guide.

He turned out to be a very poor one. It was now quite dark. The track soon became increasingly precipitous and showed signs of petering out altogether. It was strewn, too, with immense boulders which grated ominously on the sumps of the trucks. After a good deal of whispered barracking from me in Italian, our guide finally agreed that we must be in the wrong wadi. The process of extracting the column from it, and searching for a new way down was long and painful.

Meanwhile the R.A.F. had been bombing Benghazi for some time. We could see the bombs bursting. By the time we reached the foot of the escarpment and started out across the coastal plain, the bombardment had stopped. The searchlights flicked round the sky once or twice more and then went out. The moon was down. We should not now reach Benghazi until well after the appointed hour. We seemed to have been on the way a long time. It was cold and the effects of the rum we had drunk before starting had long since worn off. We cursed the Arab roundly.

At last we reached the tarmac road and a few minutes later were nearing the outskirts of the town. It would not be long now before things began to happen. So far there had been no sign of the enemy.

We were almost on top of the road block before we saw it. This time there was no red light and no sentry. Only a bar across the road. Beyond it, in the shadows, something was flapping in the wind. The leading vehicles stopped and word was passed back for the rest of the column to halt, while we investigated matters further. On either side of the road there was wire and in places the soil seemed to have been dug up. This looked unpleasantly like the minefield we had heard about. If so, it meant that our only line of approach lay along the road and through the road blocks. David summoned Bill Cumper, as the expert on mines, and invited him to give his opinion of this somewhat disquieting discovery.

Bill made one of his inevitable jokes and then we watched him while he went forward and poked about in the darkness. Evidently our suspicions were well founded, for after a quick look round, he turned his attention to the road block. He fiddled with the catch for a second or so, and then the bar flew up, leaving the way open for us to advance.

The situation, Bill felt, called for a facetious remark, and, as usual, he rose to the occasion. ‘Let battle commence,’ he said in his best Stanley Holloway manner, stepping politely aside to let the leading jeep through.

The words were hardly out of his mouth when pandemonium broke loose. From the other side of the road block a dozen machine-guns opened up at us at point-blank range; then a couple of 20mm. Bredas joined in, and then some heavy mortars, while sniper's bullets pinged viciously through the trees on either side of the road.

From the front of the column we opened up with everything we had. The leading jeep, driven by Sergeant Almonds of the Coldstream Guards, drove straight at the enemy with all its guns firing and was already well past the road block when an incendiary bullet hit it in the petrol tank and set it ablaze. Another followed and met the same fate. The Bredas in particular, gave our opponents a considerable advantage, while the blazing jeeps furnished a light to aim by. Then, after a time the combined fire of our leading vehicles, now dispersed on both sides of the road, began to tell and there was a marked falling off in the violence of the enemy's opposition.

But it was abundantly clear that we had been expected and it could only be a question of time before fresh reinforcements were brought up. There was no longer any hope of rushing the defences. The element of surprise had gone, and with it all chance of success. Meanwhile time was passing. Hopelessly outnumbered as we were, we could not afford to be caught in the open in daylight. Reluctantly, David gave the order to withdraw. Still returning the enemy's fire while they could, our vehicles dispersed on the open ground on either side of the road and headed singly and in groups for the Gebel, in a race to reach cover before the sun rose.’

Grievous wounds

Here, then, the action in which Drongin was grievously wounded; as described in The Regiment, by Michael Asher, he had been exchanging words with Reg Seekings in one of the forward jeeps when he was hit by a burst of fire in the thigh and groin. He was knocked off the jeep in the process but Seekings managed to gather him up and get him back on board. An officer, thinking Drongin was dead, ordered the ‘corpse’ to be thrown back over the side but it suddenly came to life: eyes wide open, Drongin reprimanded the officer, “Corporal to you, sir.”

A terrible ordeal followed in the long journey back to the patrol’s rendezvous point in the Jebel, Lieutenant Carol Mather recalling that Drongin was slumped in the back - ‘We travelled too fast for the wounded man’s comfort, I’m afraid.’ Indeed it appears Drongin was in such terrible pain that it was deemed best to drop him off. Malcolm Pleydell, the patrol’s M.O., takes up the story in Born of the Desert, in which he refers to Drongin as Dawson:

‘At about eleven o'clock a jeep drove fast into the wadi, bringing the news that Dawson [Drongin] had been found and brought back a part of the way towards the rendezvous, but that he could be moved no further on account of the pain he was suffering. The driver said he was ready to lead us back to the place where Dawson had been left, so, bidding farewell to the wounded and leaving the medical orderlies in charge, Shaw and I set out to follow the other jeep. Nothing of note occurred during the first few miles, until the erratic behaviour of our jeep told us that one of the wheels was punctured. We shouted and yelled to the jeep in front but were unable to attract their attention. Slowly we fell behind and had the chagrin of watching them draw ahead and out of sight. It was most galling, and pulling up to a halt we jumped out to inspect the flat tyre. It looked like a long delay, but to our surprise another jeep came driving along the track in the opposite direction. It stopped, and after a brief explanation I transferred my equipment - leaving Shaw to mend the puncture - and set off once more towards the scene of the previous day's activities. After a while we caught up with the leading jeep and followed it for some distance before it drew off the track towards a small cluster of scrub. Here, lying in the scanty shade, was Dawson, his healthy bronzed features belying the real gravity of his condition.

"I'm sorry to have given you so much trouble, sir," he said with a forced grin. Could any words be more typical of the fortitude of these men? I wondered, as I made up the pentothal solution. Could anything more nearly express their spirit?

Without disturbing him, we injected the anaesthetic, and he sank back into his first sleep for over forty-eight hours. Examination of his wounds showed that it was necessary to drain the bladder at once; a catheter could not be passed so that an abdominal incision was unavoidable. It was not a pleasant procedure when one considered the lack of sterility of the conditions under which we were working. However, there was no other course open to us; and as we were proceeding with the operation the familiar drone of an aeroplane came to our ears and soon afterwards an Italian bomber flew overhead, describing large circles as it followed the track towards our rendezvous. We stopped our work until it had passed over. About five minutes later another plane followed the first. So they were after us again! Once or twice we were obliged to throw a blanket over Dawson and crawl across to some adjoining bushes, for groups of men were too easily distinguished at that height. Fortunately the job did not take long, and, by attaching a clasp-knife over the catheter outlet, we were able to ensure slow drainage. As I clamped the knife over the tube I was reminded of the serene words of wisdom that we used to hear as students on the ward rounds, of the surgeon lolling back in complacent self-satisfaction, and of ourselves as we stood round the foot of the bed wondering who was going to be asked the next question. No cool green wards now; no tidy white coats; no trim nurses to bear one attendance. Only the green-brown hills shuddering in the heat haze; only the hot blue of the sky and the white of the rocks; only the thin trickles of sweat running down our foreheads and flanks.

We loaded Dawson on to the jeep; laying him crosswise on top of a camouflage net, and then started to drive back slowly towards the rendezvous. A moment later and we had been forced to move hurriedly from the track and take cover from an aircraft which was following the same course. After two minutes' grace we made another effort, but again we had to chase back towards the sparse bushes. We gave it up. Aircraft were flying over every other minute, all leading towards the same quarter. From the direction of our rendezvous came the familiar sad sound of bombing and machine-gunning, and looking in that direction we could see a thin dark column of smoke rise lazily heavenward. Through the glasses there was no difficulty in distinguishing the planes as they circled and dived in rotation. Soon another coil of smoke had wreathed up beside its fellow; we judged our petrol supplies had been hit. Thus it continued throughout the afternoon, with all types of aircraft flying towards those tell-tale pillars of smoke. What could we do? Plainly it was impossible to move down the track; yet it was dreadful to have to remain here as helpless spectators. Some of the planes were flying very low and every now and then we would have to hide amongst the scrub. Dawson, at any rate, was happily unconscious of the whole affair; lying under a small bush he looked as if he would sleep for a century. After a time I began to give up the thought of getting back by jeep. I considered the possibility of walking; but it was ten miles to go, and with a monkey-box to carry I would not arrive before sundown. I resigned myself to the wait. There was a little water and a piece of cheese in the jeep; we devoured the latter hungrily; it tasted wonderful and there was just enough to make our mouths water. Meals were becoming irregular, we remarked, as we lit cigarettes and scanned the skyline once more.

Towards sundown the planes became less frequent, and judging that it was worth our while to try and move, we set off towards the rendezvous. The jolting motion of the jeep woke up Dawson whose dazed movements threatened to unbalance him and spill him off; it took us a little while to quieten him down. On our way we came upon another jeep, and wishing to get back more quickly I changed my transport. The western sky was a smouldering flame as we rattled busily along the rough surface, and I can picture one lone plane flying slowly back towards Benghazi. To me, at that moment, it seemed that the silhouette of the plane against the sunset glow epitomised our whole suffering and day's travail. The next instant and it was lost against a darker streak of sky. Then came the glimmer of dusk, the uncertainty and haziness of outlines; it was harder now to follow the track, and by the time we had reached the rendezvous the fires of the burning jeeps and lorries had already begun to stand out clear and red against the gathering darkness.’

Pleydell was quickly back at work, treating further casualties caused by enemy aircraft at ‘X’ patrol’s rendezvous.

Of the wounded, the four most serious cases - including Drongin - were taken by a volunteer, accompanied by an Italian P.O.W., under the Red Cross, to Benghazi, in the hope of finding them urgent medical care. Sadly none of them survived and although buried in a marked grave at Sidi Moies on, or about, 19 September 1942, that grave was subsequently lost. Drongin is commemorated on the Alamein Memorial.

Sold with an original photograph of ‘Sergeant A. Drongin’s Squad, Scots Guards, Oct. 1939’, mounted on captioned card, together with an Educational Training Booklet (1931), a Programme for the Presentation of Colours by H.M. the King on 16 July 1936, and a drill booklet (1939); so, too, with a large file of research, including a quantity of original letters from ex-members of ‘L’ Detachment, S.A.S.


Francis Zigmund Drongin, Anthony’s brother, was born at Dalzell, Motherwell, Lanarkshire in August 1921 and enlisted in the Royal Engineers in January 1937.

Embarked for the Middle East in October 1940, he was posted to No. 12 Field Company, R.E. in January 1941, in which unit he won his M.M. (London Gazette on 24 February 1942).

The original recommendation - submitted by Lieutenant-Colonel E. A. Arderne, O.B.E., C.O. of 1st Battalion, Durham Light Infantry - states:

‘At Tobruk on the night of 9-10 November 1941, Sapper Drongin accompanied ‘D’ Company, 1st Durham Light Infantry on a night raid on the enemy strong point of ‘Plonk’. Sapper Drongin showed great bravery in going forward under heavy fire to open a gap in the enemy wire. Although his duty had been completed he remained behind with the Company and after the order for withdrawal had been given he remained behind and assisted in the removal of wounded men. He formed one of the party who remained behind in No Man’s Land and looked after the wounded till he was found later by our patrols.’

Drongin departed the Middle East for India in early 1942 where, in the fullness of time, he was attached to H.Q., 77th Infantry Brigade. Commanded by Brigadier “Mad Mike” Calvert, the Brigade went into action during Wingate’s second Chindit operation in March 1944, taking up positions at “White City” behind enemy lines in Burma. It was here that Drongin died of wounds on 10 April 1944. He was buried in Taukkyan War Cemetery.

Drongin’s father received his son’s M.M. at a Buckingham Palace investiture held in December 1945; sold with a quantity of copied photographs, including portraits of both brothers.