Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Second World War North-West Europe operations M.M. group of five awarded to Sergeant I. J. Grant, Royal Army Ordnance Corps, who was decorated for his services as a cameraman in the Army’s Film and Photographic Unit (A.F.P.U.): he later published Cameramen at War, a vivid account of his experiences under fire - having landed with Lord Lovat’s Commando Brigade on D-Day and covered the crossing of “Pegasus Bridge”, he and his camera accompanied 11 Armoured Division throughout the N.W.E. campaign, including the liberation of Belsen, undoubtedly his most traumatic wartime experience

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (3059999 Sjt. I. J. Grant, R.A.O.C.); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf, the first in its card box of issue and forwarding box with related War Office forwarding letter, dated 20 January 1947, extremely fine (5) £3000-4000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Ron Penhall Collection.

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M.M. London Gazette 24 January 1946. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. has throughout the campaign proved that he has always been ready to go far beyond the normal call of duty to obtain films of British troops in action. Apart from his courage and military bearing, he has maintained a consistently high level of photographic quality. He landed on D-Day at H. + 90 with 45 R.M. Commando. After the ensuing operations which involved the death of his partner, he was transferred to 11 Armoured Division and remained with them almost exclusively for the campaign. He secured remarkable pictures which attracted great attention, of tanks in action in all the “beach-head” battles till the Falaise Gap period. After the advance to Antwerp, he photographed the fighting at the Albert Canal, Helmond, Deurne, Overloon and Venraij. He was with 1 Commando Brigade in their crossings of the Rhine and Elbe. Otherwise he was with 11 Armoured Division till the end of hostilities. The result of his work is that some very fine operational pictures have been taken all through the campaign of British tanks in action, so that through the newsreels and such films as “Left of the Line” world wide recognition and publicity have been given to the British soldier.’

Mention in despatches London Gazette 10 May 1945.

Ian James Grant was born in Edinburgh in 1917 and was called up for military service in 1940, initially spending two and a half years with the Royal Scots as a Lance-Corporal. But yearning for something beyond regular regimental employ, he volunteered to attend an Army Photographic Film Unit (A.P.F.U.) training course at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, a course that paid rapid dividends in the form of excellent quarters and the company of similarly employed A.T.S. and W.A.A.F. teams. Graduating as a fully fledged cameraman in the rank of Sergeant in time for the Normandy landings, Grant’s first official commission was to capture on film a selection of top secret vehicles on the Isle of Wight, vehicles that became known in the invasion as “Hobart’s Funnies”, after Major-General Percy Hobart.

The work of the A.F.P.U. was well-known prior to the Normandy landings, feature films such as Desert Victory already having reached a wide and appreciative audience - ground-breaking operational footage captured by the likes of Captain Alan Whicker, who was to win yet greater acclaim for his work in the Italian campaign (recently the subject of a television documentary and his wartime memoirs). But the operational brief accorded the likes of Grant, a member of No. 5 A.F.P.U., for D-Day (and hopefully beyond), was arguably one of the most challenging to date: armed only with a camera - but sometimes a revolver - he and his colleagues were expected to penetrate the much-vaunted defences of the Atlantic Wall, hot on the heels of assorted Commandos, and seek out the action where it was the hottest.

For his own part, Grant was assigned to Lord Lovat’s 1st Special Service Brigade, comprising 3, 4 and 6 Commandos, and 45 Royal Marine Commando, and he landed on the beaches at Ouistreham with the first and last named units at H. + 90, proudly sporting the famous green beret - Lovat had insisted he wear it for the occasion: “No helmets on the day Sergeant, as you don’t want to get shot up the arse.”

The run-in to the beaches was far from unopposed, Major (afterwards Brigadier) Peter Young, D.S.O., M.C., an officer in No. 3 Commando, who landed with Grant, describing a hot reception in his memoir Storm From The Sea - three of the five landing craft conveying his unit were hit. Notwithstanding this ongoing opposition, Grant’s camera was quickly in action, or at least until the point when Lovat yelled at him to “Move it!” off the beach. He subsequently accompanied Lovat’s men to Pegasus Bridge, where he captured footage of Bill Millin piping the Commandos into battle with “The Blue Bonnets Over the Border”. It was a momentous moment, later described by Grant in his memoir Cameramen at War::

‘Lord Lovat was also in better humour - he was a little behind schedule but he was determined to give the Airborne a little show. He summoned his personal piper, Bill Millin, to go ahead of the column and told him, “Just blow, man, anything at all but make it rousing.” Bill Millin did as he was told, pumped the bag under one arm and the Commandos swung onto the bridge approach, the bagpipes snarling out “The Bonnets over the Border”. This was great stuff for my camera and I raced ahead getting as many different angles as I could - Lovat marching as on parade, the fantastic sight of Millin’s red cheeks bulging behind the bagpipes, the red and green berets mixed up together, the crashed glider so close to the bridge, civilians waving from the nearby cafe - and over it all came the sound of enemy fire from the nearby woods. Strangely, nobody gave a damn and nobody appeared to be hit - maybe the German gunners were so astonished by this crazy sight, their thumbs and fingers just froze over triggers and the firing went as wild as the scene ... ’

In his memoir, March Past, Lord Lovat desribes the same moment:

‘I ran across with Piper Millin, Salsbury and a handful of fighting men. There was a fair amount of mortaring, and a machine-gun up the water pinged bullets off the steel struts, but no one noticed and brave fellows from the gliders were cheering from their fox-holes at the other end.

Soon I was hailing John Howard, a hero in the Ox. and Bucks. who had crash-landed his ship with its nose almost in the canal. He advised me to keep moving: it was no place to hang about. No. 6 and No. 3 Commandos got across in no time; the marines, close behind, had their C.O. picked off by a sniper. As the day wore on, Germans infiltrated along the river and canal banks, causing considerable damage.

John Howard’s nocturnal coup de main was a notable achievement. His fast dwindling company was to take punishment all day, but they kept the bridge open until darkness fell again. John, a modest fellow, was to be badly shot up later in the war. I remember an apology as we doubled over this hot potato. “Sorry about the mortaring from that ruddy chateau. The bastards have got the range, but it happens to be a maternity hospital and I have strict orders not to disturb the inmates!”

Apologies for the two-minute late arrival came at the wide river, which flowed four hundred yards of lush water meadows ahead. The grazings provided a nasty spectacle: swollen cattle and horses lay with legs in the air, while others dragged around, tripping on spilled insides, bellowing their agony. Two Schmeisser men under Sergeant Phillott ran over and put them out of pain.

Piper Millin struck into a march and played across the water. Peter Wilson, an old friend from early days in B Troop, was shot through the head as No. 4 Commando crossed later that afternoon. Derek had a man killed by a sniper, pierced (curiously) through the nostril. Several other ranks became casualties, but the good music drowned the shooting and we managed to stride over in step - almost with pomp and circumstances!’

Following the crossing of Pegasus Bridge, Grant sought refuge in a house in the village of Sallenelles, but that night his billet was taken out by a self-propelled artillery weapon, moments after he had rushed out into the garden when alerted to his pending fate by a vigilant Commando. Shaken by his first combat experiences, he reported to the A.F.P.U. H.Q. at Cully the following morning, where he heard that one of his comrades - a friend from Pinewood Studios’ days - had been killed, and several more wounded. Luckily, however, there were moments of light relief, such as the occasion an over-zealous Sergeant-Major shook his hand, believing his A.F.P.U. shoulder flash stood for “Army Field Punishment Unit” (“A splendid idea ... ”).

As verified by the recommendation for his M.M., Grant subsequently accompanied 11 Armoured Division throughout its advance into North West Europe, initially in the fighting around Caen (a.k.a. “Operation Goodwood”) and in the bloody battles for the Falaise Gap, and thereafter through Belgium and Holland to the crossing of the Rhine and Elbe, the latter operations while in the company of No. 1 Commando Brigade. For most of this period Grant was given a jeep and a free rein and, as with like-minded cameramen, sometimes ventured behind enemy lines, once being credited with taking the surrender of a crack Waffen S.S. unit. Yet the most traumatic moment of his wartime career was probably when he arrived at Belsen, his cine footage being the first ever taken of this grim monument to Nazi barbarism:

‘We were still unaware of what it was all about. Through the wire I could see groups of figures and, as we observed that Roberts was still waiting at the gate, we went over to the wire mesh and peered through. There was something odd about those figures and I rammed a telescopic view-finder on to my camera and stuck it through the wire. What now came into clearer focus made the hair on the back of my neck do the most frightening things. If they were human, these groups were skeletons held together with rags. As if to prove they were alive, two of them pushed up into a standing position and began a slow shuffle in our direction. I pulled focus as they moved, and the gruesome sight of their emaciated faces made me pull away from the wire ... ’

Relieved to be ordered on his way, Grant finished the War in Denmark, covering the liberation of Copenhagen. Returning to civilian employment with J. Arthur Rank, his camera work took him all over the world and he eventually joined the infant I.T.N. He retired to the West Country.

Sold with original campaign medal forwarding slip and War Office letter regarding the M.M., together with a copy of the recipient’s book Cameraman at War (pub. Patrick Stephens, 1980), this latter providing a complete and fascinating record of his journey through North West Europe 1944-45, and featuring many of his own photographs.

Provenance: Ex Glendining’s, 16 November 1994 (Lot 373).