The Second World War Normandy operations D.S.M. pair awarded to Acting Lance-Corporal A. S. Morgan, Royal Marines, a cameraman in 30th Assault Unit, R.M., a unit charged with journeying into enemy held territory to capture secret military hardware and documentation

Distinguished Service Medal, G.VI.R. (Mne. (A./L. Cpl.) A. S. Morgan, PO. X. 115315, R.M.), in its case of issue; Police Long Service, E.II.R. (Const. Albert S. Morgan), in its card box of issue, extremely fine (2)
£2500-3000

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

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D.S.M. London Gazette 27 February 1945:

‘For good services in the operations leading to the liberation of France.’

Albert Stuart Morgan - a pre-war member of the Wallasey Constabulary - was awarded his D.S.M. in respect of services in France in June 1944 as a member of 30th Assault Unit, R.M. He had already seen active service out in the Mediterranean theatre of war as a member of 30 Commando, another unit charged with mounting daring raids to obtain secret enemy documents and equipment. One such mission he participated in was against an enemy radar station at Licola in September 1943, the whole under the command of Lieutenant-Commander T. J. Glanville, R.N.V.R., who wrote:

‘Our next and principal objective was the ‘Y’ station at Licola, reported to be well defended by anything between a Company and a Platoon, according to different sources. Our Italian scouts, however, acting on their own initiative, instead of simply spying out our position approached the enemy in haste and reported seeing a strong force of British with green berets advancing through the woods. This intelligence had dramatic results as it threw the garrison, which proved to be about a platoon strength, into something of a panic as they set fire to the building and its contents and fled in their motor transport which was ready waiting. Our men were angry as we had seen the bodies of humans and animals which had been wantonly slaughtered; this roused their passions and they badly wanted to get to grips with the ruffians responsible. We had landed without transport and the landing craft were lying off towards San Martino, so we had to follow on foot at the double to save what we could from the target. It was reached in time to complete extinguishing the fires - our two Italians had started the good work. The building housed valuable documents, many of which had been stuffed into a central furnace from which they were extracted without difficulty. The Germans appeared to have removed their cypher machine and code books, which was to be expected, but the remainder of the contents of the ‘Y’ Station had been taken almost intact. Although the books were charred at the edges they were perfectly legible. My first sight of one of the captured books gave me rather a turn as it proved to be a fairly complete copy of a British convoy code: other books examined proved equally disquieting. A small party of Marines was left to pack up the captured material. I assembled the remainder of the group to clear the enemy and his positions down to Lago di Patria and to the north side of the Bay of Naples ... ’

Returning home at the end of 1943, Morgan was shortly afterwards sent to the Army Film and Photographic Unit at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, where he was trained as a cameraman - ‘The idea was that we could photograph documents and machinery, and take the cameras on patrol too’. A month later he rejoined his unit at Littlehampton - shortly to become 30th Assault Unit, R.M. - and preparations for the Normandy landings began in earnest, even down to such thorough detail as supplying each man with identitiy card photographs in civilian clothing - ‘The idea being if we got into trouble in France we should have a photograph ready for the Resistance to put into a forged identity document and hence enter the escape pipeline that much more quickly’. Much of this planning was under the auspices of Ian Fleming in Naval Intelligence, who was given responsibility for unit’s D-Day tasks and future dispositions, or at least until the arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel Quill on the scene (see previous Lot for his Honours and Awards and further details regarding 30th Assault Unit, R.M.). For his own part Morgan was re-united with Lieutenant-Commander T. J. Glanville, R.N.V.R., as one of his personal aides, in “Cutforce” section (later known as “Pikeforce”), which landed on “Nan Red Beach” at St. Aubin-sur-Mer on D-Day, amidst much carnage, an hour or so after the main Commando landings. Morgan, who had refused to put up his Lance-Corporal’s stripe ‘despite being ordered to do so on several occasions’, was now allocated to ‘I’ Section, which sub-unit would ‘be attached to the various troops on whatever stunts they went on’, one of which was an attack on the enemy’s radar station at Douvre. In the event an attack carried out by the Canadians in the face of heavy opposition but Glanville and Morgan were hot on their heels, the former noting that his fellow Marine ‘did a thorough job of probing the whole area with handspikes and unearthed a good deal of valuable material’.

Another, more important mission assigned to ‘I’ Section was a sweep of assorted enemy H.Qs and installations in the Paris area (a.k.a. “Operation Woolforce”), in which work Morgan excelled himself:

‘Of the R.M. personnel I wish particularly to mention the name of Marine Morgan who regularly worked long hours and went far beyond the normal requirements of his duty both in searching for documents and in sorting, listing, packing and labelling of captured material. He was personally responsible for finding in unusual places several valuable documents.’

Indeed ex-policeman Morgan had a habit of turning up important documents, another one being a letter discovered in a search at Bad Sulza, this being an enemy order to proceed with the transportation of a secret archive to Tambach. As it transpired, this led to one of 30th Assault Group’s greatest finds - the capture of some senior personnel of the War Science Department of the German Admiralty, together with the complete archives of the German Navy from 1870 to date. Morgan was in on the act, when Glanville arrived at the gates of Tambach Castle, near Coburg in Bavaria, in early April 1945, but not before a perilous journey of over 150 miles. For transport, he states that they ‘had an airborne jeep armed with a stripped Lewis gun and a Colt 50-calibre machine-gun, a Chevrolet scout car with similar armament, and a 15cwt. Bedford truck for carrying stores, supplies and equipment. Our personal weapons consisted of a Bren, Tommy guns, rifles, Colt-45 pistols and 36-type hand grenades, so that our fire power was considerable, although concentrated in too few hands to be effective against a large scale attack’. He continues:

‘The going was very rough and entailed a number of detours, where bridges had been demolished or roads wrecked. We had perforce to cross lines of advance of the leading units of the U.S. 3rd Army, but managed to avoid hostile action. The whole of the area was in a state of chaos, with S.S. units fighting it out, the Wehrmacht fighting or surrendering and with bands of escaped P.O.Ws, mainly Russian or Poles, roaming the countryside, or deserters from the German Army, including numbers of Asiatics who had deserted from Russian forces and had been conscripted into the German Army as “S.S. Tartar” Divisions ... They were greatly dreaded by the civilian population, particularly the women. We reached Tambach Castle at sunset. This proved to be a considerable ‘H’ shaped building and through the ground floor windows we could see bookcases filled with files bearing the magic emerald green cross on a purple background, indicating ‘Chefsache’ (Top Secret Ultra). I tried various doors facing on to the courtyard and soon found one that opened. I stepped inside and was confronted by a German naval rating who raised both hands in surrender with an expression of horror, which was due to my faithful M.O.A. [another personal aide, like Morgan], Marine Booth, who had him covered with his Tommy gun, on top of my pistol. I asked him who was in command and he replied, “Kontradmiral Gladisch.” The next moment the Admiral appeared, accompanied by his colleagues, Rear-Admirals Assman (War Science) and Spindler (Submarine warfare specialist). The castle was left under the guard of the marines under Lieutenant Besant, while we interrogated the Admirals. Gladisch explained they were the War Science Department of the German Admiralty and that they were concerned with the classification, storage and evaluation of the archives of the Navy and with preparing historical records and submitting papers regarding naval policy to the high command ... The women on the Staff (Kriegsmarine Hilferinnen), corresponding to our Wrens, were the main danger to the archives as they were bent on their destruction. Led by a formidable character, Fraulein Androde, they were being contained with difficulty and had, in fact, already started a fire which had been quickly extinguished. Should they make contact with the Waffen S.S., there would be no doubt that the loyal personnel would be shot and the archives destroyed. A similar risk related to the post-occupational resistance forces (“Werewolves”, Hitler Jugend, et al) and above all to the marauding bands of Polish and Russian deserters. We made an examination of the premises (one wing of the castle was occupied by its owner, a Hungarian Countess) and arranged for armed sentries, including our own officers and the Germans, to be posted round the clock at strategic points to safeguard the archives.’

In fact, so worried was Glanville about the security of this hugely important archive, that at length he sought the assistance of nearby American units. No doubt, too, he spared a moment to congratulate his colleague, Morgan, without whose smart detective work at Bad Sulza, none of this would have been possible.


Sold with a quantity of original documentation and photographs, including Admiralty letter notifying the recipient of the award of his D.S.M. ‘for courage, skill and devotion to duty shown in the operations which led to the liberation of France’, dated 6 March 1945; related Buckingham Palace forwarding letter and congratulatory letter from the Chief Constable of the Wallasey Constabulary, dated 24 March 1945, this last addressed to Morgan at ‘Naval Party 1677’; three Wallasey Constabulary wartime newsletters, each with mention of the recipient; approximately 20 wartime photographs, several captioned; a copy of the newspaper Front National, Paris, dated 8 September 1944; the recipient’s silk evasion map for Holland, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Germany; and a copy of David Nutting’s excellent history of 30th Assault Unit, R.M., Attain by Surprise, in which Morgan is frequently mentioned.

Provenance: Sotheby’s, 26 July 1996 (Lot 344).