Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine Second World War “Operation Infatuate” immediate M.M. group of five awarded to Corporal R. G. Johns, Royal Army Service Corps, attached 4th Special Service Brigade, who, though wounded, displayed marked gallantry off Flushing in November 1944, when under heavy machine-gun fire in his Landing Craft (Assault) - several members of his Special Boat Squadron (S.B.S.) “Tarbrush” section were killed on the same occasion

Military Medal, G.VI.R. (T/140084 Cpl. R. G. Johns, R.A.S.C.); 1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, mounted as worn, contact marks, otherwise good very fine (5) £1800-2200

M.M. London Gazette 22 March 1945. The original recommendation for an immediate award - approved by Montgomery - states:

‘On 1 November 1944, this N.C.O. was a member of the team in the leading L.C.A. detailed to make a passage through beach obstacles into Flushing. The officer in command of the team was killed and only two of the team remained unwounded, of which Corporal Johns was one. During the withdrawal on completion of the task, an enemy machine-gun got on to the L.C.A., directing its fire through the open ramp, killing two of the occupants. The rest took cover forward and close in to the sides. Corporal Johns realised that the engines were not running and that the L.C.A. was turning with the tide, so that the occupants would soon be exposed and raked with machine-gun fire. With complete disregard for his own personal safety, he ran through the tracer to get to the engine room. He fell, hit with a burst through the leg. Although he could have taken the cover he had just left, he continued to the engine room by crawling, and was hit again. Despite this he got in and started the engines before collapsing through loss of blood. But for his gallantry, there is little doubt most of the occupants of the L.C.A. would have become casualties.’

Ronald George Johns, a native of Doncaster, was decorated for his services in the landings at Flushing on the morning of 1 November 1944, while attached to Brigadier B. W. “Jumbo” Leicester’s 4th Special Service Brigade, a crack Commando unit. Moreover, as confirmed in James Ladd’s history of the Special Boat Squadron, Invisible Raiders, he was a qualified mechanic in “Dories”, special craft used by the S.B.S. for clandestine coastal reconnaissance operations in enemy occupied territory - indeed he may well have participated in earlier “Tarbrush” raids carried out by that gallant corps. Be that as it may, and as a member of S.B.S. “Keep Force” - charged with finding a suitable landing place for No. 4 Commando - Johns undoubtedly saved several lives in L.C.A. 957 that fateful November morning, when, their task completed, the S.B.S. section prepared for the return trip to Breskens, 3 kilometres across the water. Ladd’s history takes up the story:

‘The “Tarbrush” party - now in an L.C.A. - sailed for Breskens, but near the breakwater they were hotly engaged by German machine-guns. One “Tarbrush” officer was killed, as was the craft’s engineer in the unarmoured space aft. She drifted on the current, her ramp still down, bullets ‘beating a tattoo on the armoured sides of her well’ as she slowly swung towards the gun. Seeing the danger, Corporal Jones (sic), the party’s dory mechanic, dragged the dead engineer from the aft compartment and restarted her engines before more damage was done ... ’

In fact, as confirmed by official Admiralty records, L.C.A. 957 had earlier received ‘5 hits from shore batteries which damaged one engine, the steering and the telegraphs’, which, in combination with the above cited machine-gun fire, resulted in seven army personnel being killed, and Corporal Johns and two ratings wounded.