<![CDATA[Lt Richard Donger, RNVR]]> https://gallery.commandoveterans.org/cdoGallery/v/units/rn+cdos/Lt+Richard+Donger_+F+Commando.jpg.html On the outbreak of the Second World War, Richard Donger was a 16-year-old training to be an accountant in Nottingham. On his 17th birthday he joined the LDF and on his 18th birthday enlisted in the Royal Navy (Hostilities Only) Communications branch (Signals).

He joined HMS Impregnable at Plymouth as Ordinary Signalman and was later recommended for Commission Warrant Training and transferred to HMS Raleigh on a Seaman Gunnery Course, later moving to HMS Victory at Portsmouth, before embarking the battleship HMS Nelson on convoy support en route to Cape Town, Durban and the Middle East.
After returning to Rosyth for repairs, Nelson joined Operation Torch to support the landings in Algiers, North Africa. Mr Donger then returned to Gibraltar at the end of Commission Warrant Training, left the Nelson and took passage on SS Sobieski destined for Gournock and for three months up to February 1943 completed his officer training at Lancing College as Midshipman RNVR Special Services.

Richard joined SS Duchess of Bedford for passage to Suez and was offered the chance to join RN Commando unit 'F for Fox'. He was promoted to Sub-Lieutenant RNVR and later as Assistant to Principal Beach Master, Commander Geoffrey Ransome DSC, and sailed through the Suez Canal for Operation Husky – the assault on Sicily.

In the early hours of July 10, 1943 he landed on Avola Beach as Beach Master and was wounded by shrapnel and received burns to his legs. He was patched up and wounded again the next day; his injuries this time needed a visit to a hospital ship.

After Sicily “Fox” were ordered back to the UK, and Richard was appointed Full Beach Master.

On June 4, 1944 he boarded landing craft carrier HMS Battleaxe at Portsmouth for Operation Overload and his landing craft hit Queen Red sector of Sword Beach at 0610 on June 6 under heavy defensive fire.

At 0700 he was badly wounded in the left upper arm by a sniper and was ordered to a returning landing craft. However, this craft was hit by a shell and he was back in the water and with only one useful arm was drowning.

Fortunately the two German prisoners he was taking back rescued him and got him to another landing craft and he was transferred to HMS Torrington and then to a hospital ship at Portsmouth.

He spent the next three months in various hospitals and for his gallant actions he was Mentioned in Dispatches and awarded the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star.

With beach assaults in Europe over, he returned to general service in April 1945 as 1st Lieutenant/Navigator on HMS Fir, clearing minefields in the Channel and along the Atlantic Wall in the North Sea until he was demobbed in October, 1946.]]>
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