Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A well-documented post-War ‘Malaya Emergency’ M.C. pair awarded to Second Lieutenant J. C. Dunton, Green Howards, for gallantry and leadership while commanding a composite patrol from Support Company in an attack on the jungle camp of Phang Ngen, the Communist District Committee member for Ayer Kuning, Perak, during which they killed three M.P.L.A. terrorists (including Phang, who had a price of $13,000 on his head) and captured three other bandits, two rifles, hand grenades, ammunition and a Luger pistol

Military Cross G.VI.R., 2nd issue, reverse officially dated 1952; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Malaya, G.VI.R. (2/Lt. J. C. Dunton, M.C., Green Howards) surname partially officially corrected, nearly extremely fine (2) £3,000-£4,000

Provenance: J. B. Hayward, 1968

M.C. London Gazette 10 October 1952.

The original Recommendation states: ‘On 7th August 1952 Second Lieutenant Dunton was ordered to take a patrol consisting of himself and 8 Other Ranks to investigate an area where terrorists had been reported. He entered the jungle at about 0400 hours and by 0600 hours had found what appeared to be a bandit track. He therefore deployed his patrol in an ambush position.
At about 0950 hours an armed bandit entered the ambush area and as he appeared to be alone was engaged and slightly wounded. Second Lieutenant Dunton immediately seized the bandit before he could escape and persuaded him to give information which divulged the location of a camp occupied by 5 other bandits.
Second Lieutenant Dunton then led his patrol stealthily but with all possible speed to within 200 yards of the camp. Here he halted and despatched half of his men to form a stop in the rear of the Camp. At 1130 hours by which time the stop had been ordered to be in position Second Lieutenant Dunton worked his way forward to the edge of the camp. The 5 bandits in the Camp at this stage became aware of the patrol but before they could take action Second Lieutenant Dunton engaged them with fire, killing three and wounding and capturing one other. The fifth was captured attempting to escape.
A search of the Camp produced several arms, a quantity of ammunition, clothing, food and numerous documents.
This National Service Officer by complete disregard for his personal safety, and by outstanding leadership, thus ensured the annihilation of an entire bandit camp which included a District Committee Member. His conduct in continuing the action after capturing the first bandit was most praiseworthy, as an officer of less initiative might well have returned to base flushed with success.’

John Charles Dunton was born in Hounslow on 31 July 1932, the only child of a railway clerical officer, and was educated at Bloxham School, Banbury, where he was Captain of Swimming and a member of the Cricket XI. After his eighteenth birthday he was called up for two years of National Service in the army. He attended a War Office Selection Board at Barton Stacey in September 1950 and was among the approximately one third of those appearing before the Board who were passed as suitable for officer training.

Dunton arrived at the Yorkshire and Northumberland Brigade Training Centre at Strensall, Yorkshire on 7 December 1950, badged as a private in the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. After four months he was posted to Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School in Chester to begin a tough 16-week training course as a candidate for commissioning. He met the performance requirements, and in November 1951 Dunton was commissioned as a Temporary Second Lieutenant. He was posted to the Green Howards in Malaya, where he was appointed to command the [Vickers] Machine Gun Platoon in Support Company.

Dunton had just turned twenty when Support Company was shifted to take over a new operational area from a new base at Temoh Hill Camp at Tapah, Perak. This Camp was a collection of attap huts which rose in serried ranks up the hillside. On 4 August 1952, ‘high-grade’ information was received that there was a large terrorist arms dump hidden in a cave system at Kampar. The Support Company Commander took Dunton and a section of his Machine Gun Platoon to find it. ‘The cave developed into a veritable warren, and like Napoleon’s men we marched on our stomachs for much of the way. At one time 2/Lt Dunton and Pte. Harris were swimming out of their depth with a torch clenched in their chattering teeth, while at others we were standing in spacious underground chambers.’ (The Green Howards Gazette, August 1952 refers.) Every nook and cranny of the cave was examined; no weapons were found.

On 7 August Support Company received a Police intelligence report and sketch map indicating where some Communist terrorists could be found near Ayer Kuning. The Support Company Commander was away on a night ambush, so Dunton was tasked to take out a composite patrol of seven men from the Machine Gun and Mortar Platoons. He also had with him Voon Ming, a S.E.P. (Surrendered Enemy Personnel), an ex-Communist who had switched sides, who acted primarily as scout and interpreter/advisor, and was apparently so highly trusted by the Green Howards that he was allowed to carry a loaded weapon. When Dunton’s patrol arrived at the area of the sketch map it was found to bear little or no resemblance to the actual ground, but Dunton decided anyway to set up an ambush along a nearby track. It seems that he was sufficiently accustomed to the frustrations of fighting in Malaya that not even the recent fiasco of the abortive Kampar cave search had blunted his keenness. After almost four hours his patience was rewarded, as a solitary armed terrorist came along the track. Dunton shot at him. The young man, whose name was Cheng Kwai, dropped to the ground (he was only slightly wounded) and held up his hands in anxious surrender. He was lifted to his feet and immediately began to talk about a nearby camp (not his own) where there were five terrorists. He was willing to lead the patrol to it.

None of the British accounts mention what Voon Ming actually said or did, beyond confirming that he was present, but it would be strange indeed if he had not helped Dunton decide to accept Cheng Kwai’s offer, with its attendant risk of being led straight into a terrorist ambush. The patrol set off at the double (which must have been noisy, due to jangling magazines and sloshing water bottles, as well as exhausting). After about a mile, Cheng was able to indicate the camp’s position, about 1,000 yards away among the coarse Lalang grass.

The patrol crept stealthily forward, and after about 800 yards Dunton detached half his force under one of his two Sergeants to circle around to the rear, so that the camp would be surrounded. Dunton’s party had crawled to within 5 yards and the rear party to within 25 yards before the five communists in the camp realised what was happening. Dunton opened fire, followed by the rest of the patrol. Three male terrorists died at once. They belonged to 39 Independent Platoon M.R.L.A., whose commander was described in Police records as ‘a cold-blooded, clear-thinking killer’, who had been on the run since 1946. The M.R.L.A. officer whose camp this was, Phang Ngen, reported directly to the commander of 39 Platoon and was himself a District Committee Member, for whom the Police had offered a $13,000 reward. Two women, Cheong Yew Mooi, who was wounded in the foot, and Tham Yin, an especially fanatical Communist, were captured. Two rifles (one of them sawn-off for use as a jungle carbine), a Luger pistol, two hand grenades, ammunition and documents were seized.

This action, which resulted in three terrorists dead and three captured, was an excellent example of General Sir Gerald Templer’s basic strategy to beat the Communists: ‘A terrorist captured is better than a terrorist dead, for a live terrorist means ten more from the information he can give.’ Templer made a special visit to the Green Howards at Tapah on the very next day and personally congratulated Dunton and his team.

Eight days later, a five-man strike team, comprising the Support Company Commander, Second Lieutenant Dunton, a Lance-Corporal, ‘the ubiquitous Voon Ming’, and a Chinese Liaison Officer set off to search for and ambush a well-used track. At about 1400 ‘three immaculate terrorists walked into the ambush position, and though they came in from the least likely direction. All three were killed’, one by Voon Ming. All three were well armed and equipped, and all belonged to 39 Platoon M.P.L.A. Dunton’s Machine Gun Platoon had killed six terrorists and captured three more in just eight days.

The Green Howards tour in Malaya was now drawing to its close. By December 1952 Dunton was back in the United Kingdom and had been released from full-time National Service. After completing his two years of full-time National Service, Dunton still had a liability to compulsory service on the reserve for a further three and a half years. He was posted to 4th (Territorial Army) Battalion, The Welch Regiment as a Lieutenant and Platoon Commander. In his civilian life, in 1953 Dunton joined United Glass Bottle Manufacturers Ltd., initially as a Trainee and then as a member of the Sales Department at its head office in central London.

Now that his civilian occupation was settled and once all of his National Service obligations were over, Dunton decided that he wanted to make military service a long-term part of his life. In 1956 he joined 10th (City of London) Parachute Battalion (Territorial Army) as a Lieutenant, rising over the next decade to become a Major. Each year, men from 10 Para would jump from R.A.F. troop carriers, landing on a drop zone near Arnhem in Holland to participate in the commemoration events for Operation Market Garden. Dunton is mentioned several times and appears in photographs included in The Tenth by R Bramall. he died of colon cancer in Bristol on 10 January 1980, aged 47.

Sold with a photograph of Dunton and his patrol (but minus Voon Ming, whose picture had to kept out of the newspapers for his own safety), copies of his service record, M.C. recommendation, and further research.

Withdrawn