Orders, Decorations and Medals

The civil O.B.E., Second World War Long Range Desert Group operations M.C., D.C.M. group of nine awarded to Major L. H. “Tony” Browne, New Zealand Military Forces, a long served patrol navigator and leader in the L.R.D.G. who was wounded on four occasions - and once bitten by a snake

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 2nd type breast badge; Military Cross, G.VI.R., reverse officially dated ‘1943’; Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.VI.R. (4444 Cpl. L. H. Browne, N.Z. Mil. Force); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, clasp, 8th Army; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf; New Zealand War Service Medal 1939-45, together with metalled and embroidered L.R.D.G. badges, and an enamelled Cross of Lorraine badge (as no doubt gifted to him by a member of the Free French Forces who onetime served in the L.R.D.G.), this last chipped, otherwise good very fine and better (12) £6000-8000

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

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O.B.E. London Gazette 12 June 1965.

M.C. London Gazette 22 April 1943. The original recommendation states:

‘For most distinguished services during the operation that resulted in the turning of the Agheila position. Captain Browne carried out the initial reconnaissance of country several hundred miles behind the enemy lines, the information he obtained being invaluable in making plans for the approach marches. During the operation he personally navigated and led the New Zealand Division column from Haseiat to Merduma and then on to Nofila. While carrying out a further reconnaissance before the next advance he was wounded when blown up on an unmarked minefield near Wadi Tamet. Captain Browne displayed excellent judgment and the greatest enterprise at all times.’

D.C.M. London Gazette 8 July 1941. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. displayed exceptional gallantry and resource during the raid on Murzuk on 11 January 1941. He commanded his vehicle most efficiently and maintained his Lewis gun in action with coolness and telling effect on the enemy. His example did much to keep the patrol steady at a critical time when enemy fire was causing casualties. Although wounded in the foot he remained at his post.

In the action at Gebel Sherif, south-west of Kufra on 31 January his coolness was instrumental in saving his vehicle and crew when subjected to a determined low-flying bombing and M.G. attack by an enemy aircraft. Throughout all the L.R.D.G. operations in Libya this N.C.O. has held the responsible post of patrol navigator, and has shown the utmost devotion to duty.’

Mention in despatches London Gazette 23 May 1946.

Lawrence Hamilton “Tony” Browne was born in England in July 1908 but emigrated to New Zealand while an under-graduate at Cambridge. Originally joining the Civil Service, he went on to spend 12 years with the N.Z. Broadcasting Organisation before enlisting in the New Zealand Military Forces at Wellington in September 1939. Attached to the N.Z.A.S.C. that September, he was embarked for Egypt early in the following year, where, at Cairo, in July 1940, he joined the fledgling ranks of the Long Range Desert Group (L.R.D.G.) in the rank of Corporal, his amateur interest in astronomy and a flair for mathematics making him an ideal candidate for the study of desert navigation, an art in which he swiftly excelled, so much so, in fact, that he remained actively employed by the L.R.D.G. until the end of the War, latterly as an Intelligence Officer.

The exploits and operations of the L.R.D.G. are well-recorded in W. B. “Bill” Kennedy Shaw’s Long Range Desert Group, which was published in 1945, and David Lloyd Owen’s more recent and definitive unit history, Providence Their Guide, and so too the remarkable career of “Tony” Browne, who displayed all those traits so typical of the hardy New Zealanders to have been recruited into the ranks of the L.R.D.G., following that force’s inception under the leadership of Major Ralph Bagnold - and with the support and blessing of General Sir Archibald Wavell: better still, his wartime journal - effectively a complete “diary of operations” - survives in the collection of the Imperial War Museum.

Browne’s D.C.M.-winning exploits in the actions at Murzuk and Gebel Sherif in Libya in January 1941 were part of the L.R.D.G’s first serious attempt at penetrating behind enemy lines in force, and were the highlights of an extraordinary non-stop five week long journey totalling 4500 miles. At Murzuk the Italian held fort (and nearby airfield with three resident aircraft), was pretty much laid waste, the L.R.D.G. suffering two fatalities and three wounded, including Browne, who was hit in the foot - the Italians suffered ten killed and 15 wounded. Ten days later, however, the patrol encountered serious opposition at Gebel Sherif, when attacked by an Italian Auto-Saharan force on the ground, and by supporting enemy aircraft - within a short period of time several L.R.D.G. trucks had been damaged or destroyed, the patrol’s C.O taken prisoner and other men wounded. Remarkably, there was only one fatality, and the remaining vehicles were sufficient for the patrol members to beat a hasty retreat to Cairo. Browne was wounded for a second time in the same action.

Following further patrols, including a 600 mile excursion to Jalo Oasis in March 1941 and his first outing as patrol leader during a 1600 mile excursion to navigate the first supply convoy from Wadi Halfa to Kufra that May, Browne was commissioned. It was about this time, in another patrol, that he received his snake bite, an incident that may have been considered for incorporation in the design of the L.R.D.G’s now famous cap badge: but a fellow member of his team was bitten three times by a scorpion on the same day - a cause for much mirth because the pain-wracked man survived but the scorpion died - and so the latter’s ordeal prompted the famous “scorpion within a wheel” design.

Browne was back on patrol - making a census of enemy traffic movements on the Nafilia to Ageila route - that September and October, while in the following month he led a L.R.D.G. charged with planting a faked-map near Jalo (a.k.a. “Operation Bishop”), ‘making sure it got into enemy hands’. More importantly, he was closely involved in the November 1941 offensive. Lloyd Owen takes up the story:

‘Other patrols were out at the same time, and had similar success. Tony Browne and one of the New Zealand Patrols joined up with John Olivey and his Rhodesians. They got unmolested on to the road between Barce and Benghazi, and took up position about thirty yards apart, with their bonnets facing away from the road, and at about fifty yards from it. This was the most efficient way to bring all our guns to bear on enemy transport, and at the same time it enabled us to make a really quick getaway if this should be necessary. Several vehicles were dealt with in one place before they moved away six or seven miles nearer Benghazi. This time they destroyed a further two lorries, together with their trailers, and also an oil-tanker. The occupants were killed. Next this enterprising party moved a bit farther away, and were all ready to try to derail a train when they were called back to Siwa to refuel and to get fresh orders. John Olivey was very upset that he had been unable to achieve a lifelong ambition of blowing up a train!’

By this stage in the proceedings, it is pretty safe to assume that Browne’s leadership and navigational skills were being tapped by fellow desert raiders, the S.A.S., for the L.R.D.G. worked in close liaison with ‘L’ Detachment, acting as the eyes and ears of the latter, who were not infrequently accompanied by their reconnaissance partners when it came to delivering “the final punch”. David Stirling, founder of the S.A.S., wrote after the War that ‘The L.R.D.G. had a much larger than minute part in the forming and growth of the early S.A.S. I always state, when asked, that the L.R.D.G. and not the S.A.S. were the “Masters of the Desert”. Although we had a different role, it was the L.R.D.G. which taught us about the Desert.’

Prior to El Alamein in October 1942, Browne was employed for several months on the Operational Staff at G.H.Q., Middle East, ‘to attend to L.R.D.G. matters’, and charged with training the Indian Long Range Squadron, but soon after the commencement of Montgomery’s offensive he was back in action in the field, not least when he led a patrol to Bir Tala, an operation that resulted in several casualties, himself among them. But he was sufficiently recovered from these wounds to assist in navigating the 2nd N.Z. Division in its December push. Lloyd-Owen continues:

‘On the coast the knowledge that the L.R.D.G. had gained about the lie of the land ahead of the Eighth Army was in tremendous demand, and the first of these very successful patrols was when Tony Browne led the 2nd New Zealand Division and the 4th Light Armoured Brigade to outflank the El Agheila position which Rommel was still holding at the end of December 1942.

As I write I have in front of me Tony Browne’s notebook [see below], which his widow gave me after Tony’s death from cancer, nearly thirty years after he led his New Zealand Patrol to guide Freyberg’s force on this left-hook. He gives his task to navigate 2 N.Z. Division and 4th Light Armoured Brigade from El Haseiat to Marble Arch, thence west to Nofilia. He adds that they were involved in action with the enemy rearguard, and were heavily shelled before the Division captured four hundred prisoners, five tanks and eighteen guns.

Soon after this Tony was ordered to report on the “going” in three wadis to the west of Sirte, and it was here that he was injured when his truck was blown up on a mine, and a South African officer with him was killed. Paddy MacLauchlan, who was out with Tony learning the ropes, took over command when the latter had to be evacuated. He was very quick to learn, but found himself in action and very nearly captured by enemy armoured cars within a few days. He had mistaken them for our own! This New Zealand Patrol had left Kufra in early December, and before they returned to base had covered over 2500 miles.’

Browne was awarded the M.C. and appointed the L.R.D.G’s Intelligence Officer on being discharged from hospital in early 1943. As it transpired, he saw no further action in North Africa due to the imminent Allied victory in that theatre of war, but as confirmed by Lloyd-Owen, he was undoubtedly involved in the unit’s subsequent operations in Albania, Yugoslavia and the Dalmatian Islands. Indeed he commanded a perfectly executed attack on an enemy target in Albania in June 1944, when Lloyd Owen went along for the ride. The operation stemmed from intelligence received from an officer of S.O.E’s Force 266, none other than Anthony Quayle, the well-known actor, who had lately returned from behind enemy lines. He reported of the establishment of a German coast-watching station near Valona, a target that was duly assigned to the L.R.D.G. With Browne acting as C.O., Lloyd-Owen, as stated, along for the ride, and around 30 other men, the raiding force departed in an Italian MAS Boat on 29 June, following ‘a merry dinner in the Officer’s Club at Brindisi’. The operation receives due recognition in Lloyd Owen’s history:

‘It was a lovely night, calm and with a bright moon. It was very exciting as we sped across the Adriatic until we sighted the Albanian coast and then reduced speed. The sea was too calm to stifle the telltale wash of our craft, so we hung about until the moon went lower. I didn’t like the Italian skipper, and wasted some time trying to cajole him into acting with slightly less trepidation. It was 2.30 a.m. before we finally reached the shore, guided by flashes from a torch held by Stan Eastwood, who was waiting to receive us. It took an hour to get everything ashore, and dawn broke at 4.15 a.m.

We had to get away from the beach, and it took us nearly five hours to move a few miles over rough and rocky country to where there was thick cover under some trees near a well of clear, cool water. After a while Tony Browne, Stan and myself went forward to observe the target from a point about a thousand yards away. Between it and us was a steep, scrub-covered ravine and we could clearly see the concrete pill-boxes, a sentry on the roof and other Germans sitting around in the sun. I climbed a bit higher, to the top of a rocky ridge about 1200 feet above sea-level. From there I could see the township of Valona nestling quietly in the morning light.

We rejoined the others and then made, and ran through, our final plans. They were simple. We would move up to within several hundred yards of the target at dusk and then await the blitz of the three destroyers ... ’

And so it was. In a classic example of L.R.D.G. and R.N. operational co-operation, three destroyers pounded the enemy position with the guidance of those ashore, the latter following up the senior service’s handiwork with a frontal assault amidst the ‘patter of machine and tommy guns and a few small explosions’. The operation was a complete success, the victorious raiders returning to Brindisi aboard the destroyers, their numbers swollen by assorted prisoners. And it was because of such successful raids as that mounted at Verona that the L.R.D.G. expanded its joint activities with the R.N., spotting for the latter from hidden positions in enemy held territory, and not just against land targets - several enemy convoys would fall victim to similar direction. As Lloyd Owen verifies, Browne was one of the first to try and advance this successful ingredient of inter-force co-operation a step further:

‘Tony Browne, who had been working with Ken Lazarus in Bari, wanted to try out an idea that they had cooked up between them. The Navy had been very appreciative of our information on shipping, and we had been successful in directing our striking forces on to enemy convoys. We felt there was scope for developing this technique.

The idea was for Tony Browne to be landed with a wireless operator on the west coast of Istria so that he could find a suitable place to establish a permanent shipping watch. The Royal Navy would then send a flotilla of fast torpedo-boats up at night to lie some ten miles or so off-shore and with the leading ship would be one of our wireless operators to communicate to our Patrol on shore. The latter would then report details of the enemy convoy’s speed, direction, numbers and attendant escort.

Tony went off from Ancona in an M.T.B. As they approached the Istrian coast they spotted two schooners in the dark. One of these they sank, and the other was boarded by the Navy, who took sixteen prisoners. Tony was able to paddle quietly ashore in the confusion. He found a splendid place in thick scrub where there was good cover and a clear view of the sea. His choice proved perfectly secure, for he was not seen, either by two woodmen - who spent the whole of one day clearing the scrub a hundred yards from him - or by a party of schoolchildren who played hide and seek all around him one morning ... ’

Having established this hide, Browne was extracted and replaced by another New Zealander, Jack Aitken. As it transpired, poor weather over the period September to October 1944 largely curtailed the Navy’s activities, but in a further example of inter-force co-operation, Aitken was able to work successfully with the R.A.F., thereby preventing freedom of movement to local enemy shipping.

Tony Browne remained employed as an Intelligence Office with the L.R.D.G. until the end of hostilities and joined the British Administration in Libya in 1946, in which capacity he remained employed until the independent Kingdom of Libya was established in 1951. But his connection with that country was prolonged by his next joining Mobil Oil of Canada, which had obtained one of the original oil concessions in Libya, and he was serving as Manager of the company’s northern operations in Cyrenaica on his retirement in 1965, the year in which he was gazetted for his O.B.E. He died in September 1970.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including G.O.C., 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force certificates for the recipient’s M.C., D.C.M. and M.I.D., two of them with related Base Records, Wellington forwarding letters (dated October 1946 and May 1949); his M.I.D. certificate, dated 23 May 1946; Central Chancery forwarding letter for Order of the British Empire warrants; a wartime photograph of members of ‘T’ Patrol, L.R.D.G., taken at Kharga; and a bound copy of his wartime L.R.D.G. journal, as referred to in the above notes and in Lloyd-Owen’s history, Providence Their Guide.