Orders, Decorations and Medals

An outstanding Special Forces Second World War Litani River raid M.M. awarded to Sergeant Frank Worrall, Royal Artillery, attached ‘C’ Battalion ‘Layforce’ (11 Scottish Commando), who was severely wounded and taken prisoner in this famous action, in which Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, later to win a posthumous V.C., and Lieutenant Blair ‘Paddy’ Maine, of subsequent S.A.S. legend, also participated
Military Medal, G.VI.R. (877988 Sjt. F. W. G. Worrall, R.A.) extremely fine £4000-5000

M.M. London Gazette 2 December 1941. The recommendation by Lieutenant-Colonel Geoffrey Keyes, endorsed by Laycock and Auchinleck, for a ‘D.C.M. or M.M.’ states:
‘W/S Sergt. Frank Gordon Worrall, Royal Artillery, att. C Batt. Layforce. In the action at the litani river in syria on June 9th, 1941, this N.C.O. was part of a force landed North of the river to disorganise enemy resistance from the rear. With Lt Bryan, R.E., his section leader, he led a party of (?)* men against a French 75mm Battery, despite considerable opposition from concealed M.Gs. Having captured the nearest gun with hand grenades, Sgt Worrall layed the gun with such accuracy that the remaining 3 guns were rapidly silenced. When ordered to continue the advance, he put this gun out of action before moving on. Shortly afterwards he was severely wounded in the head, and taken prisoner, but has now been liberated. The dash and efficiency of this N.C.O. in silencing the battery, had considerable affect on the successful crossing of the river, as the guns covered the approaches and crossings at very short range.’

Sergeant Worral was a member of the centre party which comprised of his own No. 1 Troop, together with Nos. 7 and 8 Troops, with eight officers and one hundred and forty-five men. Embarked in four landing-craft, they came under heavy machine-gun fire as they approached the beach. Because of this the landing-craft went hard astern as quickly as possible after grounding and most of the men were landed in water up to their chest. Despite this, they struggled ashore and quickly cleared the beaches. At this stage of the proceedings they had suffered only one man killed in Lieutenant Blair Mayne’s No. 7 Troop.

The full story of Sergeant Worrall’s gallant action is ably told in the words of Lieutenant Gerald Bryan of No. 1 Troop, his section leader:

‘I raced madly up the beach and threw myself into the cover formed by a sand dune. The men behind me were still scrambling out of the landing-craft and dashing over the twenty yards of open beach. Away on the right we could hear the rattle of a machine gun and the overhead whine of bullets, but they seemed fairly high. I was just beside a dry stream bed and so started to walk along it, at the same time trying to untie the lifebelt attached to my rifle. Colonel Pedder was shouting to us to push on as quickly as possible. Soon the ditch that I was in became too narrow and there was nothing for it but to climb out into the open. The ground was flat with no cover. The machine guns were now firing fairly continuously but were not very worrying. When I got out into the open - rather like moorland - I started shouting "A Section No. 1 Troop," which represented my command. Before long we were in pretty good formation, with myself, batman and tommy gunner in the centre.

We came to the main road and saw, on the other side, a trench showing clearly in a the white chalk. It was empty, but behind it were two caves in a little cliff. I fired a rifle shot into the left-hand cave. There were sounds of commotion inside. We stood ready with grenades and tommy guns and shouted to them to come out. Seven sleepy French emerged in pyjamas and vests. We had certainly caught them sleeping. My batman remained with them to hand them over to the Colonel who was coming up behind. It was now quite light, the time being about 04:45 hrs. The rest of the section had pushed on, so I followed, and came on a wire running along the ground. This I cut with a pair of wire cutters. I found the section held up and under fire from snipers. Also, which was more to the point, they had found a 75 mm gun. It was about thirty yards away and firing fairly rapidly. We flung some grenades and it stopped. However, we had three casualties, which wasn't so good. A corporal was shot through the wrist and was cursing every Frenchman ever born. As he couldn't use a rifle, I gave him my Colt automatic pistol, and he carried on.

We crawled through some scrub to get closer to the gun. Here we met B Section officer Alastair Coade and a few men, also attacking the gun position, so we joined forces. The gun itself was deserted, the crew being in a slit trench. We bunged in a few more grenades and then went in ourselves. It was rather bloody. My section was comprised mostly of RA blokes who knew how to handle the gun, and in a few minutes the sergeant [Worrall] had discovered which fuses to use from one of the original gun crew. This gun was the right hand gun of a battery of four, the others being anything from about 100 yards to 300 yards away. They were still firing. Our gun was pointing away from the battery, so we grabbed the tail piece and heaved it right round so that it was pointing towards the nearest gun. The Sergeant took over command of the gun, shoved a shell in and sighted over open sights, then fired. The result was amazing. There was one hell of an explosion in the other gun site and the gun was flung up into the air like a toy. We must have hit their ammo dump. No time to waste. The Sergeant traversed onto the next gun, sighted rapidly and fired. There was a pause. Where the devil had the shell gone? Then there was a flash and a puff of smoke in the dome of a chapel about half a mile up the hillside. A thick Scottish voice said, "That'll make the buggers pray!" The Sergeant hurriedly lowered the elevation and fired again, this time a bit low. However, the gun crew started to run away and our Bren opened up and did good work. Just then a runner turned up with orders from the Colonel to report to him with as many men as possible when we had finished off the battery. It did not take long to get a good hit on each of the two remaining guns. The sergeant then broke off the firing pin of our gun with the butt of a rifle.

We had to cross about 300 yards of open ground to reach the Colonel so we just ran like hell, and although there were a few bullets flying around, I don't think we had a single casualty. I arrived at Commando HQ and reported to the Colonel. He explained that he was pushing in some men and wanted our section to support them and pick off snipers. We took up what positions we could but there wasn't much cover. I left the Colonel and went over to a Bren-gun post about fifty yards away but it took me a good ten minutes to get there as I had to crawl the whole way. The French had spotted us and were putting down a lot of small arms fire - very accurate. The whole time bullets spat past my head and sounded very close. It was very unpleasant and hard to think correctly. When I reached the Bren posts, they were stuck. Every time they tried to fire, a MG opened up and they couldn't spot it. Suddenly the B section officer said he had spotted it and grabbed a rifle, but as he was taking aim he was shot in the chest and went down, coughing blood. Then the Sergeant was shot in the shoulder, from a different direction, which meant we were being fired on from two fronts.

I crawled back to Commando HQ but when I was about ten yards away, I heard someone shout, 'The Colonel's hit. Get the medical orderly.' I shouted to the Adjutant and he replied that the Colonel was dead and that he was going to withdraw the attack and try his luck elsewhere. So I shouted to my men to make for some scrub about a hundred yards away and started crawling towards it. All the time bullets were fizzing past much too close for comfort and we kept very low. The Sergeant, who had been wounded, decided to run for it, to catch us up, but a machine gun got him and he fell with his face covered with blood. As I was crawling I suddenly felt a tremendous bang on the head and I knew I had been hit. However, when I opened my eyes I saw that it was in the legs and decided not to die. I dragged myself into a bit of a dip and tried to get fairly comfortable, but every time I moved, they opened up on us. I could hear an NCO yelling to me to keep down or I would be killed. I kept down. After a time (when the initial shock had worn off) the pain in my legs became hellish. My right calf was shot off and was bleeding, but I could do nothing about it, and the left leg had gone rigid. By now the sun was well up and it was very hot lying there. I was damned thirsty but could not get a drink as I had to expose myself to get my water bottle, and each time I tried I got about twenty rounds all to myself, so I put up with the thirst and lay there, hoping I would loose consciousness. 


After about two hours, a lot of fire came down and the next thing was twenty-five French advancing out of the scrub with fixed bayonets. The four men left from my section were captured. I raised my arm and one of the French came over and gave me a nasty look. I was carrying a French automatic pistol that my Sergeant had given me in exchange for my rifle. It had jammed at the first shot but like a fool I had held on to it. Anyway, he just looked at me for a while and away he went and I was left alone. I had one hell of a drink and felt better. About half and hour later my four men were back with a stretcher, under a French guard. Both the Colonel and B Section officer were dead, so they got me onto the stretcher and carried me down to a dressing station, where a British medical orderly gave me a shot of morphia. While we were lying there, a machine gun opened up and the French medical fellows dived into a cave, but the bullets were right above our heads and they were obviously firing over us at something else. Some time later an ambulance turned up, and we were taken to a hospital in Beirut. In the ambulance were two wounded French, two Sergeants from our side, and myself. We remained as prisoners of war in Beirut until the British entered the town six weeks later.’

Lieutenant Gerald Bryan subsequently had one leg amputated and was awarded the Military Cross.

* This number is not legible on the handwritten recommendation. However, in the biography of Geoffrey Keyes it states: ‘Farmiloe [Captain] and Tavendale, the regimental sergeant major, cilmbed the ridge to the north of the gully to see what was happening to No.1 Troop, as a battery of four french 75-mm. guns was putting down a very heavy barrage on to the beach. This was at 7.15 a.m., and they were in time to see five or six men, led by Sergeant Worrall, from Lieutenant Bryan’s section, “throw at least three well-directed hand grenades” on to a French 75-mm. gun position, rush and capture it, and then turn the captured gun on to the other positions and destroy them. Farmiloe reported this feat to Colonel Pedder, and the advance continued.’