Orders, Decorations and Medals

The Second World War North Africa operations D.S.O., M.C. group of eight awarded to Major R. J. Crisp, Royal Tank Regiment, who, during his time in the desert, had 17 tanks knocked out from under him, was wounded six times in the head and once in the toe and was directly responsible for knocking out between 35 to 40 enemy tanks or armoured cars: a superb pre-war cricketer who won a place in the Guinness Book of Records, he was said to have combined 50% genius and 40% guts with 10% ‘glorious irresponsibility’

Distinguished Service Order, G.VI.R., 1st issue, silver-gilt and enamels, the reverse of the suspension bar officially dated ‘1942’; Military Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1943’ and privately engraved ‘Major R. J. Crisp, R. Tank Rgt.’; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star, clasp, 8th Army; Italy Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf, these last six engraved naming “Boots-style”, ‘Major R. J. Crisp, R. Tank Rgt.’, mounted as worn, good very fine and better (8) £1200-1500

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

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Robert James “Bob” Crisp was born in Calcutta in May 1911, the son of a railway engineer, and was educated at Prince George’s School, Salisbury, Rhodesia. It was while playing as a bowler for a Northern Rhodesian side against the M.C.C. that he made his mark in the cricketing world, but the formal request for him to represent that nation in a forthcoming tour in England did not reach him until he had journeyed to Central Africa to take up a job as a driver for a Swiss botanist - in fact he was handed the cable on finishing his second descent of Mount Kilimanjaro in a fortnight. Described as ‘tall, with film star good looks, which rarely failed to turn female heads’, Crisp quickly attracted the attention of the press on his arrival in England, not least for appearing in the nets in plus-fours while his baggage caught up with him - and as a result of speculation that he had spent a Sunday with the film star Myrna Loy.

Remaining in England at the end of this tour, he became a journalist for the Nottingham Journal, in which profession he would find wide and varied employment over the coming years, often reporting on test cricket for such newspapers as the Daily Mail and the Natal Mercury. Before that, however, he re-settled in South Africa, and won himself a place in the Guinness Book of Records for twice taking four wickets in four balls in first class cricket, in 1931 and again in 1933. But his greatest triumph was as a medium-fast bowler in the successful South African Test side of 1935, when he took five for 99 at Old Trafford and achieved a total of 107 wickets during the tour, for an average of 19.58 runs. Indeed Crisp was a natural athlete, once turning out for Rhodesia against the All Blacks, and on another occasion winning the 110-yard hurdles when pitched against the American world champion H. Q. Davies.

His credentials as a cricketer and journalist safely established, Crisp next embarked on his career as a soldier, setting sail for England in a tramp steamer on the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. Commissioned into the 3rd Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment, he saw action in Greece, when he was conspicuous for his gallant command of three A-10 tanks - named Cool, Calm and Collected - during the retreat from Monastir Gap, a story well told in his own book, The Gods Were Neutral (1960): in fact his brave deeds in those desperate days were quite simply unforgettable, or certainly according to David Masters in Pennants Flying, who also credits Crisp with turning his tank into ‘a strongpoint which the enemy could not vanquish’.

But it was for his subsequent services in North Africa that he won an immediate D.S.O. and M.C., while his rapid promotion to Major he attributed to his C.O. being a ‘cricket fanatic who had once played for Hampshire’. No better record of those momentous times exists than his earlier published work, Brazen Chariots (1957), which was later adopted by the Israeli Army as an official training manual. Among other tactics developed by Crisp was a four-second special, in which time his Honey tank would confront a superior Panzer Mark III head-on, get in accurate fire, and then beat a hasty retreat. And ever the opportunist, he once, at great risk, ‘charged’ a battery of four enemy guns - across a mile of open desert - getting to within 300 yards of them before they were even aware of their pending doom. He later recalled laughing as he noticed one of the enemy guns was pointing upwards for a range of about 6,000 yards - when he was less than 100 yards away.

Yet for all of his striking gallantry and professionalism on the field of battle, he often exasperated his senior officers by his riotous behaviour off it - and he was once court-martialled for selling a German staff car he had captured, but was acquitted because the resultant funds were intended for the Mess. And on another occasion, back on the battlefield, his notoriously short-fuse got the better of him when he threatened to shoot his driver for refusing to move forward.

By the time Crisp finally departed the desert no fewer than 17 tanks had been knocked out from under him (six of them within a four week period), yet not one man had been killed in any of them, largely, he argued, due to his his head-on tactics (the front of the tank being the most heavily armoured). Nonetheless, he had been wounded six times in the head and once in the toe. In return, he had been directly responsible for knocking out between 35 to 40 enemy tanks and armoured cars. As one historian later put it, ‘on the grimmest test field of them all Crisp, the cricketer and playboy, had won the game of his life.’

Invalided out after being seriously wounded during the Normandy operations of 1944, Crisp finally made it to Buckingham Palace to collect his decorations. “Has your bowling been effected?” asked the concerned King, Crisp responding, “No, sir, I was hit in the head.” In point of fact, Crisp never played first class cricket again, instead holding several journalistic appointments, one of them in South Africa, where he founded the first serious black magazine Drum. Back in England, at a later date, he ran a mink farm in Suffolk, but as old age approached he opted for a wanderer’s life in Greece, supported by his paltry £10 disability pension - his accommodation was accordingly sparse, often without running water or electricity. He eventually settled at Stopa, where he became the mainstay of the British community, but it was back in England that he died, in 1994, aged 82 years, while staying at the home of one of his sons - a copy of the Sporting Life was on his knee and he had just lost a £20 bet.

Sold with an original letter from the recipient in Greece to Ron Penhall, dated 8 July 1992, in which he asks ‘whether you still have the D.S.O. and M.C. which I was awarded’; together with copies of his wartime memoirs, Brazen Chariots and The Gods Were Neutral.

Provenance: Ex Spink, September 1972 (private purchase - original accompanying invoice refers).