Robin Maugham (4CLY)

Discussion in 'RAC & RTR' started by Chris C, May 15, 2021.

  1. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Hi all,

    It looks like no one has looked at records of this man's war based on a lack of previous discussion. I'm wondering if there is any easily accessible information? The only reference I can find by searching is a possible one here of a "Captain R Maugham" meeting with Churchill for 10 minutes in early 1943, but the date makes it seem like maybe I am wrong on this.

    Winston Churchill Appointment Diaries, Sept 1939 - June 1945

    Wikipedia claims:

    When the Second World War looked inevitable, he declined a commission in the Hussars and instead joined up as an ordinary trooper in the 4th County of London Yeomanry tank regiment bound for North Africa. Later, his commanding officer Brigadier Carr recorded in dispatches that Robin Maugham had saved the lives of perhaps 40 men by pulling them from destroyed tanks. At the Battle of Gazala he sustained a severe head wound that resulted in blackouts, which he later joked made him perfect material for a job in intelligence.

    After a period of convalescence he became the unofficial liaison officer between Winston Churchill and both Glubb Pasha and General Paget. He describes in his first travel book Nomad (Chapman & Hall 1947) how he dashed across the Levant from one bemedalled dignitary to another.
    In 1945 while in hospital - for what reason? - he wrote a book (novel? fictionalized memoir?) called Come To Dust based on his experiences in the desert. It is told from a first person point of view and refers to the regiment as the Crendon Yeomanry - remember what I said about it being fictionalized.

    What I've read so far is a credible account of a young enthusiastic officer going into battle for the first time in Operation Crusader. I wonder if he was actually a trooper at the time of the operation or if he'd been promoted, as I wonder about the perspective a trooper would have on being an officer.

    If he was a liaison to Churchill then a meeting with the PM in early 1943 seems plausible but I haven't got to that part in the book, if any, which would suggest a trip back from the desert to the UK at that time. I mean potentially someone could have gone back and been shipped out again for Gazala but...
     
  2. travers1940

    travers1940 Well-Known Member

    He was an officer by the time of Operation Crusader in 1941, having been commissioned in April 1940.

    1939 - August, Robin Maugham enlisted, as a trooper in the Inns of Court Regiment.
    1940 - Spring, he was commissioned into the Sharpshooters of the 4th County of London Yeomanry and fought in the Western Desert campaigns with the Eighth Army, and his bravery in saving the lives of trapped tank crew was recorded in dispatches.
    1942 - June, he was wounded, receiving shrapnel in the head from an enemy bomb blast. He was immediately re-graded and removed from his more physically demanding tank core duties.

    https://williamlawrence.co.uk/overview

    ROYAL ARMOURED CORPS.
    The undermentioned Cadets, from Officer Cadet Training Unit, Sandhurst, to be 2nd Lts. I3th Apr. 1940: —
    4th C. of Lond. Yeo.
    Robert Cecil Romer MAUGHAM (129326).

    Page 2304 | Supplement 34832, 16 April 1940 | Londo...
     
    Chris C likes this.
  3. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

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