A Liverpool Exemplar - Douglas ‘Duggie’ Pomford

Douglas 'Duggie' Pomford, was born in Liverpool on the 29th of March 1920 and traded his first tentative punches as a seven year old with the Dingle Club, the commencement of a highly successful career in amateur boxing in the period leading up to the outbreak of war, a career that witnessed him winning the Lancashire and Cheshire middleweight title and taking the champion Bruce Woodcock to the final round in the Northern Counties light heavyweight competition at Blackpool Tower - "I must have been giving away nine or 10 lbs. but lost only on a casting vote."
On enlisting in the South Lancashire Regiment in Preston in May 1940 and after participating in operations in Syria and elsewhere, Major R. J. A. Courtney was recruiting likely candidates for a new clandestine force. Duggie had only been in the army for six months when he was handpicked to join the British Commandos and went on to become a founding member of No.1 Special Boat Section, Eastern Mediterranean Command. His ‘S’ Detachment was chosen by overall C.O. Major Lord Jellicoe to take part in Operation 'Albumen', a combined S.B.S. raid on three airfields in Crete in June 1943.
Holed up in caves about 500 metres inshore where they had to maintain W./T. contact with the raiding parties and, above all, remain undiscovered for nearly three weeks, on the very eve of their departure, a brace of German patrols came into contact with the S.B.S. force. It was a successful operation that was saluted a few weeks later by a cascade of awards.

Sergeant Pomford (left) with his raiders who were shot as they fought for Britain's base in Greece

No. 1 S.B.S.next turned its attention to the Dodecanese Islands and, by September 1943, most were under British control, ‘S’ Detachment and Pomford having played a major part in the capture of Kos, where an airfield was established. Duggie was awarded the M.M. and in a return to the islands he won his second M.M. for raids on Ios, Amorgos and Naxos in April-May. Ios, in the south of the Cyclades, was known to be lightly defended when Clarke and Pomford broke into a billet and surprised two Germans getting ready for bed. The pair were brave men, leaping at the intruders and trying to kill them with their bare hands. Unfortunately they had the misfortune of taking on Pomford, one of the best amateur boxers in England. Neither German survived.

In 1945 Sgt Pomford qualified as a paratrooper and took part in further operations in the Balkans before being demobilised in 1946. Sergeant Douglas 'Duggie' Pomford was hailed as one of the toughest soldiers in World War II.On his return home Sgt Pomford became the foreman at the Port of Liverpool Stevedoring Company where he was to add one further accolade to his many distinctions when, in 1954, he jumped into a Liverpool dock to rescue a drowning man - bravery that won him a Royal Humane Society certificate.

He was instrumental in setting up in 1949 the famous Golden Gloves Amateur Boxing Club where he served as Secretary and Trainer for the remainder of his life until he died in 1969 aged just 49. In 2014 the Daily Mail published a story of the medals of WW11's 'toughest soldier being auctioned for an estimated £50,000.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2020/08/a-liverpool-exemplar-bessie-braddock.html