Measurements: 2.4cm (1in) x 16cm (6.2in) x 11cm (4.4in)
Silver. Square cigarette box with the hinged lid engine turned decoration, the front engraved ‘To Lt Commander N. C. Willmott, DSO, DSC, RN / From the Captain (S) and Officers of the / Vth Submarine Flotilla and HMS Dolphin / On His Marriage / 27 March 1944’. Cedar lined interior, Maker’s mark of Collett & Anderson. Hallmarked London 1939.
The present cigarette box was gifted to Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott who is regarded by many to be a 'founding father' of the modern SBS. Willmott’s wedding to a Wren stationed at his Combined Operations Pilotage Parties (COPP) base on Hayling Island in March 1944, took place amidst his daring and vital work in surveying the landing beaches ahead of greatest amphibious assault in history. The cigarette box was given by Captain Reginald Darke RN and his officers based at Fort Blockhouse, who carried the COPP surveillance teams in shore in midget submarines (X-craft) in the final approach to covertly survey the natural hazards and enemy defences on the Normandy coast.
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Herbert Nigel Clogstoun-Willmott (1910-1992) was born in Simla, India and was educated at Marlborough College. He entered the Royal Navy in 1928 and distinguished himself in the Norwegian campaign of 1940 giving him early experience of combined ops. Later the same year he was navigating officer in the cruiser HMS Glasgow in the Mediterranean. When Glasgow was undergoing repairs at Alexandria after an air attack off Crete, Willmott volunteered for Combined Operations, and brought his navigating skills to GHQ, Middle East. In April 1941 he made a covert reconnaissance of Italian-held Rhodes for a proposed landing which was called off due to the worsening position of Allied forces in Greece. The mission, however, yielded valuable intelligence and Willmott was awarded the DSO. At the British evacuation of Greece (Operation Demon), he successfully identified suitable embarkation beaches after the ports came under air attack and fell into German hands. Moreover, while acting as ‘beachmaster’ from an LCT he personally oversaw the withdrawal of several thousand men.
Having conclusively proved that beach reconnaissance was crucial to the future of any large scale landings, he was authorised to begin training naval personnel in beach reconnaissance and pilotage at Kabrit. The canoeists course, however, was interrupted when Willmott was briefly reassigned to the Long Range Desert Group - a testament perhaps to competing demands of special forces at the time. It is reported Willmott returned to seaborne operations by taking part in a raid on a German radar station on the island of Kupho off Crete in which he and a rating rowed a dinghy towards the shore to scout out a good landing point for the main assault force, before signalling to them with a torch. In 1942 he assembled Party Koodoo–Inhuman to carry out reconnaissance and pilotage for the British and American invasion of French-held territory in North Africa (Operation Torch). He was awarded a DSC for his work, which included carrying out a canoe reconnaissance of beaches near Algiers from the submarine HMS Seraph. Soon after Torch, Willmott was posted to Largs, Scotland and established formally established COPP for D-Day preparations. Although heavily burdened with planning and administrative tasks, Willmott maintained a hands-on role, taking part in Operation KJH on NYE 1943, and Operation Postage Able in January 1944, for which he was mentioned in despatches and awarded a second DSC. However a longterm over reliance on self-medication precluded him from an active role on 6 June when he was admitted to hospital for an urgent operation.