Lieutenant-Colonel David Danger RIP

Kyt · Mar 30, 2009

What a fabulously appropriate name

Lieutenant-Colonel David Danger: SAS radio operator | Times Online Obituary

David Danger volunteered for what was, with deliberate obscuration, called L Detachment, Special Air Service Brigade, in the autumn of 1942, around the time when it was combined with other special force units as 1st Special Air Service Regiment under the command of David Stirling.

Unlike other radio operators who served with 1st SAS between 1942 and 1945 who were usually attached, Danger underwent the full SAS training regime at Kabrit near the Suez Canal and became a member of the regiment.

Despite being eager to get out on desert operations to the rear of the Axis forces’ forward positions, persistent desert sores prevented him until the July 1943 invasion of Sicily, when he landed at the port of Augusta with the Special Raiding Squadron, as 1st SAS briefly became, having hived off the Special Boat Section for operations elsewhere. The Augusta assault was followed by the more demanding attack on the Italian east coast port of Termoli on October 2, 1943. The plan involved two commando units and the Special Raiding Squadron landing from the sea, taking the town and two bridges to open the way for the advance of the 78th Infantry Division up the Adriatic coast. The operation was successful but with significant losses to the SRS.

Danger returned to England with the re-formed 1st SAS to join the SAS Brigade for operations in France to coincide with the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. By then a corporal radio operator, he dropped near Dijon as the signaller for a party of Phantom — the GHQ Liaison Regiment — operating with 1st SAS attacking railways linking Lyons and Paris. His main task was to call in Allied air strikes in support of SAS operations.

On August 20, while with a maquis group two miles from the SAS base in the Vienne forest, he was warned that a German force was about to encircle it. At great personal risk he passed through the closing cordon to warn his comrades, then returned through it to gather further information on the enemy movements, allowing them to avoid the encirclement. He was awarded the Military Medal in recognition of his initiative and personal courage.

At the end of August Danger accompanied Lieutenant-Colonel Paddy Mayne commanding 1st SAS to the Morvan area to link up with SAS groups operating there, eventually returning to England after four months in German-occupied areas of France. He accompanied the SAS Brigade sent to Norway in May 1945 to assist in taking the surrender of German forces there and in 1946-47 served with the Parachute Regiment in Palestine.

David Lambert Paxton Danger was born in Heswall, Wirral. At 16 he left Birkenhead High School to begin a banking apprenticeship. After leaving the Army on his return from Palestine, he married and joined 10th Battalion The Parachute Regiment of the Territorial Army. He went back to regular service in 1952 to be commissioned into the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. He was appointed MBE in 1964 for his work during the Cyprus emergency arising from intercommunal fighting at that time, in particular the support of the reinforcement units sent to the island before establishment of the UN force. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel at the age of 42, no mean achievement for a late-commissioned officer.

He is survived by his wife, Beryl, and a daughter. A son predeceased him.

Lieutenant-Colonel D. L. P. Danger, MBE, MM, SAS veteran, was born on March 4, 1923. He died on February 27, 2009, aged 85
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Cobber · Mar 30, 2009

RIP Soldier
Duty Done
Arms Grounded

VALE: Lt Col D.L.P. Danger MBE MM

spidge · Mar 31, 2009

It still amazes me what danger these lads placed themselves in.

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Lieutenant-Colonel David Danger RIP

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