Corporal Leonard Want
(By the Regimental Secretary)
Former 22964755 Corporal Leonard (“Len”) Gordon Want passed away peacefully in his sleep on the morning of July 10th 2015, aged 90 years. Len was rightly revered as one of the elder statesmen of the Western Australia Branch of the Royal Military Police Association and was amongst the first to join the local group of former-Red Caps in 2004, who went on to formwhat is now one of the most vibrant branches of the Association. More significantly perhaps, he was also the last of the Branch’s veterans of the Second World WarLen’s extensive military servicereportedly commenced in 1940, when at the tender age of 15 years he tried to convince the Recruiters that he was of sufficient age to join the Corps of Royal Marines however, his Service Record states that his Colour Service commenced in 1942, aged 17 with the Regimental number 110734. He went on to seeActive Service with 41 Commando (41 Cdo) with the Special Service Brigade in North Africa and Sicily and landing at Salerno for the Italian campaign. Instead of returning to England with 41 Cdo for D-Day, Len headed east, fighting in South-East Asia and the Pacific aboard HMS Nelson (not the wooden version he would hasten to add) one of only two Royal Navy battleships (the Nelson-Class) with 16-inch guns. He was demobbed in 1945.
In 1953, Len re-enlisted at the Royal Military Police Depot and Training Establishment at Woking and after completion ofinitial training was posted firstto Egypt and thence to Cyprus District Provost Company. During the EOKA troubles, which were to follow, Len received serious head injuries, which were thankfully lessened and thereby saving his life with the deflection of the projectile by the peak of his Service Dress Forage Cap!
When interviewed for a short ‘Corps Personalities’ piece in the RMP Journal’s Third Quarter Edition in 1975, on leaving the Army, Len declared that he had thoroughly enjoyed his “second stint” having seen service in Egypt (1953), Nicosia & Famagusta, Cyprus (1953-1956), in the UK (1956-1957) andwith the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) at Munster, Sennelager and Detmold (1957-1960). He also deployedto Kuwait in 1961, with 24 Infantry Brigade Provost Unit when the Brigade was deployed to dissuade President Kassem of Iraq from invading the country (Operation VANTAGE) and then onto Kenya (serving at Nairobi and Gilgil)with the Brigade as the country prepared for independence. While there the Brigade was involved in helping the Kenyan authorities in putting down a mutiny by indigenous troops in 1964. Thereafter he returned to BAOR to serve principally in Munster. If all that were not enough, Len also saw service in Singapore around 1968, which most significantly included an isolated tourof duty at the British Embassy in Saigon in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War.
Len had a mischievous grin and an excellent sense of humour and once recounted, with much amusement, having been left off some parades as it appeared unseemly for a “mere Corporal” to be wearing far more medals than the Inspecting Officer! Len was also very proud of the letter of appreciation he had received from the then Commandant of the RMP Training Centre (Chichester) after he had donated to the RMP Museum the samurai sword he had recovered from a Japanese officer killed after a particularly hard skirmish on the Nicobar Islands in June 1945. Len finally took off his uniform on July 19th1975, having completed his Colour Service with 165 Provost Company, then in Donnington (see black & white photograph)and subsequently settled in Australia. He is survived by his widow Sylvia and his children, grand-children and great-grandchildren and leaves behind very many friends.