Lieutenant Colonel P G (‘Pug’) Davis DSC Royal Marines

Lieutenant Colonel ‘Pug’ Davis, who has died aged 87, was the founding father of the Special Boat Service, who won the DSC for a daring wartime rescue in the face of the enemy.
The summer of 1944 found Davis off the Dalmatian coast in command of a flotilla of Landing Craft Assault (LCA) based on the island of Vis. Several commando raids were mounted on the coast of Yugoslavia in support of local partisans, and, in early June, Davis landed a large raiding force on the mountainous and heavily defended the island of Brac, which the Germans considered pivotal to their defence of the mainland.
In addition to a large number of Tito’s partisans, the force consisted of men 43 Commando Royal Marines (RM), and 40 Commando RM. After four days of heavy fighting and numerous casualties, including the death of their commanding officer, the main body of commandos was forced to withdraw.
On June 5 Davis landed reinforcements, but next day these suffered seriously in an ambush and only 12 men returned to the shore. Davis, waiting in his LCA, seized the initiative and organised the first five men to reach the beach into a search party, arming them rifles from his LCA. He recovered the forces’ heavy weapons, which had run out of ammunition, and sent them back to Vis in two LCA and retained a third LCA on the beach in the charge of his engineer officer. Then, without waiting for any more commandos or their officers, he set off to the village where the ambush had been staged. After a two hour climb Davis found a wounded officer, who the enemy had left for dead, and evacuated him safely back to the beach.
Davis then withdrew in an orderly fashion and sailed back to Vis. He was awarded the DSC for his initiative and courage far beyond the call of duty.
Peter George Davis was born in Paddington on 9 December 1923, and educated at the Free Grammar School of Sir Roger Cholmeley (Highgate School). His father, Solly Davis, had won the MC in the First World War. Whilst at Highgate he became a member of the cadet force, and a master there, a retired Royal Marine, inspired him to enlist in the Corps in 1942.
After training at Chatham and on landing craft, Davis was sent to command RM Flotilla 561 in the Adriatic.
Postwar several ‘private armies’ of the Royal Marines, including the innocuous-sounding Royal Marine Boom Patrol Detachment of which Davis was commanding officer, were rationalised into the Combined Operations Beach and Boat Section or COBBS. In 1948 COBBS was renamed Small Raids Wing (SRW), and Davis qualified as one of its first swimmer-canoeists.
Initially COBBS, though it inherited an Aladdin’s cave of weaponry from the war, consisted of only a handful of men commanded by Davis, and was restricted to giving demonstrations of its potential. However, Davis had higher ambitions and in 1951 he and six men successfully held up an army advance through southern England when they paddled undetected up the Thames and painted a sign on a bridge at Pangbourne, “Wot no bridge?” This showed, the umpires decreed, that for exercise purposes the bridge had been blown up and could not be used.
Davis was sent to Germany to set up the RM Demolition Unit of the Rhine Flotilla, to prepare to deny the Russians any means of crossing the Rhine, and to become a stay-behind force. On Davis’s suggestion his team was renamed the 2nd Special Boat Section (2SBS), while 1SBS remained in England. Later several sections were formed each comprising an officer and a dozen or so men, some of which operated behind enemy lines in Korea.
Next Davis was sent to Malta 1952-54 to create a Special Boat Section to support 42 Commando Royal Marines, and this became 6SBS which operated in the eastern Mediterranean.
The headquarters of the SBS moved to Poole in late 1954, when they were retitled the SB Wing. Meanwhile Davis was Senior Royal Marines Officer in the carrier Eagle 1957-1959. By the time Davis took command of the wing 1959-1961, it had expanded to the size of a rifle company and it was now called the Special Boat Company, and placed under the operational command of the Joint Services Amphibious Warfare Centre (JSWAC).
In 1962-63, during Konfrontasi when Indonesia threatened the newly formed Federation of Malaysia, Davis was a company commander in 40 Commando RM. Deployed from the carrier Albion he landed by helicopter deep in the jungle, in command of Pugforce, a joint force of Royal Marines, Ghurkhas, Sarawak Rangers and Iban trackers. On his first operation, Davis set up an ambush near Miri in northern Sarawak, without result, but the next day he captured a number of rebels.
Next Davis served at HQ Plymouth Group RM in 1964-65, and then returned to Albion as Amphibious Operations Officer 1965-67.
In 1968 Davis returned to Poole as the second-in-command of JSWAC, and on his rapid promotion he moved to the Joint Warfare Establishment at Old Sarum to teach amphibious warfare doctrine. Davis retired in 1971. (He approved when the SBS became the Special Boat Squadron in 1977, and in 1987 the Special Boat Service.)
While with the US Navy Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) in 1961, Davis was invited to parachute from a helicopter. Previously he had only jumped from an aircraft with a static line, but to show willing and to give his American hosts the impression that he was game for anything, Davis accepted. However, he misunderstood the pre-flight briefing that he should pull the his rip cord before passing 3000 feet, and, as he plunged towards earthwards could, not hear the cries of “Pull the cord, you son of a bitch.” At the last moment his parachute opened and he floated to the ground unaware of the commotion he had caused. The jumpmaster rushed to greet Davis, asking, “Are you all right, sir? We all thought you’d bought it, as you hadn’t pulled by a thousand.” Unharmed Davis answered, “Oh no, that was perfectly alright, we Royal Marines never pull above a thousand feet!`
In retirement Davis pursued a career selling financial services.
He was a vice chairman of the Association of Jewish Ex Servicemen 1982-85, an active supporter of the Bournemouth Reform Synagogue, and a chairman of the Royal Marines Association.
Davis’s career was characterised by his dedication, a strong sense of duty, unflinching loyalty, the common touch, and his energetic pursuit of a specialism which had its critics and dissenters, especially during the early days of its development.
It is debateable whether his nickname derived from his initials, his short, stocky built, his prowess at boxing, or his pugnacious athletic skills and powers of leadership: whichever, it entirely suited him.
Davis who died on August 18, 2011, married Janet Rowson who survives him with their two sons.