Bill Jenkins

Captain William Glyn Jenkins (28 March 1925 – 24 October 2002) was a Royal Marines officer and academic. He was the youngest Royal Marine to win the Distinguished Service Order in the Second World War, and later became senior lecturer in international affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Early life Jenkins was born at Morpeth in Northumberland. He was educated at Blundell's School in Tiverton, where he won a bursary, and, in October 1942, he gained a Macbride Open Scholarship to Hertford College, Oxford, to read geography. Jenkins cut short his studies after a year and applied to join the Royal Navy; but he failed his medical because of slight colour-blindness and joined the Royal Marines in August 1943. After passing through Officer Cadet Training Unit, he was commissioned early in 1944 and posted to the Commando Basic Training Centre at Achnacarry, north of Fort William in the Highlands. Second World War After gaining his green beret, Jenkins was posted to Vis, off the Dalmatian coast, the only Yugoslav island in Allied hands. No. 43 (Royal Marine) Commando were supporting Tito's partisans and, as a subaltern with "E" Troop, he took part in a number of raids on the German garrisons of the other islands.