The material, brought to Dave and Steve Nuwar of War and Co in Leominster by William Mundell’s son, will be offered for sale on Tuesday, May 16 for £65,000.
The medals and ephemera belonging to William Mundell will be sold alongside the Officers’ Mess sign of 22 SAS from Bradbury/Stirling Lines, which senior members of the regiment have verified was mounted outside the Officers Mess of Bradbury Lines in the 1960s and 70s. This sign was offered from a different source,
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William Lawrie Mundell was born in Ayrshire on July 1, 1931, one of three brothers who all served in the Army, with Bill first serving with the King’s Own Scottish Borderers in Korea aged 18 and narrowly avoiding death when a unexploded mortar landed in his slit trench.
Demobilised in 1952, Mundell enlisted with the SAS Regiment on 23 June 1953 in Glasgow, and was posted to Malaya, where he made his name in jungle warfare, prompting Major General Arthur George Denaro to remark during Mundell’s funeral speech that ‘those of us who came after talk in reverential terms of the jungle veterans of The Regiment, for it was they who laid the foundations of the modern day SAS’.
A fluent Malay speaker, Mundell would become an expert jungle tracker, fighter and instructor, Mentioned In Despatches for his service in Malaya.
Between 1970 and 1973, he served as Regimental Sergeant Major of 23 SAS and then saw active service again during Operation Storm in Oman. After further serving in Northern Ireland, Mundell held a number of training and quartermaster appointments, culminating in senior quartermaster of the SAS Group, retiring as Lt.-Col. in 1987 after 35 years of service. One colleague described him as ‘meek and mild and made of steel.’ The Regimental Association recorded him as the longest serving member of the SAS.
Among the medals offered for sale are Mundell’s Gallantry Medal, Military British Empire Medal, a pair of Korean medals, general service medal with Malayan clasp with Mentioned in Despatches oak leaf (recognitiion of outstanding acts), and the Malayan Pingat Jas, a medal issued retrospectively.
“We are thrilled to be offering this collection,” says Steve Nuwar. “We have talked to William Mundell’s son at length and he didn’t want to commit them to auction, feeling that they would not be taken care of in the same way that we do.”
The sale goes live on the website at warandson.co.uk on Tuesday, May 19.