page_title: Robert Clark (businessman)
section_title: Navy career
hierarchical_section_title: Robert Clark (businessman) / Navy career
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Альфредо СфорциниEnglish: Alfredo Sforzini
context_page_description: Sir Robert Anthony "Bob" Clark DSC was a British naval officer and businessman. Clark attended King's College, Cambridge before leaving at the age of 18 to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War. Discovered to be colour blind he was relegated to non-seagoing posts, a prospect he found unappealing. He volunteered for service with the Special Operations Executive and saw active service in Italy, first on amphibious missions and later as a liaison officer with partisans in the Piedmont Mountains. Clark was captured by the Germans, and was later awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his gallantry.
  A chance meeting after the war led to a position at the law firm of Slaughter & May, where he was soon made a partner. He switched career to become a merchant banker with Hill Samuel, where he developed an expertise in company mergers and acquisitions. Clark acted as chairman or director for numerous firms and sat on many governments bodies and committees. Clark met Robert Maxwell in 1969 when Maxwell attempted to outbid Rupert Murdoch for the News of the World, starting a lifelong acquaintance.
context_section_description: Clark left Cambridge at the age of 18 to join the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as an officer. During initial training at HMS Collingwood, near Portsmouth, Clark discovered that he was colour blind and only passed the medical examination by persuading the man sitting behind him to whisper the answers to him. Clark served aboard HMS Fleetwood on convoy escort operations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean before attending HMS King Alfred at Hove. Whilst there his colour blindness was discovered and he was banned from seagoing postings.
  Frustrated at not being able to fight the enemy directly, Clark volunteered for service with the Special Operations Executive (SOE), an irregular warfare unit, in June 1943, having claimed to have had experience working with small boats. He undertook commando training at Arisaig in the Scottish Highlands and further SOE training at Helford in Cornwall. After completing his training, Clark was dispatched to Algeria in September 1943 and thence to Monopoli in south-east Italy in December. He was attached to the SOE's No 1 Special Force and undertook amphibious sabotage, reconnaissance operations and running of agents into enemy-held beaches by canoe. His wireless operator for these missions was Marjorie Lewis, his future wife, who had joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY; often used as a cover for women who joined SOE) in 1943. On 1 March 1944 Clark, who had previously only held the acting rank of sub-lieutenant, was confirmed in a substantive (though temporary) rank.
  Clark volunteered for parachute training with SOE and was subsequently allocated to Operation Clarion, the designation for British assistance provided to anti-German partisans in northern Italy. He parachuted into the Piedmont Mountains, south of Turin, in November 1944 with a radio operator, Petty Officer Edward Cauvain, to act as liaison officer to the partisans there. When Clark made his parachute jump he had Falla, his childhood teddy bear, inside his battledress for comfort and good luck. Despite this, he landed 50 miles (80 km) off course and into a tree, breaking two ribs. Clark was rescued by a local partisan, Sergio Curetti of the 3rd Division of Italian partisans.
  Clark set about arming the resistance and training them in methods of warfare. He had been instructed to avoid arming the communists where possible, his superiors fearing for their actions after the war, but finding the communists to be the most organised and well-motivated group in his area proceeded to arm them anyway. He arranged an air drop of arms and explosives, and led the partisans on several railway sabotage expeditions. Clark later recalled that "blowing up railway engines was very great fun". For his work with the partisans he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the third-highest award for gallantry in the Royal Navy. Clark was betrayed and captured by a German patrol in December 1944 whilst trying to hide in a haystack with four partisans.
  Clark managed to avoid summary execution at the hands of the Germans and was held in several Italian prisons where he was interrogated frequently. He was later transferred to the Marlag und Milag Nord prisoner of war camp near Bremen. Marjorie Lewis did not know that Clark was still alive until he sent her an uncoded message, strictly against standing SOE orders, reading "Bob sends love to Marjorie". After the camp was liberated Clark returned to London, sending ahead a telegram to Marjorie, stating: "Arriving London from Germany. Meet me". They met and the two shook hands; they were later married in 1949.  Clark's teddy bear Falla, which he had had since the age of two, had accompanied him throughout his time as a prisoner and is thought to be the only teddy bear to have parachuted behind enemy lines and survived as a prisoner of war.  Clark served in the Pacific Theatre and was promoted to lieutenant on 1 March 1946 before he was demobilised later that year.
caption: Italian partisans of the Second World War
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