Robert Ashdown

Lieutenant Robert Ashdown served with the Royal Sussex Regiment in the Burma campaign. Born in Hove, he was commissioned in 1942 and deployed to India, where he trained in jungle warfare before joining the Chindit operations behind Japanese lines. Ashdown led a platoon through 200 miles of dense jungle, establishing supply drops and disrupting enemy communications. He was awarded the Military Cross for a daring raid on a Japanese supply depot near Mogaung. After the war, he returned to Brighton, where he ran a bookshop on The Lanes and became a local councillor.