Brigadier Robert Llewellyn Jephson Jones GC was awarded the George Cross along with Lieutenant (later Brigadier) William Marsden Eastman RAOC (also George Cross), for incredible courage, dealing with some 275 unexploded bombs in total. By the end of November 1940 the newly formed Bomb Disposal Units of the Royal Engineers took over the responsibility from the RAOC.
Notice of their joint award appeared in the London Gazette on Christmas Eve, 1940. [1]
"Colonel RL Jephson-Jones, RAOC and Major WM Eastman, RAOC, are awarded the George Cross for a joint achievement (bomb disposal) in Malta during the enemy's concentrated air attacks on the fortress in June to November 1940. On various dates, Captain Jephson-Jones and Lieutenant Eastman, worked under dangerous and trying conditions and performed acts of considerable gallantry in dealing with a large number of variously unexploded bombs, some of which were in a very highly dangerous state and of the German delayed action type."
The son of a clergyman, he was born on April the 7th, 1905 and began his officer training at Sandhurst in 1923. He was commissioned into the Duke of Wellington's Regiment in 1925, served as Adjutant of the 6th Nigerian Regiment in 1932-4 and joined the RAOC in 1936. He died, in Ferndown in Dorset, on the 27th of October 1985.