Mike Marshall

Robert "Mike" Marshall (18 May 1917 – 12 May 1945) was a Royal Navy officer and England international rugby union player of the 1930s.

Born in Pontefract, Yorkshire, Marshall was educated at Giggleswick School, before moving with his family to Scarborough in his late teens. He attended Oriel College, Oxford, where he gained two blues, participating in the 1936 and 1937 Varsity Matches for Oxford University. A forward, Marshall also played for Harlequins and was capped five times for England, scoring a try on debut against Ireland at Lansdowne Road, outpacing the Irish fullback in a dash for the try-line.

Marshall served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in World War II, undertaking numerous missions on a motor gunboat. He reached the rank of Lieutenant commander and in 1944 was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for ramming and sinking an E-boat off East Anglia, with a bar added the following year. His death occurred four days after the Germans surrendered, while commanding a motor gunboat en route to Gothenburg, where the Merchant Navy Officers he was carrying were to negotiate the return of three British merchant vessels. The boat sunk when it struck a mine.