Combined Military Services Museum
The Combined Military Services Museum in Maldon, Essex, was opened on 5 July 2004. It was set up by Richard Wooldridge to house a personal collection he had created over many years. A charity was set up in 1996 to facilitate funding of a museum building. A suitable property was found in 2001, a former bonded warehouse in Maldon. This underwent considerable modification to suit its new purpose. In the period of setting up the museum, the initial collection was expanded by donations and acquisitions. In 2007, a National Lottery grant was given to extend the museum to house the MoD Donnington Historic Weapons Collection. These works were completed in November 2008.
Amongst the items in the museum is a Cockle Mark II canoe from the Cockleshell heroes raid - Operation Frankton. Also a large collection of Special Operations Executive equipment and the Donnington Historic Weapons Collection. The Donnington collection also holds a replica of the Victoria Cross metal; a piece of bronze from a captured cannon from which all Victoria Crosses have been made. The original metal is still closely guarded within MOD Donnington. Amongst the rarest items in the museum are the Riggal Papers; these are the training records of Captain P M Riggal, an instructor in the Special Operations Executive, found 50 years after the end of World War II.
On 7th September 2016 nearly 100 artifacts from the museums SOE and Mason collection were shipped to the Musee de l'Armee in Paris for an exhibition they are holding titled 'Guerres Secretes', 'Secret Wars'.
The exhibition starts on October 12th and runs until the end of January 2017.
Unfortunately, for some visitors, one of the items shipped was the Cockle Mark II canoe.
Musee de l'armee - Secret Wars
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Coordinates: 51°44′06″N 0°41′00″E / 51.7349°N 0.6832°E