MNG Maritime

Colonel Mark Gray MBE RM
Born	Weymouth, Dorset
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Marines
Years of service	1984 – 2013
Rank	Colonel Royal Marines
Unit	40 Commando
Commands held	Zulu Company, 45 Commando Royal Marines FPGRM Royal Navy Counter-Piracy Task Group 2010
Battles/wars	Operation Haven (Northern Iraq) Operation Banner (Northern Ireland) UNPROFOR (Former Yugoslavia) Operation Tellar (Nicaragua) Operation Highbrow (Beirut) Operation Telic (Iraq) Operation Capri (Somalia) Operation Herrick (Afghanistan)
Awards	MBE Order of Duke Domagoj (Croatia)

Mark Nicholas Gray MBE is a former colonel in the British Royal Marines, as of 2014^[update] running a floating armoury company in the ocean area subject to piracy based in Somalia and nearby countries.

As a UN observer he prevented a disaster at the Peruća hydroelectric dam in 1993 during the Croatian War of Independence. The Serbian military raised the level of the lake and placed 30 tons of explosives within the dam in their preparations for withdrawal; detonating the explosives was intended to destroy the dam, which would have released a huge surge of water which would have killed or made homeless 20,000 people. Gray, on his own initiative and exceeding his authority, opened the spillway gate and reduced the level of water in the lake by several metres; when the explosives were detonated the dam did not fail.

Gray was educated at Bradfield College and Durham University, where he studied Russian. He joined the Royal Marines in 1984 and has seen service in Northern Ireland (Operation Banner), Northern Iraq (Operation Provide Comfort 1991), before being deployed to the former Yugoslavia through UNPROFOR.

In 1992 Gray, with the rank of major, opened a sluice gate on top of the Peruća dam in Croatia shortly before the occupying Serbs detonated explosives, protected by land mines and booby traps, deep inside it. This action did not become known publicly until described to the Science Festival in 1995 by engineering Professor Paul Back from Oxford University. He described how Serbian militia had expelled UN observers from the 65-metre-high dam in January 1993, and set off huge explosives in a maintenance gallery that ran the dam's length at foundation level. "This was an attempt to use the 540 million cubic metres of stored water as a weapon of mass destruction to the downstream land and population, " said Professor Back. "Some 20,000 people would have been drowned or rendered homeless had the dam failed as intended. " Severe damage was caused to three points in the dam corresponding to where the saboteurs had placed their explosives. In the central section alone it was estimated that 15 tons of explosive material had been used. At each of these three points the top of the dam, made of rock fill with a clay core, sagged by two metres, said Professor Back, who was a member of a British team despatched by the Overseas Development Administration to inspect it and advise on repairs after the Croatians reoccupied it. "During the tenure of the UN observers, but while the dam was in Serb hands, Gray had visited the site and observed that the Serbs were holding the water level well above the correct full supply level, " he said. "On his own initiative, and exceeding his authority, he opened the surface spillway gate sufficiently to slowly reduce the water level. He managed to lower the water level by some metres by the time the attempt to destroy the dam took place. Had he not been able to reduce the level, there is no doubt that the dam would have failed as water would have poured over the slumped crest after the explosions." As it was, Professor Back said it was only a miracle that the dam had not failed. With fighting continuing in the surrounding hills, engineers had to race against time before the ongoing erosion of the dam's clay core caused a blow-through and total collapse. Professor Back said he learned later that Major Gray could have been disciplined for exceeding his authority. "I wrote to the Ministry of Defence and told him he should be given a medal instead." Items of Gray’s UN equipment are on display at the Royal Marines Museum.

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