Lieutenant-Colonel Alf Gosling
Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

He expresses himself quite well in his own particular style. He has plenty of common sense and is practical. He has not got a very active brain and is not able to grasp essentials easily. He would react well to severe physical and metal pressure and would not get easily rattled. His good humour and solidness would be an asset in a crisis.

(Report on Maj. Gostling, 11 Apr 1940)

Born on 18 August 1903 in Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, England, Alfred Capel Gostling was a radiotrician and captain in the Winnipeg Grenadiers, having been commissioned in the militia since 1925. He went overseas as major in the 2nd Infantry Brigade in December 1939 and served as assistant adjutant and quartermaster for the 1st Canadian Division. In February 1942, he transferred to the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, succeeding Lieutenant-Colonel Gil Dudley.

“I didn’t mind too much,” Major Norman Ross recalled, “but it sat a little harshly on a couple of our senior officers … who resented a Grenadier coming in to command the Camerons.” Major Andy Law in particular disagreed with the appointment of an outsider and never developed a good working relationship with the new commanding officer.

While attending the war staff college at Camberley, England in 1940, the commandant had remarked: “Major Gostling deserves credit for the way in which, starting from some way behind scratch, he has by dint of hard work and application, qualified as a staff officer. Although apt to be slow and with no marked ability he will make a useful subordinate staff officer and probably a good solid commander as well.”

Despite being described has possessing “a very slow brain” with “a great handicap owing to his lack of military knowledge,” Gostling proved himself a reliable officer through “sheer hard work.” The appointment of a Grenadier to take over Camerons, however, caused tension in the senior ranks. “It wasn’t a happy time,” company commander Major Ross observed. “Gostling, again, and I’m not being mean or anything, but in hindsight was not the best of commanding officers. He may have been a brilliant staff officer, but he did not know how to command men.”

Gostling had taken over the Camerons as they began amphibious training for the fateful Dieppe Raid. As soon as the colonel stepped off his landing craft 19 August 1942, a burst of machine gun fire riddled his body. Gostling fell dead just a day after his thirty-ninth birthday. The chaplain for the 2nd Division commented, “he was an intensely capable man and would have risen high in his military career.”

Major Law, who had been one of the officers to resent the appointment of a Grenadier to command, immediately took over during deadly fighting for the next several hours. By the end of the raid, he evacuated with half of the battalion’s strength. On return to England, Lieutenant-Colonel D.G. Cunningham assumed command of the depleted Cameron Highlanders.

His brother, Brigadier G.S.N. Gostling, later commanded the 6th Infantry Brigade, which included the Camerons. Knowing that his brother and Law had never gotten on, Brigadier Gostling eventually fired Law, after he became commanding officer of the battalion.