Lieutenant-Colonel D.A.D. Eykyn
11th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers

Lt-Col. Eykyn has shown outstanding leadership and enthusiasm as a commanding officer. It has been largely due to his leadership that his bn has been uniformly successful in their actions against the enemy; in fact he has never suffered a reverse.

(D.S.O. citation, 10 Feb 1945)

Born in British India on 11 August 1906, Duncan Arthur Davidson Eykyn was an officer in the Royal Scots since 1926. His father, Captain Gilbert Davidson Pitt Eykyn (1881—1915) had been commissioned a second lieutenant in 1899, served in the Boer War, and after a time with the Indian Army, joined the Royal Scots (Lothian Regiment) in 1905. He was killed in action at Second Ypres on 24 April 1915, while attached to the 4th Battalion, Alexandra Princess of Wales Own Yorkshire Regiment. A staff sergeant remarked, “Our gallant little adjutant was one of the first to fall. When the order was given to charge, the Germans ran away like cowards, and refused to face our boys’ cold steel.” The younger Eykyn followed his late father’s military career in the Royal Scots. He served as battalion adjutant and rose to captain by 1937.

During the Normandy campaign, Eykyn served as second-in-command of 8th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers (part of 44th Brigade, 15th Division). Just weeks after landing, when Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Willliam Henry James Montgomery-Cunninghame of 11th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers (147th Brigade, 49th Division) was killed on 3 July 1944, Eykyn was appointed his successor. The next month, that division as part of British I Corps became part of First Canadian Army. By February 1945, Eykyn earned the D.S.O. for his effective command of the battalion over the battles in the previous months:

Whenever the bn has been in a difficult posn against the enemy, Lt-Col Eykyn has been found with his fwd tps encouraging them and conducting the battle regardless of enemy fire … Throughout this most difficult period and in spite of appalling weather conditions the bn has been in excellent spirits and on the offensive. very largely due to Lt-Col Eykyn’s encouragement and personal attention to detail. There is no doubt that the spirit and high morale of the bn is set by Lt-Col Eykyn and he inspires his men successfully to fight the enemy.

He led the 11th Scots Fusiliers until the end of the war in Europe and relinquished command in November 1945. He retired from the army in 1958 but long remained active in regimental activities with the Royal Scots. He died on 17 March 1986.

His appears briefly as a character in the 2023 Indian film Sam Bahadur about Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji the first field marshal in the Indian Army. During the early 1930s, Eykyn and Manekshaw would have served together in the Royal Scots while stationed in Lahore.