Lieutenant-Colonel W.A. Stevenson
1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

During the whole of these operations the personal example of cheerfulness of the C.O. and his obvious control of every situation was mainly responsible in keeping the battalion steady and intact. A remark made by one of the men illustrates this. When the C.O. seized a bren gun to cover the withdrawal of “S” Coy HQ a soldier was heard to say “There goes the mobile reserve: now we are all right.”

(D.S.O. citation, 31 Aug 1944)

Born in Guildford, Surrey on 7 September 1912, William Alexander Stevenson was the son of Major-General Alexander Gavin Stevenson, (1871—1939), a veteran of the Egyptian Army, the Boer War and First World War. The oldest son, W.A. Stevenson, belonged to the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and was stationed in India at the outbreak of the Second World War. His younger brother, Wing Commander Michael Gavin Stevenson died on active service in Egypt on 29 November 1942.

W.A. Stevenson meanwhile had entered the infantry. He succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel J.D.C. Anderson of the 1st Gordon Highlanders due to the latter’s sickness at the end of May 1944, just two weeks before the invasion of France. The Gordons with the rest of the 51st Division landed shortly after D-Day. During the intense fighting over the next few weeks, Stevenson earned a D.S.O. for “inspiring leadership” under withering artillery and mortar fire in an engagement from 15 to 20 June.

A month later, at the failed 11 July raid on Colombelles, he was wounded by a shell splinter and replaced by Major Harry Cumming-Bruce. Two days later, Major Martin Lindsay arrived to become the new second-in-command of the Gordons. He recorded a conversation with Cumming-Bruce about the difficult condition of the unit following the recent fighting:

He gave me the low-down on the Battalion. They have lost twelve officers, including the C.O. and three company commanders, and 200 men in the thirty-five days since the start of the campaign, without achieving very much. Two days ago they were ordered to take the Colombelles factory area, but it was much stronger than anybody anticipated and the attack failed miserably. He is rather worried about the morale of the Battalion. he continual ‘ shelling has made a number of men “bomb-happy.” (“Bombhappy,” meaning shell-shocked or nervous, is a phrase much in use out here …)

(Lindsay, So Few Got Through, 13)

Stevenson later served as GSO I for the 15th Scottish Division from April 1945 until demobilization. He would return to the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders as commanding officer and completed a tour of duty in South Korea in 1956. He rose to brigadier in the postwar British Army. When his wife, Marjory Charlotte Stirling inherited the barony of Gairloch in 1958 and adopted the family name Mackenzie, Stevenson and their children took the surname as well.

He died on 1 September 1982.