Lieutenant-Colonel D.N. Nicol
1st Battalion, Tyneside Scottish
7th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

The most seductive and productive vehicle may have been Donald Nicol’s coupé SS Swallow—a precursor of the Jaguar—in which the other things or object of our madness could recline with pleasure. The girls round Colchester were a lively lot.

(David Harry Walker, Lean, Wind Lean, 46)

Born on 5 February 1911, Donald Ninian Nicol was the third in his family of his name. His father (1877—1915) had died of illness while serving with the Scots Guards during the First World War and his grandfather (1843—1903) was a member of parliament for Argyllshire. After attending Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Nicol was commissioned into the Black Watch in 1931 alongside Scottish-born Canadian novelist David Harry Walker, who in his memoir recalled the diversions enjoyed by young subaltern officers while stationed in Colchester.

When the pair joined the 2nd Battalion, Black Watch, Walker wrote:

Meeanee Barracks in Colchester were old and grey and dismal. But the people who accepted Donald Nicol and me into their company were anything but that; a more entertaining, competent lot of young men could not be found. Our seniors, although they drank much more habitually and behaved much less wildly, were not very different. On parade was on parade. Off parade everyone except the Colonel was, with reservations, equal. I believe that in some regiments newly-joined subalterns were treated with disdain for the good of their stripling souls but in The Black Watch it was blessedly otherwise.

By September 1939, Nicol was battalion adjutant. He was promoted to temporary major in May 1940. During the early phase of the war, he held a staff position in West Africa before being assigned to 1st Battalion, Tyneside Scottish. During the Normandy campaign, he served as second-in-command and succeeded Lieutenant-Colonel R.W.M. De Winton when the commanding officer was wounded in July 1944.

The next month, the battalion’s formation, the 70th Infantry Brigade in the 49th Division, was disbanded. The regimental history described the reaction to Nicol’s announcement: “This sudden and unexpected bombshell was a terrible shock to all the disappointment was so bitter that after the fine record the Bn had achieved during the hard days, now that the first round of the campaign had been won, it was not allowed to share in the fruits of victory.”

Nicol quickly assumed a new command in the 51st Division when he took over the 7th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders from a wounded Lieutenant-Colonel John Meiklejohn in August. He served until October when he was replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel Angus MacKinnon.

After the war in Europe ended, Nicol was attached to Ceylon Army Command until 1946. He retired from the army two years later.

He died in Ardmarnoch, Argyll in January 1977.