Author: Matthew K Barrett

Maj. Kański & Lt-Col. Dowbor

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Major Jan Kański
&
Lieutenant-Colonel Romuald Dowbor
24th Polish Uhlan Regiment

Born on 10 November 1898 in Ternopilska, Ukraine, Jan Witold Kański took command of the 24th Polish Uhlan Regiment in November 1942. During the Battle of Falaise, he was badly wounded by artillery fire and died shortly thereafter on 27 August 1944. Within days he was succeeded by Major Romuald Jerzy Dowbor who was born on 11 February 1905 and joined the Polish Army at an early age. He had been taken prisoner by the Soviets in September 1939 but escaped and eventually reached France via Hungary and the Balkans. He then joined the reconstituted 24th Polish Uhlan Regiment in 1940 and became a squadron commander with the 10th Mountain Rifle Regiment after the evacuation to the United Kingdom

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Lt-Col. H.A.C. Blair-Imrie

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Lieutenant-Colonel Hew Blair-Imrie
5th/7th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

… while a bevy of padres of various denominations descended on me and started being sympathetic. Actually what I wanted at that moment was not sympathy (although I quite like the wounded hero role!) but a stimulant … well I got my stimulant in the form of hot sweet tea!’

(Blair-Imrie to wife quoted in Jon Latimer, Alamein, 198)

Born on 24 July 1915 in Brecknock, Breconshire, Wales, Hew Angus Christopher Blair-Imrie was an officer in the 5th Black Watch, which his father had commanded during the First World War. The younger Blair-Imrie served as a company commander during the Second Battle of El Alamein where he was wounded and earned the Military Cross.

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Lt-Col. M.A. Lindsay

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Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Lindsay
9th Parachute Battalion
1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

I rise with trepidation and ask for the traditional indulgence of the House. In the course of the last 18 months I have had the honour of commanding an infantry battalion in sixteen operations, and anyone who has had that experience will be familiar with the agonies of apprehension before and after zero hour, but, Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that, for sheer misery, there is nothing to touch the suspense of waiting to catch your eye for the first time.

(Martin Lindsay, Hansard, 7 Nov 1945)

Born on 22 August 1905 in London, Martin Alexander Lindsay was a Scottish noble and explorer. After adventures to West Africa, the Congo, and the far North, he led the British Trans-Greenland Expedition in 1934. After attending Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1925, he had been commissioned in Royal Scots Fusiliers but retired from the army in 1936 when named Conservative Party candidate for the riding of Brigg. The outbreak of the Second World War paused his political career, and he rejoined the army. Given his arctic experience, he served as a staff officer during the Norwegian campaign in April 1940.

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Lt-Col. J.A. Grant-Peterkin

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Lieutenant-Colonel J.A. Grant-Peterkin
15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment
1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

Grant-Peterkin is a tremendous success as C.O. He has personality, brains and charm, but above all, drive and enthusiasm. He is a tall, well-built man with sharp features and very blue eyes, clean-shaven, and fair hair brushed nearly straight back.

(Martin Lindsay, So Few Got Through, 148)

Born on 15 September 1909 in Kinloss, Moray, Scotland, James Alexander Grant-Peterkin was a cricket player and commissioned officer in the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders since 1929. He served as brigade major with 4th Infantry Brigade with the British Expeditionary Force in 1940 and was then posted as an instructor to the staff school at Camberley. He was appointed to command 15th Scottish Reconnaissance Regiment in February 1943.

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Lt-Col. H.C.H.T. Cumming-Bruce

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Lieutenant-Colonel Harry Cumming-Bruce 
1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders

He seems a charming chap; perhaps a slightly unorthodox military figure with his rather old-fashioned curly moustache, white framed horn-rimmed spectacles and slight stoop … I hope to God he knows his job.

(Martin Lindsay, So Few Got Through, 12)

Born on 29 May 1910 in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, Henry Charles Hovell-Thurlow-Cumming-Bruce was the heir to Baron Thurlow. He attended Eton College and Royal Military College, Sandhurst before taking a commission with the Seaforth Highlanders in 1930. In the mid 30s, he served as aide-de-camp to the British High Commissioner for Palestine and Transjordan and held posts in the Middle East during the early phase of the Second World War.

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Lt-Col. W.A. Stevenson

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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.

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Maj. H.W. Cairns

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Major Hugh Cairns
5th Battalion, Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders

Members of the Battalion at this time will remember Colonel Cairns sitting out under an apple tree in an orchard in Battalion H.Q.’s area behind the “‘Triangle,’ quite impervious to the sniping self-propelled gun, which dropped many shells into this area at unpredictable moments, with generally unpleasant results: his gallantry and example at Ste Honorine will not easily be forgotten.

(Historical Records of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders 1932-1948, 103)

Born on 27 Jan 1911 Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland, Hugh William Cairns was a grandson of Lord Chancellor Hugh Cairns, 1st Earl Cairns (1819—1885). Cairns was commissioned in the Cameron the Highlanders and served in India before the outbreak of the Second World War. He joined the 5th Battalion in May 1944 and led C Company on landing in France a month later.

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Lt-Col. M.A.H. Butler

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Lieutenant-Colonel Mervyn Butler
2nd Battalion, Essex Regiment
1st Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment

He never hesitated to go where he felt his duty called him and when he flew in some danger in a helicopter to make contact with the local authorities with whom he hoped he might organise a cease fire, but without avail … His Brigade has been completely cheerful and supremely confident and splendidly trained and his own inspiring efforts have shown him to be a leader second to none and in action upholding the very highest tradition of the British Army.”

(D.S.O. Bar, citation, 13 Jun 1957)

Born in Toronto, Ontario on 1 July 1913, Mervyn Andrew Haldane Butler was commissioned in the Prince of Wales’s Volunteers (South Lancashire Regiment) in 1933 after attending Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He served with the 1st Battalion during the Battle of France in 1940 and earned the Military Cross. Under heavy machine gun and mortar fire, he gathered as many soldiers as he could to drive the enemy out of their position. His name appeared in the newspapers again later that year when a British Army major sued his wife for divorce on the grounds of adultery with Butler, who later married the divorcee, Marjorie Millicent Dann, in 1941.

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Lt-Col. B.C. Bradford

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Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Bradford
5th Battalion, The Black Watch

Owing to severe casualties in past fighting the bn under Lt Col Bradford’s comd has los most of its key personnel and a great deal of extra work descended on him. The fact that his bn carried out its tasks so brilliantly is entirely due to the able leadership and energy of Lt Col Bradford who was at all times an inspiration and example to his officers and men.

(D.S.O. citation, 2 Sep 1944)

Born on 15 October 1912 in London, Berenger Colborne Bradford was educated at Eton College and the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. He was commissioned with the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment) in 1932, later serving in India and the Sudan. As a captain and adjutant with the 1st Battalion, he was taken prisoner along with the rest of the 51st Division when surrounded by German forces at St Valéry on 12 June 1940. He slipped away from the prisoner-of-war march a week later.

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Lt-Col. C.N. Thomson

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Lieutenant-Colonel Chick Thomson
5th Battalion, The Black Watch

Thomson was in a dreadful state. He came back the following day and I had to get the doctor and the padre to keep him for a few hours. And there he was a D.S.O., he got two or three D.S.O.s altogether; it was too much. It wasn’t their fault. They had been fighting in the desert. They’d been sitting around north London or wherever it was they sat without being properly trained, and they were thrown into this bocage country with Germans popping out. 

(Lt-Col. Terence Otway, interview, 1989)

Born on 17 January 1907 in Monifieth, Angus, Scotland, Charles Newbigging Thomson was a Territorial Army officer with the 4/5th Battalion, Black Watch. He became captain in 1932 and served during the Battle of France in 1940. When the 5th Black Watch embarked for Egypt in June 1942, Thomson served as second-in-command under Lieutenant-Colonel T.G. Rennie. Wounded during the Battle of El Alamein, Thomson returned to the unit in December 1942, succeeding Rennie who had been promoted to 154th Infantry Brigade.

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